Am I overthinking taking long leaves in a Japanese company?

Hey everyone,

I work at a very traditional Japanese company as an ML engineer. The culture here is pretty old-school — WFH is rare, and definitely not from overseas.

I need to go back home for about 3 weeks in November (mid-Nov to early Dec, already approved from manager), and then I also want to go again around Dec 25th for winter break. Both are mainly for family reasons, so they’re important trips I can’t really avoid.

I’ll use up all my paid leave, and for the rest I’ll cover it with overtime hours I’ve built up, and maybe even some unpaid leave — which I’m fine with. My only concern is how this will look in the company.

So my questions:

• Does this look too bad in a Japanese company (two long trips close together)?

• Or am I just overthinking it and should relax?

I don’t want to come off as unprofessional, but at the same time these trips matter a lot to me. Anyone else been in a similar situation in Japan? How did it go?