Becoming Japanese

Greg Lam is a professional videographer who is probably best known to Japanophiles from his YouTube channel(s) "Life Where I'm From". He's been producing vignettes about what it's like for a Canadian or any other non-Japanese to live in Japan, and has often explored the topic of bridging multiple cultures and origins, either from the viewpoint of an adult or a child growing up in Japan. Thanks to his professional interviewing, recording, and editing skills, Greg introduced me to a new, younger audience that digests the internet primarily through video as opposed to written websites and blogs, which is what this site is. Sitting down with me in my home office, crammed with professional lighting and mics and high end cameras, Greg came prepared with countless questions that I could tell were well prepared and showed me that he had thoroughly read and researched the information on this site. Given that the creation of this site was partially inspired by two things:...

Actually, a passport is not proof of nationality. A Japanese family registry is, however. This question was actually posted in the Reddit group "Residents in Japan" , and I answered it there, but unfortunately the moderators removed the good question (in my opinion) due to their strict rule of requiring its participants to actually reside in Japan. Thus, I will re-post my answer here: The worst case "penalty" for not properly getting rid your original nationality or re-acquiring or re-instating your old one or getting new ones is that they can unilaterally annul ("cancel") your Japanese citizenship on the grounds that you did not properly complete all the mandatory required steps to obtain it as prescribed by the nationality law . This procedure is called "administrative denaturalization": the loss of citizenship by an annulment of naturalization without the government needing to sue them in a court, also known as "adminis...

The official poster for the film What makes a Japanese person Japanese? Is it the blood that runs through their veins? A parent they were born to? The country they grew up in? Is it how they look? How they act? How they speak? Their citizenship? A few years ago I was interviewed at my home by a professional videographer who publishes popular streaming videos to the YouTube site, "Life Where I'm From". Apparently, this topic was of great interest to Greg Lam … not necessarily just because of me or the fact that he lived in Japan, but more likely also because like me, his immediate family has many people who are legally, culturally, and/or genetically Japanese in one or more ways. He has produced and directed a full length feature film (almost 2 hours) which explores the many facets of "Being Japanese": not just the "legal" aspect (which is what this site focuses...

  Eight former Japanese nationals, aged 30 to 80, men and women, six who have acquired Swiss or Liechtenstein nationality and two others who plan to obtain Swiss or French nationality, led by Hitoshi Nogawa, currently living in Europe, attempted to sue the Japan government arguing that the Nationality's Laws policies regarding acquiring additional citizenships was unconstitutional and also against the United Nation's Declaration of Human Rights. The trial started on August 20th, 2020, and was ruled upon January 21st, 2021.  They are attempting to appeal. I suspect that the intent of the lawsuit was never to win, as the arguments it presented, while making for a good show for the press, were extremely weak from the perspective of both constitutional law and international law. Among the arguments they attempted to make: They argued that the Nationality Law contradicts the second paragraph of Article 22 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right of expatriation. Article 22 o...

credit: Ann Swinderman The December 9th, 2017 article published in the Japan Times' national news section , written by Philip Brasor , is titled with the bold alarming proclamation that: Without an official father, kids can be stateless [in Japan] Is this really true? With the semantics word "can", this is pedantically true, although in reality, many other, much more rarer conditions must also (fail to) be met. Although arguably not an ideal situation, there are countless children born in Japan who receive Japanese nationality at birth even without an official or known father. To be born without a nationality in Japan, many more conditions must not be met (such as, and arguably much more important, like the existence of a birth certificate). What IS true is that when neither jus sanguinis nor jus soli can be used to determine a child's origins, then it is possible that a child may not acquire Japanese nationality immediately at birth. The author of the a...

licensed from iStock Japan has a procedure called 国籍選択 { kokuseki sentaku } (Choice of Nationality). It was created with the revision of the Japanese nationality laws to address the issue of involuntary multiple nationality acquisition by Japanese — usually those who are minors that received citizenship from a new world country in the Americas such as the United States via jus soli (nationality based on where you were born, sometimes called "birthright nationality"): Japanese-Americans and Japanese-Canadians, for example. However, it can also apply in other circumstances, such as if you acquire another nationality involuntarily (meaning, you did not directly apply for it or naturalize) — such as through marriage to a person from a country that does not separate nationality with marriage (called jus matrimonii ) or religion. It can also happen when somebody acquired citizenship after birth due to the revision in the Japan Nationality Law in 1985 that allowed people to...