Official Resources, the Hanko, and the Name-Writing Problem

An official English translation of Japanese law is a useful resource for checking regulations: https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/. A company's corporate number (Houjin Bangou) can be checked at the official site https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp. The business-data aggregator TSR (https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/) periodically requests company data (shareholders, financial statements), often on behalf of VC or M&A funds researching a company — not spam, but a legitimate collector of business statistics; sharing data is not mandatory, but it can be useful for future partnerships or M&A, and companies can selectively decide what to share. A large volume of mail spam typically arrives at a newly registered company's office mailbox soon after incorporation, since the corporate registry is public. For legal questions about life and business in Japan, a separate legal Telegram chat, distinct from the main community chat, was recommended; the main chat's moderator explicitly asked that "how to get around the law/taxes" topics not be discussed there, directing such questions to the dedicated legal chat, since such discussions in the general chat were seen as potentially compromising for the group. Separately, the hanko (personal seal) remains meaningful in Japan even for informal confirmations — an illustrative case involved collecting signatures from four professors for a university form, where one respected professor's seal functioned as a "magic pass." A systemic legal issue for foreigners is how their name is written across documents (Latin script vs. katakana vs. kanji): only the Latin-script spelling on the residence card (zairyu card) — the sole official document — is considered legally authoritative. Everywhere else a name is recorded in katakana, such as at company registration, it may formally be treated as "a different person" from a legal standpoint, creating verification problems with banks and payment systems (PayPal, Payoneer, bitFlyer, and others). A mismatch between My Number, banking documents, and a driver's license can block bank-account and digital-service setup; correcting the spelling costs around 60,000 yen, per one participant's experience. The recommendation is to settle on one katakana spelling as early as possible and use it everywhere, avoiding elongation marks (ー) and special characters like ヴ in katakana, which some services do not support. Katakana can be added to the residence certificate (juminhyo) and the personal seal (inkan) certificate even for foreigners — via the My Number website or by insisting in person at the city office — this is not limited to Japanese citizens, contrary to a common belief. In a rare precedent, one participant obtained a residence card and My Number printed with the name in both Latin script and katakana simultaneously, but it took years of sustained pressure on the immigration service. Source: https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/ — Official English translation of Japanese law. Source: https://www.houjin-bangou.nta.go.jp/ — Official site for checking a company's corporate number (Houjin Bangou). Source: https://www.tsr-net.co.jp/ — TSR, a business-data aggregator that requests company information on behalf of VC/M&A funds.