Do you have to look Japanese to naturalize?

Dr. John Muwete Muluaka
from Congo, Japanese national
legal name: ムウェテ武流阿加 {Muwete MURUAKA}
There is no area on the 帰化許可申請書kika kyoka shinseisho (naturalization permission application form) for "race" (or native language). You do have to attach either a black & white or color photo however.

From a demographics and statistics point of view, it is true that the vast amount of foreigners in Japan are racially "Asian" — Chinese and Korean; if we make the rough assumption (there are of course exceptions) that most Chinese and Koreans in Japan "look Japanese", then currently in Japan the percentage of naturalized citizens who don't "look Japanese" are as follows:

"Chinese" is defined as PRC nationality. "Korean" is defined as ROK or DPRK nationality
Year of naturalizationPercentage of naturalized who are non-Korean/Chinese
201113%
201012%
200912%
200811%
20079%
20069%
20057%
20047%
20036%
20025%

Considering that there are a lot of non-CK nationalities who also "look Japanese" from a racial point of view, the numbers of naturalized Japanese citizens who are racially White/Black/Latino/etc. are lower than the percentages in the table above.

Additionally, it should be considered that the 法務省 {hōmushō} (Ministry of Justice) statistics do not break down the nationalities by their former alien residency status (at least not externally), so it should be noted that a lot of those Chinese and Korean who naturalize were 特別永住者 {tokubetsu eijūsha} (special permanent residents) — which means that not only do they probably look Japanese, they probably sound (as in unaccented) Japanese too.
Most people with special permanent residency, due to historical reasons, are born and live their whole lives in Japan, which means their first (and sometimes only) language and native tongue is Japanese.
As you can see, the amount of people that don't "blend in" according to most people's 20th century idea of what "Japanese" is (from an ethnic, language, and racial point of view) is still very small. However, the amount of Special Permanent Residents is decreasing every year, and the amount of people who are neither Chinese nor Korean who take Japanese citizenship is increasing every year in parallel. Personally and anecdotally, I can tell from my child's public primary school, that at least in Tokyo, the demographic makeup of Japan is changing faster than many people outside of Japan assume.

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