My Japanese Sewing Machine

So after getting very sucked into sewing things, I decided that I didn't like that all my projects were taking hours and hours to finish. I went on to Amazon.co.jp and looked at sewing machines. I found one that looked like it was okay, the reviews seemed good, hard to understand, being originally in Japanese and then Google Translated into English. It also happened to have originally cost 56500 yen and was on sale for 9100 on Amazon Prime, free next day shipping. So I got it.
This one.

It was hard to get the hang of it, first because it was a new sewing machine, two because I have only owned one sewing machine (a Christmas present from my wonderful mother-in-law), and item something else because the manual is in Japanese. In fact, the only thing not Japanese about it is the lettering on the machine itself, but that's not very helpful.

I was having an issue with the thread always breaking. The top thread was getting caught almost every other time in the bobbin area and making a mess. It  took about a day, but I finally noticed what I was doing wrong. My "Baby Lock" that I have at home automatically returns the needle to the highest point, bringing the top thread out of the bobbin area. The Japanese model I had bought doesn't have this feature. I have to manually move the needle to the highest position before I remove the cloth and cut the thread.

After I made this discovery and changed the way I was sewing, the thread breaking and getting stuck in the bobbin area went completely away. Its been happy, happy, happy. I do like the machine and its been wonderful to have while I'm away from home.