When, in 1793, Lord Macartney, the Ambassador of George III of England, set sail from China back to England after his spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to strike diplomatic and business relations between the two countries, the letter he was carrying to the king from the Chinese Emperor, Qianlong (乾隆), seemed to summarize well the attitude of the Middle Kingdom to the outside world then:

Over the past 15 years, a number of countries and regions have emerged and profiled themselves globally as popular destinations for offshoring. Each major developed industrial region, it seems, has its offshoring production or manufacturing base located conveniently nearby. Central and South America for North America; Central and Eastern Europe for Western Europe; and China and India not only for Asia Pacific, but – as with the rest – having a global impact, too.

It is generally taken as common knowledge that Japanese localization is different – it takes more time, involves more steps and costs more. Japanese is also frequently considered to be the most difficult – and expensive – language to localiźe into. But, it does not necessarily always need to be this way. With some precautions in mind, localizing into Japanese can be a smooth process. So what makes for a successful Japanese localization project?