Funny thing, we were talking with actor Robert Scott Field in
Kyoto last August and he's a permanent resident in Japan. He started out playing baseball in Japan, then went on to get an Entertainer's Visa and then obtained a permanent residency after that. He said that an Entertainer's Visa sounds cool, but the renewal process "is not fun."
He played android M-11 in
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah in 1991.
One of our tour members asked him about the necessity in having a degree to work in Japan and his reply was, "They say you do, but if you have connections and a job lined up, you can get around it."
Maciamo would appreciate this one: Scott mentioned that he interviewed with one of the big English conversation schools (possibly Nova) and they told him that they teach "standard English." Thinking that they were referring to the Queen's English or something like that, he asked, "Standard English? From where?" They replied, "From Michigan."
Shocked and amused, he responded, "What?! Michigan?!"