RealityBell wrote...
yeah sometimes it bothers me when people is talking about china attacking our country I have many chinese friends. oh.. going to japan here is easy now you don't need any visa anymore wonder why they did that.
You still have a "visa", it's just a matter of what form it's in. If you're on a tourist visa, you just keep the stamp in your passport, and that is your visa.
If you're staying longer, you still have a visa, but it is part of your residence card. It's kind of worrisome, actually. Before, if you lost your gaijin card, it was a minor inconvenience, as the real visa was still the stamp in your passport, which should be at home. Now, if you somehow lose your residence card, it's going to be a huge hassle, as that is your visa as well as identification.
The only people who aren't on some kind of visa in Japan are nationals of the country.
As for why they made the change, it's a positive with a negative. Before, if you were going to leave Japan, you had to pay for an extra stamp on your passport to say you had permission to leave and return, or your visa would be void. Now you don't need that, but your residence card has all your information on an IC chip.