Kitao was impressed by Styczyńska's ability and invited her to come to Japan for a two-week trip to study shogi in 2011.

After arriving in Tokyo, Styczyńska was given a test at the headquarters of the Japan Shogi Association and awarded the rank of amateur 4-dan.

[23][24] Following a win against Minami Sadamasu in a preliminary game of the 44th Women’s Meijin tournament [ja] in Tokyo she was promoted to 2-kyū on February 20, 2017, thus becoming the first non-Japanese to be awarded full professional status.

[28] Styczyńska tweeted later that same day that she "will be taking a break and coming back abroad" and would be "leaving at the end of this month", but gave no further details;[29] Chunichi News, however, tweeted something as well that the reason Styczyńska's decided to take official leave was due to concerns about not being able to return home to see her family due to COVID-19 making international travel difficult.

[31] In a blog post published on the same day, Fortin stated she had decided to remain in Europe for family reasons and thus would not be returning to Japan to continue her career as a women's professional shogi player.

Styczyńska was one of three opponents chosen to play exhibition games against 62nd NHK Cup champion Akira Watanabe on NHK-E's 2014 New Year's Shogi Special.

[36] She also served as assistant commentator for Dwango's Niconico English web broadcast of Game 2 of the 2nd Eiō Championship [ja] in December 2016.

[38][39] In April 2018, Otsuka Pharmaceutical announced that they had agreed to sponsor Styczyńska and use her in a promotional campaign for the company's CalorieMate products.

Part of the campaign included a web anime about Styczyńska's experience in becoming a professional shogi player titled Go, Karolina (Japanese: すすめ, カロリーナ, Hepburn: Susume, Karolīna) which was directed by Mateusz Urbanowicz and produced by Studio Colorido.