Hi there, knowledgeable lads and TeX-savvy ladies!

...

Ok, so I'm trying to include Japanese writing in LaTeX and am absolutely unable to find a comprehensible "How to include Japanese writing in LaTeX" guide (for dummies) anywhere.

I've already downloaded the CJK package (http://cjk.ffii.org/) and found this manual (http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/cs/cjk.html), but I don't get it to work.

Does anyone here have experience with LaTeX and Japanese and would like to share how he/she overcame the problem? x_x

~ Hinode

This link might be of help to you: Using LaTeX to make PDF documents with Japanese characters.

The Chinese examples at the links in your post caused all sorts of problems for my Debian Tex Live install but something simple like this compiles no problem with pdflatex (but doesn't work properly with latex):

Code:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{CJK}
\begin{document}
  \begin{CJK*}{UTF8}{min}
    \section{What I learned today}
    I can write this 私はキランです in Japanese.
  \end{CJK*}
\end{document}

Note use of UTF8 encoding, JIS won't work on my machine.

edit:
JIS didn't work because I didn't have the necessary fonts installed. The xfonts-intl-japanese package fixes that problem.

I'll try this out, thank you.

There are versions of TeX/LaTeX specifically made for Japanese. Google "pTeX," "pLaTeX," and "Japanese." They're extremely popular in Japan and used by Japanese scientists and students alike. I haven't seen a Japanese guy who only uses standard TeX/LaTeX. I also switch to pTeX when I write something professional in Japanese. Installation etc. can vary depending on your OS and LaTeX setups. If it's not urgent, it might be a good exercise to google around in Japanese so you can use pTeX/pLaTeX.