[Nyororin]

You can adopt outside of family, it`s just a difficult process and the laws in place don`t work all that well in the case of true orphans.
Even with children placed in "orphanages", parents/families do not give the child up - they`re just placed "temporarily" in care. It`s my understanding that in order for an adoption to take place the family has to give the child up... And when there is no family, well, that`s a very hard one to pull off.

I know of several people who have managed to adopt in Japan, but it was a long drawn out process. As the children aren`t given up to begin with, it seems that you have to go into it without having any clue whether they ever would be willing to give the child up. In other words, spending lots of time getting to know a child without ever knowing if their parents would be willing to consider letting them be adopted.
You can easily volunteer as an "aunt" or "uncle" at these homes, and sometimes even become a weekend foster parent for children... But when it comes to getting their parents to give them to someone not blood related, things get tricky.