You are correct :-) I was careless in the way I wrote. I did not mean to imply that being on the koseki imparted citizenship. It does not, and you are correc

You are correct :-) I was careless in the way I wrote. I did not mean to imply that being on the koseki imparted citizenship. It does not, and you are correct to point out that there is a big difference. What I meant is than in many areas of the law, you are literally not a legal person if you are not on the koseki. They just have no way of dealing with you. Family law is the most obvious place where this occurs, but there are some others a well. Basically, if the law is written to look at the juuminhyou (essentially your registered address), then as a foreigner you are good to go. If it is writen to look at the koseki, unless you are married, you are going to hit a brick wall. Unless, the law has changed very recently (and I know that they were planning to change it), the example I gave (custody in divorce) is a classic example. There is no way that a Japanese judge can grant custody of children to someone who is not on a koseki somewhere because it is legally impossible to do so. Where I was wrong was to say that this is a right. It is not a right (and as a foreigner living in any country you have to get used to the fact that you have a lot less rights than a citizen). It is a consequence of the way the law is written. Still, I can tell you that the difference between when I was living in Japan before I had my name on that piece of paper and after is quite large. Even better is to start a corporation as you then have an entity that you control that is recognized as a legal person (houjin). But that is way off topic...