On September 1, 2004, Yamato Inaba, Japan's Senior Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology visited Subaru's Mauna Kea Summit Facilities. During the day he toured within the telescope enclosure as staff performed maintenance operations, and visited the primary mirror re-coating facilities on the lower level of the enclosure. At night, he watched the observations and listened eagerly to explanations about the night's astronomical observations and Subaru's scientific instruments.

Yoshiro Shimura, president of the National Institutes of Natural Science (NINS), visited Hawaii island on October 17 - 20, 2005. He talked with Subaru staff in an informal discussion session over lunch and visited Subaru's Mauna Kea Summit Facilities.

NINS is one of four umbrella organizations formed in April 2004 to foster closer ties between thirteen "inter-university research institutes" in Japan. NINS consists of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, the National Institute of Fusion Science, and the three institutes of the former Okazaki National Research Institutes, namely the National Institute for Molecular Science, the National Institute for Basic Biology and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences.