Becoming Japanese

There are no quotas or limits on Japanese naturalization. In fact, there are no limits or quotas for permanent residency or other types of visas (including refugee and asylum seekers) in Japan. There are many misunderstandings about Japan's immigration rules and polices. Superficially, people look at the small legal foreigner population — approximately 2% of the population of Japan if you include the legally non-Japanese but born and raised in Japan that are colloquially referred to as the 在日 { Zainichi } (literally, "residing in Japan", but with the nuance of Koreans born and raised in Japan). There are many reasons for the small foreigner population in Japan, but a restriction on the number of people they let immigrate is not one of them. It's also not true that the immigration process is difficult compared to other countries with respect to the procedures. The procedures and requirements for naturalization are very similar to many European countries such ...

You do not have to have a "kanji name" when you become Japanese. In fact, I know many naturalized people that opted to not choose kanji for their official legal Japanese name. You don't even have to have a name that "sounds Japanese" . I also know many people who chose a Japanese kanji name, but continue to use a katakana form of an English name for their "professional" life in Japan (and often they continue to use their English name outside of Japan). However, you can't have a legal Japanese name that is written in: Latin letters (ex. the English alphabet *) Even initials are forbidden ( JR Sakuragi 's given name is not literally "JR" even though it's pronounced that way, and C.W. Nichol 's ( Ｃ・Ｗニコル { Shī·Daburu NIKORU } ) legal given name is not "CW". The alphabet is allowed, of course, on Japanese passports, and there is considerable flexibility with respect to how you can write it, "Englishnization...

There is a lot of erroneous and false information on the internet, in English, about Japanese naturalization. So much of it is false that we actually have a section of this site dedicated to collecting false articles and pointing out their errors . Sometimes, the webmasters of these sites, when doing SEO tuning, discover the articles on this site that point to and embarrass them by disclosing their site's lack of accuracy. For example, a nice editor at justlanded.com, who was revising and revamping and modernizing the content at the site, reached out to us and let us know that they had seen our article and had rewritten it with the correct information . We replied and noted and thanked them for correcting and propagating the correct information . eHow is another site that has done this. The old article has been deleted, and the old link has been reconfigured to now point to a generic article about Japanese immigration . They have, however, commissioned new article writers ...

"YAMAMOTO" Mona 中西モナ { NAKANISHI Mona } (Mona NAKANISHI née YAMAMOTO) is a retired television journalist and announcer of Japanese and Norwegian descent. She was one of the pioneers of the mixed-heritage public personalities in Japan, even though she grew up entirely in Japan and her connection to Norway is more racial and (was) legal rather than ethnic. She is also known as one of the "intelligent" television announcers / personalities, having received a Masters in Business Administration and graduated from an elite Japanese university. Once she began working for the Tokyo television station TBS, other competing networks had to have educated 「国際人」 { "kokusaijin" } ("International Person") in their lineup of talent, leading to the success of well-known multi-lingual multi-background Japanese nationals such as 滝川ラルドゥクリステル雅美 { TAKIGAWA Rarudu Kurisuteru Masami } ; Takigawa even changed her early "professional public-use" (s...

An unusual casual photo; he's usually in a suit. ジョン・ムウェテ・ムルアカ { John · Muwete · MURUAKA }  (Dr. John Muwete MULUAKA) was born in 1961 in Republic of Zaire (which is now officially known as the République Démocratique du Congo), in the city of Kinshasa (the capital & largest city and one of the ten largest cities in Africa). In Japan he is primarily known as a television talent, an electrical engineering researcher, and an authoritative commentator on international world politics. Dr. Muluaka's native language is French, the official language of the DROC . He first came to Japan in 1985 after graduating from the national university ISTA in electrical engineering. He worked for about four years as a journalist for Zaire's state broadcasting agency before coming to Japan in 1985 After arriving in Japan, he continued his studies in electrical engineering at TDU ( 東京電機大学 { Tōkyō Denki Daigaku } ) in Adachi Ward ( 足立区 { Adachi-ku } ) . When the Shōwa Emperor p...