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Question was:Why hasn't Japan legalized same-sex marriage?As of mid-year 2016 Japan does not allow same sex marriage. As to why Japan has not legalized same sex marriages, I believe most answers will include references to the conservative nature of the people, the conservative nature of the ruling party, and the overwhelming patriarchal tilt to the social, political, and economic landscape. Often these observations will decry one or more of the above as being the prime block to same sex marriage. And they are correct in so far as the go.But there is something that is rarely mentioned when it comes to same sex marriage / union in Japan that could be put on both sides of the scale. That is, there is a legal construct that has been in place and used for more than a hundred years that allows same sex couples to join in a way that provides the union of the couple with all(?) the legal standing that traditional marriages enjoy.Before we get to that, let's review getting married in Japan:Getting married in Japan is strictly a civil affair. In most cases a couple goes to city hall and fills out the form. A few minutes later the civil servant comes back and says they are finished with the paperwork and you are now [legally] married. Did I mention that it is free? Well, it is. (The above concerns two Japanese nationals. Things change slightly when one is a foreigner.)The form they fill out is called a, konin-todoke 婚姻届. It is essentially a notification of marriage. If one or both in the couple is a Japanese national, the marriage is recorded in a family register with one concerned Japanese at its head. The notification refers to the marriage being recorded in a family register.In most, but not all, cases the woman's name is added to her husband's family register. There is a note on the woman's family register that she married so and so. The family register (戸籍; Kosek)i is the documentation of the [Japanese] law that requires all Japanese households to report births, paternity, adoptions, deaths, marriages, and divorces. This reporting is done at the local municipal government offices. Marriages, adoptions, etc. become legal only after they are recorded in the family register. I believe births and deaths, though they require reporting, have a more instant legal status.I would like to [re]direct your attention to the mention of, adoptions, in the previous section. Japan has two types of adoption. The first, the one most people are familiar with, is the adoption of children. The other one, less well known, is adult adoption. This is thepractice in Japan of legally and socially accepting a nonconsanguineal adult into an offspring role of a family. The centuries-old practice was developed as a mechanism for families to extend their family name, estate and ancestry without an unwieldy reliance on blood lines.Japanese adult adoptionMost of the time, these adult adoptions involve a male being adopted into the woman's family. But, and this is the important part for our discussion, that need not be the case. Adult same-sex adoptions are a way that the laws prohibiting same sex marriage can be legally circumvented. By adopting a 'partner' full legal status is conferred on the union. That said, I have no idea as to the now same sex couple's ability to adopt children.I should note that the above description is the thumbnail sketch. The actual process is rather more complicated, but eminently doable.As to the original question of why Japan doesn't allow same-sex marriage, I believe that the ability to adopt another adult of the same sex, lessens the current social trend of pressing politicians to rewrite the marriage laws. Though not ideal, the system of adult adoption does provide an option that isn't available in many countries.Edit-In the comments there was some discussion about Shibyua Ward in Tokyo accepting non-traditional partnerships. I asked the folks in our city hall about this. They told me that the Shibyua Ward office recognizes these partnerships, but only to the extent that they do not conflict with national law. That is, they do not (can not) make official notation on the Koseki of the persons involved. Doing so would place them in conflict with the law of the land. Also see the comments for more on this.I also asked if a Japanese national [adult] could adopt a foreign national [adult]. They said that this was allowed in principle, but that the treaties between Japan and the foreign country would come into play. If the foreign country allowed (or, perhaps, didn’t disallow) such a thing, then it is allowed.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.Yes, births, deaths, and marriages are a matter of public record and as such are recorded on the family register (戸籍; Kosek)i. The Koseki is the documentation of the [Japanese] law that requires all Japanese households to report births, paternity, adoptions, deaths, marriages, and divorces. This reporting is done at the local municipal government offices. Marriages, adoptions, etc. become legal only after they are recorded in the family register. I believe births and deaths, though they require reporting, have a more instant legal status.Example of Koseki.When reporting births, deaths, or marriages at the local municipal government offices, the person reporting is asked if they would like the information released to the newspapers. If the answer is, yes, then the local newspaper(s) are are duly notified. In the case of deaths, only the sparsest of details are included in the obituary; name, date of death, age, address, when and where the wake and funeral ceremony will be held, and next of kin.The following examples will have the person(s) in question divided by where they live.Example of newspaper obituary announcement:Example of newspaper wedding and births announcement:

I'm an undocumented immigrant originally from South Korea currently residing in California. I landed in San Francisco prior to 9/11 on a travel visa with my parents and my sibling. We left South Korea in hopes for a better education (I will not explain education culture of South Korea in this post), and unfortunately we did not have family members that could help us get a green card (via family relation). However, a family friend had offered a green card sponsorship and wanted to help us settle. Through various visa changes after the travel visa expired, we were en route to a green card. My father paid international student tuition for the duration of this green card application (12 years) in order for my family to retain legal status. By the time I graduated high school, we received a rejection notice from USCIS. The reason? Our sponsors were financially ineligible to sponsor us in the first place; they had been falsifying their income for tax evasion, and from their reported income, they were legally ineligible to sponsor my family. Needless to say, my family's relationship with our sponsors have plummeted to terrible terms. My family scrounged together the last bit of our savings for a lawyer to help our appeal, which was also rejected 2 years later.The 12 years of waiting for the green card was extremely dreadful. We found out about our sponsor's tax evasion earlier on and attempted to correct their mistakes, begging them to report a correct amount. My dad fell to alcoholism. Every day for the 12 years, my dad woke up in the morning and stared at the Case Status website punching our case number in, refreshing to see if we could possibly be accepted any sooner. I don't want to remember the day we found out about our rejection.After the rejection, my family was unemployed, drained of our savings, and exhausted from life in America. Within the 12 years of waiting in this land, my sister and I had lost a lot of our native language and were completely assimilated in US culture. When my father's F-1 visa finally expired from graduation and exhaustion of OPT, nobody wanted to leave-- we had no home to go back to, we had no money to support ourselves. We became visa-overstays, and this is one of the common ways to become undocumented in this country. My parents worked under the table at various restaurants, often working full-time or over-time. There exists heavy exploitation and discrimination of undocumented workers within every community, and we were subject to this. No complaints, as long as we worked to keep our family together. We paid our taxes every year.I enrolled at a nearby community college with the help of AB540, a California Assembly Bill that allows immigrants who meet certain standards to pay resident tuition at colleges and universities. There, I learned that there were others like me, that there were communities willing to support me. I learned to give to my community, just as I received from others. Throughout my years at this college, I organized various events promoting funding for higher education, immigration rights, and LGBTQ rights, and participated heavily in a campaign for a local measure that funded my community college. Shortly after, I transferred to a UC and received my Bachelors in Computer Science, fighting urges to switch my major to something I loved (English, Asian American Studies, Art.)Currently, I’m waiting for my application for DACA (mentioned in other answers) to fall through. I don’t drive, I can’t work. I’ve been receiving help all my life from my friends (driving me around, buying me food) and I would absolutely love to work as a front-end engineer so I could really give back to the communities that supported me.(Thanks for all your upvotes and comments, I'm really humbled. And for those of you who are sharing, thanks even more!)