Becoming Japanese

Nobody knows exactly how thorough they are and the exact procedures that the Ministry of Justice uses to confirm the information regarding your finances, life history, criminal history, work history, and educational history. For obvious reasons, it's in their best interest to keep their methods non-public. There are some things one can induce — especially from the fact that some institutions are required to inform you (depending on the country you're from) if someone — be it government or non-government — looks into your record (for example, a United States credit check). It's reasonable to assume that the domestic (Japanese) checks would be quite thorough as officials would know what certifications are like and could easily communicate during work hours in a language using procedures and forms they're comfortable with. With foreign countries, it's not so easy. Most foreign countries, with the exception of things like the INTERPOL database and the Schenge...

It's going to cost a lot more than $80. If you've ever tried to do a web search for "second citizenship" or "second passport", you have probably encountered some dubious search results. Most of the results are pretty dodgy. The best results are for retirees looking to spend their days in warmer climates (and Florida isn't their thing).. The iffy results are those advertising citizenship in code as a way to hide income or avoid paying taxes for one's home country. (The creatives advertising these second nationalities often highlight the fact that they "Do not tax foreign income!") The worst results are those advertising a second passport and/or citizenship because you need to hide your original identity or citizenship for "safety" reasons (code for avoiding responsibility associated with your real identity or citizenship). Of the almost two hundred sovereign nations in the world, only four countries offer what is referred t...

The age of majority is 20, not 18, in Japan Every once and a while I get a question from a very enthusiastic person who is really interested in all things Japanese and really wants to live in Japan. Forever. While I can certainly appreciate their enthusiasm on one level — after all, I and others did make a lifelong commitment to living in Japan in the form of a family, a career, and a lifestyle encapsulated legally with naturalization, there's another part of me that knows that it took many years for me to pull myself up from my bootstraps and get to the point where naturalizing would not be a scary or risky thing due to financial instability. The minimum age to naturalize is twenty (20) years old. Why twenty and not eighteen (18)? Because twenty is the age you are considered to be an "adult" in Japan. It is the age you can drive. It is the age you can smoke. It is the age you can drink. It is the age you participate in the special national public holiday, 成人の日 ...

the e-passport symbol on the book front cover My family went to the passport center near the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building ( 都庁 { tochō } ) to renew my child's passport last Sunday. Yes, you heard me right. A government service that was open on Sunday . That's unusual even in Japan too. Her blue passport (minors can only get the five (5) year blue passport) had been prepared for her. Upon stepping up to the counter, the lady asked her a few simple questions to confirm that everything on the passport was correct. (ex. "What's you name? What's your birthday") the passport is laid on top of the terminal to the left She then opened up the passport to the first page (on Japanese passports, the vital information is on the first page, not the inside of the cover) and placed the book on a special reader that read both the MRZ (machine readable zone) and the contact-less IC chip. Upon doing this, the monitor on the counter displayed everythi...

(article image used according to original site's CC license ) One of the reasons I started this site was when I first began researching naturalization, I noticed that while most of the information in Japanese was correct, the information about naturalization was often very incorrect. And by incorrect, I don't mean small details being inaccurate. I mean complete fabrications by people that obviously had never done it nor asked anybody about it. They were simply repeating urban legends they had heard on the internet . One of the first pages I created was the "Misinformation" page to catalog some of the worst offenders I found when I did a web search for "Japanese naturalization." The first page that made my list was one from the expat/immigration site, Just Landed . Despite having left a comment on the problematic page pointing out their errors in detail, they ignored or did not see and/or deleted my comments. Fortunately, when they changed over thei...

When you are get the call from your Legal Affairs Bureau ( 法務局 { hōmukyoku } ), you will go their in person to pick up your 帰化者の身分証明書 { kikasha no mibun shōmeisho } (proof of identity of naturalized person). They may or may not have a small ceremony with other people at the same time. Your last bureau worker you dealt with or somebody else will go over the items in this document to double check if there are any typos. There shouldn't be, because all of the information in it was copied from the 帰化許可申請書 { kika kyoka shinseisho } (permission for naturalization application form) This is the "breeder document" that you give to your local 市役所 { shiyakusho } (city hall) or 区役所 { kuyakusho } that is used to officially create your 戸籍 { koseki } (family register), which serves as your domestic proof of Japanese nationality. The first page is basically a notification regarding the particular official Ministry of Justice Notice ( 法務省告示 { hōmushō kokuji } ) numbe...

+Hiko Saemon and +Victor Boggio interview me on YouTube Live (Google+ Hangouts), talking about naturalization and this blog site. It's a little personal, and a little silly, but they did a great job introducing their viewers to this blog and becoming legally Japanese. Anyway, this is something different for this site. Don't take it too seriously. For those from Google+ or Youtube: if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. (not the best screen-cap of me. I think they went a little overboard with the flags)