Quote Originally Posted by Kathranis View Post
A lot of people in this thread are overstating the xenophobia. I've got friends of all ages and ethnicities who either have lived or currently live in Japan and they've all had good experiences.

First off, they're not racist. I mean, there are some hardline right wing ultra nationalists, but those exist everywhere.

Second, you're thinking about racism with a Western mindset. Being a foreigner in Japan isn't like being black in the US.

What you're most likely to encounter is people who are either curious or shy. Sometimes they'll have misconceptions, sometimes they'll want to practice English, sometimes they'll avoid you because they're afraid of speaking English poorly. 99% of Japanese people are too polite to do anything untoward, and often when you do encounter, say bars or apartments that are non-gaijin, it's really an anti-tourist thing resulting from jackasses on vacation causing trouble.

You also definitely don't really need to speak Japanese. It's a bilingual nation. The advice I always hear is to wait until you move to Japan and decide you want to live there, then start studying more seriously.
Glad to see someone who actually has a clue.

Are most requests approved?

Yes. About 99 percent of all applications are approved. In 2010, for example, 13,072 were recognized as naturalized citizens and 234 were rejected. Of those approved, 6,600 were North or South Korean nationals and about 5,000 were Chinese.
They actually have very high acceptance rate for ppl applying citizenship, but have just made it a hard process, so useless turds wouldn't apply. That IMO is great approach on the matter. You want to get ppl that really want to come instead of ppl that are just looking for some quick benefits.