Historical and contemporary international migration with respect to Japan has been examined through a literature review of articles on the subject published in the journal International Migration Review (imr) from its first issue. By way of an introduction, the first thing to be examined is the phenomenon of Japanese migration, in general and from a historical/structural perspective. There is also an introduction to the journal imr followed by an analysis of the thirteen articles published between 1969 and 2002, written by various authors. Together these provide an overview of Japanese emigration to the Americas, labor immigration in Japan (legal and illegal), the formation of transnational communities and interethnic relations involving Japanese people or their descendants. Finally, there is a personal appraisal of the contribution of these articles and a section regarding new subjects to investigate.