The map on Akiya Japan already lets you pan and zoom to search a rectangle of the country. But Japan is not made of rectangles. A valley you like follows a river, a neighbourhood stops at a rail line, the flat buildable land ends where the mountains start. The Draw Tool lets you trace the exact area you care about and search only inside it, no more scrolling past listings three towns over just because they fall inside the map's box.
This is a short walkthrough: where the tool is, how to draw an area, and how to clear or reuse it.
Where to Find It
Open the map view at /search/map. On the right-hand side of the map, below the button that opens the results sidebar, there is a small pencil-and-box icon. That is the Draw Tool. Hover it and you'll see the label "Draw Search Area".
The Draw Tool is a subscriber feature. If you're not subscribed, tapping it shows a short prompt rather than starting a drawing, everything else on the map stays free to use.
Drawing an Area
Click the Draw Tool once to switch it on. The cursor becomes a crosshair and the map is now in drawing mode.
- Tap to place points. Each tap on the map drops a point. Work your way around the area you want, around a town, along a coastline, around a cluster of villages. A blue line connects your points as you go.
- Close the shape. Once you've placed at least three points, a green checkmark (✓) button appears. Tap it to close the shape. You can also close it by tapping the first point again, it shows as a blue dot.
- See your results. As soon as the shape closes, the results update to show only the properties that fall inside it. Everything outside the outline drops away.
The area you draw works alongside your other filters. If you already have "Buy" and a price range set, the drawn area narrows those results further, it doesn't replace them.
Clearing or Redrawing
To remove a drawn area, tap the clear button that sits with the draw controls. Your results go back to the full map view and the outline disappears. To draw a different area, clear the current one and start again, place your new points the same way.
Your Area Stays With the Link
Once you've drawn an area, it becomes part of the page address. That has two useful effects. First, if you reload the page or come back later, the map reopens with your area still in place, you don't have to redraw it. Second, you can copy the link and it carries the shape with it, so you can bookmark a specific hand-drawn search or send it to someone and they'll see the same outline.
When It's Worth Using
The Draw Tool earns its keep when the area you want doesn't line up with a prefecture, a city boundary, or a neat box: a commuter belt around one station, the flat land on one side of a mountain range, a stretch of coast, or a handful of adjacent villages. Draw the shape once, and every search and every alert you build from it stays inside the lines you care about.
