Becoming Japanese

It's going to cost a lot more than $80. If you've ever tried to do a web search for "second citizenship" or "second passport", you have probably encountered some dubious search results. Most of the results are pretty dodgy. The best results are for retirees looking to spend their days in warmer climates (and Florida isn't their thing).. The iffy results are those advertising citizenship in code as a way to hide income or avoid paying taxes for one's home country. (The creatives advertising these second nationalities often highlight the fact that they "Do not tax foreign income!") The worst results are those advertising a second passport and/or citizenship because you need to hide your original identity or citizenship for "safety" reasons (code for avoiding responsibility associated with your real identity or citizenship). Of the almost two hundred sovereign nations in the world, only four countries offer what is referred t...

The age of majority is 20, not 18, in Japan Every once and a while I get a question from a very enthusiastic person who is really interested in all things Japanese and really wants to live in Japan. Forever. While I can certainly appreciate their enthusiasm on one level — after all, I and others did make a lifelong commitment to living in Japan in the form of a family, a career, and a lifestyle encapsulated legally with naturalization, there's another part of me that knows that it took many years for me to pull myself up from my bootstraps and get to the point where naturalizing would not be a scary or risky thing due to financial instability. The minimum age to naturalize is twenty (20) years old. Why twenty and not eighteen (18)? Because twenty is the age you are considered to be an "adult" in Japan. It is the age you can drive. It is the age you can smoke. It is the age you can drink. It is the age you participate in the special national public holiday, 成人の日 ...

the e-passport symbol on the book front cover My family went to the passport center near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building ( 都庁 { tochō } ) to renew my child's passport last Sunday. Yes, you heard me right. A government service that was open on Sunday . That's unusual even in Japan too. Her blue passport (minors can only get the five (5) year blue passport) had been prepared for her. Upon stepping up to the counter, the lady asked her a few simple questions to confirm that everything on the passport was correct. (ex. "What's you name? What's your birthday") the passport is laid on top of the terminal to the left She then opened up the passport to the first page (on Japanese passports, the vital information is on the first page, not the inside of the cover) and placed the book on a special reader that read both the MRZ (machine readable zone) and the contact-less IC chip. Upon doing this, the monitor on the counter displayed everythi...

(article image used according to original site's CC license ) One of the reasons I started this site was when I first began researching naturalization, I noticed that while most of the information in Japanese was correct, the information about naturalization was often very incorrect. And by incorrect, I don't mean small details being inaccurate. I mean complete fabrications by people that obviously had never done it nor asked anybody about it. They were simply repeating urban legends they had heard on the internet . One of the first pages I created was the "Misinformation" page to catalog some of the worst offenders I found when I did a web search for "Japanese naturalization." The first page that made my list was one from the expat/immigration site, Just Landed . Despite having left a comment on the problematic page pointing out their errors in detail, they ignored or did not see and/or deleted my comments. Fortunately, when they changed over thei...

When you are get the call from your Legal Affairs Bureau ( 法務局 { hōmukyoku } ), you will go their in person to pick up your 帰化者の身分証明書 { kikasha no mibun shōmeisho } (proof of identity of naturalized person). They may or may not have a small ceremony with other people at the same time. Your last bureau worker you dealt with or somebody else will go over the items in this document to double check if there are any typos. There shouldn't be, because all of the information in it was copied from the 帰化許可申請書 { kika kyoka shinseisho } (permission for naturalization application form) This is the "breeder document" that you give to your local 市役所 { shiyakusho } (city hall) or 区役所 { kuyakusho } that is used to officially create your 戸籍 { koseki } (family register), which serves as your domestic proof of Japanese nationality. The first page is basically a notification regarding the particular official Ministry of Justice Notice ( 法務省告示 { hōmushō kokuji } ) numbe...

+Hiko Saemon and +Victor Boggio interview me on YouTube Live (Google+ Hangouts), talking about naturalization and this blog site. It's a little personal, and a little silly, but they did a great job introducing their viewers to this blog and becoming legally Japanese. Anyway, this is something different for this site. Don't take it too seriously. For those from Google+ or Youtube: if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. (not the best screen-cap of me. I think they went a little overboard with the flags)

Unlike visas or even Permanent Residency ( 永住者 { eijūsha } ) status, applying for permission to naturalize is not done at an immigration center inside Japan. It is done at a 法務局 { hōmukyoku } (legal affairs bureau). Obviously, every bureau has different staff. Some have a higher workload than others. Some are in newer facilities than others. Does the particular bureau you use have any affect on how smooth you process goes? How about your chances of acceptance? Regarding your chances of acceptance, the bureau you use is unlikely to make a difference. That is because all of the applications are sent "upsteam" to Tokyo to the Ministry of Justice 法務省 { hōmushō } ( MoJ ) for approval, as every application gets the Minister of Justice 法務大臣 { hōmu daijin } seal/stamp on it. And statistically, the odds of rejection once a packet has been submitted are so low (statistically lower then 2%), that being able to determine if there was a statistical correlation between a parti...

(that's actually a European license) If you had a Japanese driver's license before you naturalized, you will have to change both you name and your 本籍 { honseki } (registered domicile [for your family register]) on it. Your original name on the front will remain unchanged on the front and they will simply add a two notations on the back indicating your new Japanese new and indicating that the 本籍 { honseki } (registered domicile) has changed. Additionally, they will reprogram the IC chip inside so that it reflects the new name and the new registered domicile. Unfortunately, despite this major change to your identification, you will have to wait until near the ".. valid until" (‥ まで有効 { made yūkō } ) date to get a fresh license. And you will still have to live with the damn awful photo. After bringing your updated 住民票 { jūminhyō } (proof of residency registration) and you license to a center to update (no fee or charge), my license looked like this: ...

I had shared my experiences with relinquishing my U.S. citizenship in past posts. Ever since U.S. Embassies and consulates around the world have beefed up security post 9.11, you can no longer just walk into an embassy without an appointment unless it was a major emergency. In the name of efficiency and modernization, they eventually began discouraging people to call the embassy, and instead encouraged (by making the telephone numbers harder to find) people to use the web to make appointments . The problem with that method was that only the most common "American Citizen Services" (marriage, birth, visas) were listed as options. Coming into the embassy for the wrong type of appointment would generally get you turned away, as the proper person that is capable of processing more complicated procedures (such as loss of citizenship) would not be at the embassy on that day. Since I became legally Japanese and, by that action, ceased to legally be American, the United State...

Getting rejected by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ; 法務省 { hōmushō } ) is rare; less than 2% of applicants that are passed on to the MoJ for review by case workers get rejected. This is because if the packet isn't strong, the case worker will suggest that you improve it before submission. If you are rejected, it is not published in the 官報 { kanpō } (Official Gazette). You will receive a form in the mail (and probably a call from your case worker) titled 「不許可通知書」 { "fukyoka tsūchi-sho" } ("Notice of Rejection") from the 法務大臣 { Hōmu Daijin } (Minister of Justice) co-signed by the 法務局長 { Hōmukyoku-chō } (Chief of the local Legal Bureau). There is no limit to the number of times you can re-apply for naturalization. And there are documented cases of people being rejected then accepted later. Naturally, when you reapply, the case worker is going to want to see if something in your life has changed before taking on your paperwork again. In the letter of re...