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If you mean Osaka Itami Airport, it is best if you use a direct limousine bus to Kyoto. Buses can be reserved at the airport.

If you take the train, they are "regular" trains so no reservation is required.

You can go direct form Kyoto to Tokyo without having to go through ShinOsaka.

Trains have two types of seats, Unreserved and Reserved. Unreserved is first come first served, reserved is assigned seats. You choose what you want or not. I recommend getting a seat reserved.

As I mentioned above, the Shinkansen "bullet train" between Tokyo and Niigata has both types of seats, reserved and unreserved. They don't need to be booked, but it doesn't hurt to book a seat if you want to be assured a seat.

If you are taking a bullet train form Kyoto to Tokyo then Tokyo to Niigata * WITHIN 7 days* then getting a 7 JR Pass might not be a bad idea.

But I don't know your exact itinerary to give you exact details.

Between Kyoto and Tokyo you can only use Hikari Shinkansen (not Nozomi Shinkansen).

I holidayed in Japan last year and bought a rail pass for the JR service before I left Australia as it was cheaper for us to do that in Australia as they only sell them for tourists so they need to be purchased before you leave your Country We had a 7 day pass that only allowed us to travel on the JR trains so to travel on the subway or other trains we had to pay. The pass was expensive but so so convenient especially as we could hardly ever find someone that spoke English but some of the rail workers spoke a broken english so after much trying they normally understood what we wanted. We did book our trip from Tokyo to Kyoto and there is the train going at regular intervals if I remember rightly they where going each half hour if Im wrong they where certainly going each hour. We found ourselves at the Railway station early so went to the JR office at the station and we booked for an earlier train which was no trouble to do and we got on easy enough but unfortunately didn't get a window seat. If you don't book then it may be confusing what seat your allowed to sit in as they don't have reserve signs on them . I walked through the carriages at one time as I wanted a cigarette so walked through to a smoking carriage I saw a few vacant seats but the trains get very busy there. Osaka is about half an hour away from Kyoto The train stops at Kyoto from Tokyo then on to Osaka. I did a lot of computer work before I went to japan and printed out lot's of info in English . Always have the name of the hotel and if possible a map of where you are stying as it can get very confusing and if you have a map of the area then there is sure to be someone to help you in the right direction if you got lost. We missed a couple of buses as we where waiting at the front door to get on but found out one gets on only at the back door. I don't know what country you are in but if you put JR rail pass into google then it may help to where to buy one or ask at your nearest travel agent.Once you have purchased your JR pass and got the print out then you validate it at a JR station the day you want to start it. They spoke reasonably good english at the JR office.

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