Are some Legal Affairs Bureaus easier or better than others?

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 particular bureau and acceptance & rejection would be difficult due to margin of error and noise.

Now, there is a possibility that some bureaus may be more discriminating as to the packets they send upstream to Tokyo for approval; the official statistics for approval and rejection can't obviously count the packets it never receives.

It's difficult to say whether a particular bureau has "nicer" or "meaner" case workers; part of the life of a 公務員 {kōmuin} (public servant) means that throughout your decades long career, you will be rotated to various offices and assignments to make you a well-rounded employee. Thus, a bureau that once had "nice" employees in the early nineties may now have "mean" employees working there in the late nineties.

It's fairly safe to say that because naturalization is such a rare procedure (less than 20,000 people per year annually across the entire nation), that you're much more likely to get "personal attention" if you do the process at a bureau outside of a major city such as Tokyo or Osaka. However, even though I applied at Tokyo (which gets the most amount of applicants) and had to make appointments weeks in advance, I found the personal attention I got from my case worker to be quite adequate.

Regardless, even if we did know which bureau was "nicer" (in terms of building and facilities or applicant to case worker ratio), it wouldn't make a difference: you're required to apply at a bureau that serves the area you live. One of the reasons they do this is because they sometimes do footwork and visually inspect the home or work environments as well as do home or work visits.

In my particular case for Tokyo, they neither visited my home nor work. Perhaps this happens more often with bureaus that have a higher worker to caseload or are not as busy.

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