Originally Posted by
jib71
Sure. Obviously you don't need a visa to stay in Japan. But Japanese passport holders also pass through an exit immigration process, which needs to be reversed, whereas transit passengers do not. I don't know if that's material or not. Your assumption that your circumstances aren't substantially different from those of a transit passenger might be right ... It's possible that the situation has changed since the post I linked to above was written. Who knows?
Now that the caffeine's kicked in, I think we're essentially saying the same thing:
- You need to get to immigration somehow, and it requires going the wrong way through security.
- You need the staff there to let you through.
- You'd need to be eligible to enter Japan regardless