An international symposium on Andisols and related soils, comprising one day of invited lectures at the Ikuta campus of Meiji University (17 March, 2006) and a two-day field trip in the Mt Fuji-Hakone area (18–19 March), was convened by soil scientist Professor Hiroshi Takesako, School of Agriculture, Meiji University (Ikuta campus), Kawasaki city, Kanagawa prefecture (near Tokyo). The 44 symposium and field trip were followed by the 50th anniversary meeting of the Japanese Society of Pedology (JSP), which consisted of one day of presentations (20 March) in the College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University (Shonann campus), Fujisawa city, Kanagawa prefecture. The symposium was sponsored by the Institute of Science and Technology of Meiji University, and by JSP. Prof. Hiroshi Takesako, who twice has visited the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Waikato (in September, 2001 – see Lowe, 2001 – and in August-September, 2004), organized the symposium partly to expose his students to an international panel of English-speaking soil scientists with some expertise in Andisols or related volcanic-ash derived soils. Hiroshi was also keen to sponsor and support scientists from developing Asian countries (and New Zealand). Consequently, six invited speakers each presented ~40-minute lectures on the first day of the symposium. All wrote up their lectures as papers for publication in the Proceedings (edited by Hiroshi Takesako). Copies of powerpoint presentations were made available as handouts (most in colour) for the participants to help enable them to follow the talks. Around 50 geoscientists and students attended the symposium lectures.