[ryuurui]

you do not need to be married to a Japanese. Being married to another permanent resident works as well.

Also, workig in Japan on a working visa for 7 or 10 consecutive years, i don't remember exactly, (unless they've changed it) wil also allow you to start application process.

Whichever way you go, you need to go through the long term resident / spouse visa first. This stage is 5 years

Student visa counts as residence, so if you change the status from student to long term resident (as I did) it will count towards your 5 years of residency perdiod, that is required for lunching the permanenet residency application.

@Daisaku You do not need the lawyer, accountant is advisable though. Yugen is not that expensive, 120k or so, including the stamp, plus accountant fees. And before you go to JETRO make sure they do research on your area of interest firrst, or otherwise it will be a waste of time.