Glenski almost everything you've mentioned there happens in the West too. We may be less obvious about it but it definitley happens. Before you can enter an American college you need a SAT score of however much; anyone witout a decent command of the language isn't going to pass. One could argue that's discriminiatory but really how far can arguments like that be taken until you're basically giving foreigners special treatment just to fill a quota?

To answer your question, it takes way more than what you've mentioned for something to be a real problem. Canada has some of the most advanced hiring and equalizational policies around and many newcomers still catch a rough ride and can't get decent jobs or do certain things. If you open up the system too wide it loses strength and stops working for the people it's designed to serve. Like I said before, the Japanese system works for everyone except a few foreigners here and there.

There are plenty of foreigners living in, succeeding in, integrated into Japanese society. Most of those who really succeed have taken the time to really understand the culture and learn the language so they're able to integrate better. I think there was a thread about that elsewhere, one of the first I ever posted in, about language and how necessary it is to survive in another country.

The need for guarantors and stacks of paperwork in Japanese would exist with or without foreigners, its probably confusing for a lot of first time Japanese renters as well. So what is the difference? Well how many times does a real estate agent really want to go through the hassle of trying to translate and walk a gaijin through that process, are they obligated to even bother? It's their country, if I can't understand a lick of Japanese what right do I have to expect someone to hold my hand and help me get an apartment? Now if I can read and speak and fulfill the requirements on my own then I'd probably receive way less resistance and hassle, and most of this so-called 'racist' attitude disappears. I think in many cases actually, it was never there to begin with.

And even if you can't speak Japanese, a country with systemic racism wouldn't allow all the specialty companies that help foreigners acquire things like apartments, vehicles, insurance, etc. to exist. But, there are many organizations advertised regularly in the Metropolis and other gaijin publications that are designed to help foreigners succeed. That's pretty impressive for a country whose composition is around 1% foreign.