Hey petersimon!
I got the same problem but with a PhD. As far as I found out: If you find a Uni that only asesses you on your documents and eventually conducts an Interview via skype- there should be no problem. But I only found 1 or 2 unis that will do that in my case... I think the best thing is to ask this question in an email to the 'international students center' or to the prof you would like to have as an advisor.
But I am still wondering what you guys wrote in the field of study forms. did you only describe what you want to do or did you write its in an academic style with references and so on?
Thanks for your help!
If you want to enter directly as a graduate student, except for these universities having international entrance program such as G30, you'll have to go to Japan to take the exams.
In my case, I just returned from
Kyoto for the entrance examination in the Kyoto University (it's an on-site interview actually) as my professor said it is absolutely needed for directly being accepted as a phD. Although he knows that I have no problem in academics, I had to go to Japan just for the process which costs a lot. Luckily, my Japanese seems to be OK and although it's my first time to Japan, I don't have any serious problems talking with ppls in Japanese. 5 minutes after the interview, my professor asked me to go down and told me congradulations.
Although the official phD acceptance letter will be issued at September, my professor told me it should be no problem at all. Also for the loa that should be handed to my embassy by Aug 13rd, they told me it should be no problem for the embassy to have the phD acceptance letter at September, and it's a matter of business between Kyoto University and MEXT, and I don't need to worry about that.
So now, I guess all is set for me and I will have no loa to hand in to the embassy, but the university will mail the embassy a direct phD acceptance letter in around this September.