I'm a Canadian living in rural Japan looking to get a Chinese Visitors Visa.

If you can't come to China embassy or consulates in Japan in person to apply for China visa, you can contact a travel agency and mail your application to the travel agency and ask it to apply China visa on your behalf. There is China embassy in Tokyo, China consulate in Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo and Niigata.

They have differnet consular districts, please tell me where do you live in Japan?

I live about 1.5 hours (by car) 2 hours (by train) to Nagoya. I've looked into travel agencies, but, and just as an example, JTB is trying to charge me 25,000Yen for the VISA. I traveled to China last year and applied through a now non-existent service which cost 8,000Yen. I called the Chinese consulate in Nagoya and was advised to go through a travel agency (they actually said that I should used JTB...) I was hoping to find a company that is more reasonable like the one I used before but have had little luck on that front.

Thank you for your quick reply, I look forward to hearing from you!

If I were you, I would rather go to China embassy or consulate all by myself although it is a little further. I don't want to pay additionally for a visa. Or if you have a friend in Nagoya, you can entrust him/her to submit the requirements for you too.