Hmm perhaps I phrased wrong again - my bad. Think it's my own preferences.
Well like randomjak said - only 9 people were in the course; don't know if that's in the beginning or not but seems pretty low.
They also do some/a lot of Classical Japanese and I think some of their modules are pretty boring.
Also, it's one of the Oxbridge, I swear you don't spend all your year abroad. Cambridge says most of your third year. I think it's more Oxford.
Of course the teaching there would be of a pretty high standard, and if you go there you will learn a lot, same as Sheffield and SOAS etc, and I think they win a lot of speaking competition (as do SOAS) but I don't think it'd be as practical as Sheffield for example.
Still believe SOAS and Sheffield are the best, but this is indeed my biased opinion. So actually thanks for pointing that out as otherwise I may have discredited a perfectly good course. Or maybe it really ain't that great, who knows eh?
edit: Yer looked at Oxford. In the table for Japanese, under "1st and 2nd year" it says: "Period of study abroad (term 3)". Definitley don't like the fact you don't spend a year there - or near enough.