Better than average how-to on Japanese Citizenship

eHow™ is an internet service that collects small articles on how to do things. It's other article on obtaining Japanese citizenship was so inaccurate we felt compelled to write a post about its errors and misinformation. However, it turns out there is more than one article on the same subject at eHow. We're covering this one: How to Obtain Japanese Citizenship, written by Renee Shah (pictured).

For articles of this nature (three or four paragraph summary of naturalization), it wasn't that bad. It only makes two factual errors, with four nitpicks that should be clarified:

As for the factual errors, I spotted two bad ones:

1. The "Tips & Warnings" section says that "you automatically forfeit" your original nationality if you are granted Japanese nationality. Actually, whether this happens automatically (or at all) depends on your other nationalities.
2. The article implies that you "inform the country of your prior citizenship of your intent to give up that citizenship" after you learn of successful naturalization. This is only true of certain nationalities (such as the United States). Most people are required to renounce before the naturalization is officially granted. The Ministry of Justice is careful, depending on the country, to not advocate you do something that would render you stateless. For example, they make sure that there's a way to get the nationality back if you're not approved, or they don't let you renounce until they are certain your application will be approved.

As for the nitpicks, they are as follows:

1. When the Ministry of Justice approves naturalization, it does not announce it in a "local newspaper." It announces it by printing your original (pre-naturalization) name and address, in Japanese, in the Diet's Official Gazette (官報 {kampō}), which is a government periodical detailing the day-to-day happenings in government.
2. You don't necessarily have to prove that you are "employable" if you don't have a job. Dependents such as spouses and the independently wealthy or retired would fit into this category. The primary concern is that the combination of your assets, your language ability, and the people that support you is enough so that you will probably not end up on welfare.
3. When it says that you must have never taken "negative action against the Government of Japan", it means illegal or violent negative action against the modern government of Japan. The use of legal demonstrations, protests, and the exercise of freedom of expression is fine, as well as participation in the Pacific War against the Empire of Japan.
4. When it says that the Japanese government does not permit dual citizenship, it means that the Japanese government does not permit the voluntary acquisition or retention of multiple citizenships that can be abandoned in most cases especially with respect to naturalization.

Other than this, there's nothing egregiously wrong about this article.