It is affiliated with Waseda University in Shinjuku, Tokyo, making it a regional branch of a Japanese private school, and is located on the city-state's western coast.

[5] The opening 10th-grade class included 50 Japanese students whose families lived in Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, and Thailand.

[7] Tetsuo Tamura [ja] (田村 哲夫 Tamura Tetsuo), who had served as the head of the Shibuya Kyouiku Gakuen, stated that he wished to establish an overseas Japanese school in Asia after learning about the sense of alienation from society many Japanese felt after returning from overseas.

Tamura established a regional branch in Asia because he believed other Japanese international schools were too oriented to Europe and the United States.

The Singaporean government leased 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) of land to the school on terms described by Toshio Iwasaki of the Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry as "very favorable".