For me I'd like to visit Japan for a few months, because I could never abandon my
homeland of Canada, no matter how much I love Japan. But Japan will always be number 1 in travel destinations for me.
I've visited, but I think I'd want to live there! Maybe only for a year or so though, with the JET program perhaps. As for longer term, I'm not sure, but I know it's my dream to work in a maid cafe...
I'll go there as an exchange student or learn Japanese, then I'll have the option to adapt there. Finding a job would be hard, but you never know. I heard some pros and cons of living in Japan but nonetheless I wouldn't mind.
Besides, it's probably way better than the neighborhood I live in NY.
I wouldn't mind visiting, but I don't have a passport and I don't feel like shelling out for that and all those annoying shots. Of course if I had the money to be visiting Japan to begin with then that would be pocket change in comparison.
When I go, it'll be to live.
I've met a couple people working with a fire department on Hokkaido, so a job probably won't be a problem.
Mostly, it's to experience a different culture (not learn, emulate, and obsess about--just experience. It's useful to look at radically different ones, to discover the problems with your own). It also adds credibility to putting the language skill on a resume--when one of your references is an international call.
Probably just visit. I'm bad at learning languages and couldn't really deal with all the smokers. So if I did live there it certainly wouldn't be in a major city. Of course I don't want to live in a big city over here either but I do conveniently know how to speak the language.
I've visited a few times, but I wouldn't mind living there, provided I either won the lottery or had a decent paying job over there that was not terrible.