Travelling Takayama Hokuriku area by train

Hi, my wife and I will be starting our 11 day trip in mid December starting from Nagoya and travelling to the following cities, Takayama, Toyama, Kanazawa, Kyoto and ending at Osaka. We intend to travel by using JR train throughout and from Toyama to Kanazawa by Shinkansen.

We did a fare calculation and the 5 day Takayama Hokuriku JR rail pass is not cost effective given that we are staying around two days at each city.

We were thinking whether to buy the JR train ticket for each city or better to get the IC card like the manaca card. I have tried searching to see if the manaca card can be use for travel on the JR train for the above cities but cannot find the answer. Hope someone can help. Thank you.