Originally Posted by downinit

The duality of Japan never ceases to amaze and confound me. Here you have a country that has been on the cutting edge of technology for at least half a century, and yet when it comes to bureaucracy, they are still stuck in the technological stone ages. It is completely inexcusable how awful the process of arriving and clearing immigration/customs is in Japan, and it has continued to be horrible throughout whatever changes they make to the system. Any change they do make is always for the worse, and they almost seem unapologetically proud of how bad things are. This BS with the QR codes at Customs is completely bewildering and unprecedented, at least for any of the ~45 countries I have visited. I can't think of another place that makes customs such a PITA, in addition to the already loathsome immigration queues. When passing through HND a few weeks ago, I honestly had no idea what was going on and the signs were about as clear as mud. By the time I figured it out, I just ended up going to the paper customs exit and turning in the written form, despite having a QR and using the QR at the immigration desk, as the QR kiosk lines were indeed absurd. Fortunately, I had the good sense to complete the written form on the plane, despite having applied for the QR prior to the trip.

Of course, the passport/immigration line was also horribly long (~1 hour). The one line was randomly being redirected to a series of kiosks where the passports and fingerprints were being scanned for about half of the people in the queue. What made no sense at all is that both the people who used these kiosks and the people not going through the kiosks were still going to the same passport control officers, and the time spent per person didn't seem to change for people who had already wasted time on the kiosks before providing the exact same information to the officers at the desk. At first, I got my hopes up that the kiosks were meant to replace the stop at the desk, but that proved to be wishful thinking.

When I used to make regular visits to Japan prior to COVID, I had the TTP card via Global Entry and was able to use the kiosks. As great as that system if you can actually get the card, even it is still very poorly conceived and implemented program. It requires submitting a new application every three years (as opposed to almost every other comparable program by other countries, which is valid for the life of the passport, and actually makes a distinction between renewals and applying for the first time). They frequently take six months or longer to approve the application, and then you still need to appear in Japan in a timely matter with the correct amount of revenue stamps to actually get the card. The process would absolutely not be worth the hassle in almost any other country in Asia or Europe.