[Tsuwabuki]

I was giving you general information. You are quite correct; if the MOJ (ie, immigration) has access to your COE information, and presumes that you are waiting in Japan for it to arrive, or worse, working without it, you could be denied entry until your COE process is complete.

It sounds like you don't even know if the COE has been printed. In my case, it had been printed, and MOFA refused to send it out until I had given them a date by which I was leaving, which was about two weeks in the future, but significantly sooner than my current tourist visa expired. Then they sent it. Probably by the next business day, because I got it within that two weeks, and made the one day run to Korea around the same time, a day or so earlier, I think, than what I told MOFA was my planned departure date.

I have never said you have to be out of the country; just that you must provide MOFA with a departure date so they will send the COE to your company (who would normally then be forced to send it to you, but like me, you could just pick it up in person, and then leave).

But I did not apply for the COE in person in Japan, nor as was earlier stated. I don't think MOJ has access to the COE application, because my last tourist visa, I had a COE application in process, and that was why I mentioned the fact that immigration knew I had a Korean residency and deemed that proof I didn't want Japanese residency. This was, of course, false. And I never told immigration it was true.