Casually attending lectures in Japanese universities: Can it really not be done?
TLDR: Will I really be stopped if I try to casually attend lectures in a Japanese public uni without being enrolled? What damage would I be causing?
Hi. I'm an Italian history student researching the Azuchi-Momoyama period, I am currently working on a thesis regarding a figure from this time and thanks to a Working Holiday Visa I got the chance to move to Japan, where I plan to also work on my thesis. With that said, I was considering the idea of using some of my free time to attend some university lessons here in Kyoto regarding Japanese history and more precisely the time I study, since I expect them to be more in depth than what I did in Italy (we don't study Japanese history in school so the university course starts from zero). But from what I could look up online even public universities technically don't allow people who hasn't enrolled in to follow their lessons by just walking in and attending them. Is it really that strict? If I show up just for the sake of knowledge and don't bother anyone, are they gonna check me for an ID and kick me out?
I want to understand how it works because in Italy you can absolutely do this with public universities like Sapienza. In fact I went there to follow multiple courses by myself because the university I'm enrolled with didn't had them and I wanted to learn those things. Even if some people and even the professors knew I wasn't enrolled in Sapienza, there was no problem at all and I could follow the whole course, of course without attending any test in the end. You can see a lot of old people doing it too.
So has anyone tried this or do you know people who did? Is it fine, is it heavily frowned upon, is it outright impossible or would otherwise get me in trouble? Of course I have common sense and I wouldn't disrupt any regular university student's day, considering unlike them I wouldn't be paying for it. For instance if I'd see that the class is full I wouldn't take a seat that could go to an enrolled student.
Even if from my understanding it's technically not allowed, and I'm not really supposed to be there, will anyone really care?