Becoming Japanese

I believe I made the choice the moment I applied Hello everyone. It has been a year since I formally applied for citizenship. I am happy to announce that I finally have an update: I am officially Japanese! It took a bit more than a year, and in the interim, there was nothing to do but wait. And wait. And come for the interview. Then wait some more. Here is what happened during that time. The Naturalization Interview I got the call for the interview from the Legal Affairs Bureau some time in February 2022. Along with deciding the interview date, I was asked to bring some additional documents: Additional Documents For me ねんきん定期便 nenkin teikibin , Pension coverage letter A copy of my parents' passports' data page For my fiancée 住民票 jūminhyō , Certificate of Residence 市県民税納税証明書 shikenminzei nōzeishōmeishō, Certificate of payment of municipal and prefectural tax 市民税県民税証明書 shiminzei kenminzei nōzeishōmeishō , Certificate of residents’ tax  For both me and my fiancée 源泉徴収票 gensench...

An (emotional) approximation of how much documents I gathered Hello everyone. This is the part 3 of my naturalization story. Part 1 and Part 2 linked. At this point, I have prepared all the documents I possibly could. There are no more documents I can prepare in advance. So we are going straight to the third and last consultation. Don't worry, I will explain the asterisk (*) in the title later. Also, I will try a different writing style this time, with mini-chapter markers throughout the text. Third Consultation One rainy afternoon in July, I made my way to the Legal Affairs Bureau. By now I am familiar with the commute. I went to the reception desk, filled up the consultation form, and went to the waiting room. This time, a different but similarly middle aged man, called me in to the consultation room. I pulled out my file folder and gave him the complete set of documents. He checked them one by one, also taking note of the remarks written on the A3-sized requirements list re...

A+! Hello again! This is the second part of my documentation of the naturalization process. If you haven't already, please read part 1 here . In the previous post, I talked about the first consultation and the homework I got from the case worker. This time, I will talk about the other preparations I did before going to the second consultation, and the second consultation itself. Thanks to the wealth of information on this blog, I already had a pretty good idea of what other documents I will need. Since there are templates for them here and elsewhere on the internet, I decided to prepare a few of them in advance. Documents I prepared in advance 親族の概要 shinzoku no gaiyō , family outline (inside and outside Japan) 履歴書 rirekisho , Personal History (parts 1 and 2) 帰化の動機書 kika no dōkisho , motivation essay for naturalization 生計の概要 seikei no gaiyō , Living Expenses Outline (parts 1 and 2) 略図 ryakuzu （ 自宅 jitaku 、 勤務先 kinmusaki ）, map of vicinity of home and employment Note: document n...

Hello everyone! In a previous blog post , I talked about my motivation for obtaining Japanese citizenship. This time, I will go into detail regarding the steps I took to apply. All of the conversations and phone calls were conducted in Japanese. In order to give this story more context, you should know a bit more about me. I am a natural-born Filipino citizen in my late 20s, single, living in Aichi Prefecture. Thus, all of the requirements, documents required will be from the point of view of a person with the above qualities.  On to the main story: In the beginning of April 2021, I looked for the 法務局 hōmukyoku (Legal Affairs Bureau) that has jurisdiction over my place of residence and that has a 国籍課 kokusekika (citizenship section), which was the Nagoya Legal Affairs Bureau . I called the number on the website, navigated through the voice prompts, and got connected to a person on the other end. I told them that I would like to apply for citizenship. They asked me: Where I live...