Japanese school year

I'm currently watching the new reaction to MHA 5x18-19 and wanted to clear up some confusion you guys have about school years in Japan. I have been a long time anime fan and I noticed the differences in their school year over time. 

In Japan, the school year starts in Spring, not late Summer/early Autumn like in the States. Their school year starts in early April and ends in late March. This lines up with their fiscal year as well as the blooming of their cherry blossom trees. 

So, their first term is April - late July, with a 6 week summer vacation. Their second term runs September to late December, with a 2 week Winter break. Third term is January - late March, with a 2 week Spring break. So 10 weeks of break time in total. Which is significantly less than the 14 - 17 weeks American students get.

As an aside, their Jr and High school grades are slightly different as well. They break both up into 3, rather than our typical 2 and 4. Jr high is 7th - 9th grade (12 - 15... which is why you often have 15 year old anime characters in Jr high rather than High school.) High school is 10th - 12th. Their high school application process is also different - it's almost like applying to college here. It is extremely competitive and you can be denied on even small matters. So students typically apply to more than one. They have to go through a formal application process as well as Entrance Exams. It also seems that they are expected to know what colleges they want to apply to and their career goals fairly quickly after entering high school. Unlike here though, high school really isn't mandatory in Japan.  

As an additional aside because this came up when we saw that Ochaco has her own apartment - minors who are legal citizens actually can live alone in Japan. They just have to have written parental consent, a parental financial guarantor, and a legal adult cosigner. This is another thing I noticed in a lot of the anime I've seen... teens and even children living alone, usually in small apartments. One of the benefits of this is that kids who get into schools far away from where they live, or are in rural areas with no high school, can live on their own near whatever school that they're accepted to. And I think they tend to go home on weekends and during school breaks.