Which JR Pass to use? so confused

Hi Guys, Im so confused with the JR pass, can anyone help me to decide which is best to buy for my itinerary? PLEASE

21 Days

Tokyo Airport Mon March 9 6:45 pm

Nagano (March 9-12)


Shirakawa-go (March 12-13)

Kyoto (3 days) (March 13-16)

Mt Koya (March 16-17)
-Nara

Osaka ( March 17-18)

Hiroshima (March 19-20)

Yakushima (March 20-22)

Beppu (March 22-23)

Tokyo (March 23 – 30)

Once you somewhat finalize your itinerary, it comes down to finding out the train fare for transportation for individual segments (for example, train for Tokyo - Nagano, Nagano - Tokyo - Nagoya then bus to Takayama/Shirakawa-go, etc.)and comparing the total with the JR Pass price, so I recommend reviewing your itinerary first :) I noticed your other post on itinerary...

http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+6...

I would plan your trip to use a 14 day pass for the first two weeks getting you away from and back to Tokyo. The way you have it planned now, you would be short one day (15 days to get back to Tokyo) and would have to adjust for that. You could then use other transport options around Tokyo and back to the airport. You could rest up 1 day in Narita instead of immediately heading to Nagano which would make day 14 arriving back in Tokyo. The pass is good for 14 full days, including the day it's activated. If you first use it at 9 PM, day 1 only goes to midnight. By heading to Kyushu and back you would get your money's worth.

..
- work out the places you don't want to miss at any cost;
- use the net or go to a library and get a basic map of where the main train lines run. I have an old Thomas Cook worldwide rail timetable (about £10 new I think) and it gives all the main routes, as well as frequency of trains, and travel times. Sure, things will have changed since the book came out, but it's very useful so you can see which towns link easily with which others. This is quite important when you come to choosing what order to go to places in. In my experience, using it over 5 or 6 years on trips to Japan, the shinkansen timings are pretty much spot on, even using my old book. And you will use hyperdia to check actual up to date times anyway.
- get yourself familiar with hyperdia (which will give you train times, routes, and costs)

With all this info, you can work out whether it's worthwhile getting a pass (it almost always is, although on our last 2-week trip where we travelled into several regions and covered a lot of miles, it was pretty price-neutral as to whether to get a pass. iirc, we got a 2 week pass even thought it cost a few hundred yen more than individual tickets, just for the convenience and the ability to make free reservations).

Good luck