Originally Posted by
Megs1082
I understand the logic of your explanation and it makes me feel a little better, however my only concern is that we have at least 2 flights once we arrive in Japan until we reach our final destination (going to a more remote area), and I believe both flights will be with different airlines. How easy will it be to explain the situation to a possibly non-english speaking person. I've never flown internationally before so I'm not really sure what to expect as far as people who will be able to understand me.
Countries used to non-European names and which routinely use/have used non-Roman alphabets for names and which are familiar with transliterations into Roman alphabets are generally going to cause less issue than is even the case in the Americas, Europe or those places predominantly/heavily using the Roman alphabet for daily intra-household communication.
The key is to have the airline reps be able to identify a record locator and pull up the itinerary that way.
There really is no reason to worry. My Chinese and Japanese is basically non-existent and in situations akin to yours, my travel companions have never had a serious issue because of the name spelling variation you noted. I don't think there's a single work trip of mine involving travel companions in recent years which haven't had a "name 'issue'" -- and the name "issue" has always been a non-issue other than for reasons I've mentioned here on FlyerTalk before.
You'll be fine as long as they can find your airline record. There's no reason to stress over it. Just carry the airline and/or travel agent-supplied itinerary and presenting that should work sufficiently well enough. (And usually at airports someone can be found who can communicate in some English if there is a pressing need.)