Becoming Japanese

"koban" polic○officers spend much ofe giving directions Last Friday night I was returning home very late in the evening, arriving on one of the last trains of the day (most trains in Japan do not run twenty fours hours a day). Embedded into the station area, in addition to a few restaurants, coffee shops, and convenience stores, is a 交番 { kōban } (police box). A "police box" is like a mini-police station that usually has no more than one or two officers (male or female) in it, and often contains no more than a single desk and room for office supplies and perhaps a police bicycle. These days in the 21st century they are often unmanned for much of the time, and they may be equipped with a self-service video terminal with a phone should you need help and nobody is there. Of course, Japan has proper police stations. However, these police boxes are everywhere around the country, helping keep police embedded and connected and familiar with the communities they p...

Just wanted to share some pictures of the actual booth where all the interviews (pre and post formal application submission) take place if your registered residency happens to fall within the Tokyo metropolitan area. You will likely be a frequent visitor to the Nationality Section (国籍課) of the Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau (法務局) located right outside the elevator on the 8th floor of the Daini Gōdō chōsha (第二合同庁舎) building right in the heart of Japan's bureacracy where many of the government's ministries lie and a few minutes by foot from Kudanshita station. This is the place where you reserve your appointments, interviews are conducted and also where you formally submit your naturalization application. The clinic-like atmosphere may seem like a small visit to the doctor on your very first visit. Most likely all visits will be conducted in small booths covered by a small curtain (you can clearly hear convers...

Brazilians can renounce their nationality after showing proof of naturalization elsewhere. Yes, depending on your nationality, you may have to keep your former nationality because the other country will not allow you to get rid of your non-Japanese nationality. In principle, as part of the Japanese naturalization law, you need to get rid of all your other nationalities either before you receive your Japanese nationality (ex. United Kingdom , Canada) or within two years after receiving your Japanese nationality (ex. United States, New Zealand). Whether you do it before or afterwards is not your choice. It depends on the whether the nationality laws of other countries allow their citizens to lose their citizenship without having already acquired another. In other words, do they allow brief (or permanent) periods of statelessness? The reason some countries do not allow their citizens to become stateless is usually because they are following the United Nations 1961 Convention on...

According to the published statistics by the Ministry of Justice ( 法務省 { hōmushō } ), once a case worker decides that your application is in order and submits it to the Minister of Justice ( 法務大臣 { hōmu daijin } ) for approval, the chances of being accepted are 98% or higher . However, the Ministry of Justice and the Nationality Departments ( 国籍課 { kokuseki-ka } ) do not publicly publish the amount of people that begin the naturalization process but never get their case officer to submit their paperwork. This is for many reasons. A big reason is that many people don't get to the point where they actually submit anything to a case worker or sign up for an appointment with a case worker, so there is no written record. The only way to get an idea of how many people actually begin the process then either decide on their own not to finish or have the case worker recommend they not try to proceed with a formal application is to ask immigration lawyer specialists. According t...

Tokyo Camii Mosque . Biggest mosque in Japan. Photo used with permission from nippon.com YES. I've seen a lot of misinformation regarding Japanese nationality over the years, and it has generally been getting better over time as non-Japanese get more access to information in languages other than Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. However, a viral post has been circulating around the net that was recently forwarded to me and thus caught my attention. The post has been used as propaganda by both pro-Islam and anti-Islam sides. Unfortunately, the point they're arguing about — whether the Japanese government and its laws and its Constitution, restrict immigration on the basis of religion (Islam) — is entirely false. Enumerated below are sample points from the post which are most related to the topics this site covers: "Japan is the only nation that does not give citizenship to Muslims." Absolutely false. In fact, there's a contributing author to this web s...

Amendments and Endorsements Page of a Japanese Passport For those of you who have chosen a Japanese name that may sound completely or partially different from your name prior to naturalizing to Japan - you still have the option to use that name as a Japanese national on most legal transactions or items as you may have previously. This can simply be done by adding your pre-naturalized name to your passport as a 別名併記( betsumei heiki ) which translates roughly to "alias additional listing". In my case, as I already applied and recieved my passport before requesting the "alias additional listing", I had to go through a seperate process where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (most likely the Passport Center of your City/Prefrecture, or the Consular Section of the Japanese Embassy if overseas) uses a seperate page (Amendments and Endorsements Page) usually right after the identification page with your picture and personal details. Apart from...