You could also try using Arial or Arial Unicode as the editor font. As far as I know, Japanese, Chinese and many other font sets will work (but not for Korean and a few others if you are using US Windows--for some it requires the native version of Windows). Also if you have trouble entering the text in "Overview" mode, try clicking "Details" for any given item and entering the text there. Note that this is just for the MediaLab Experiment Editor. Now, once you see the text appearing properly in the Editor, then there are a couple steps you need to take in the main MediaLab Preferences menu to have it appear properly in the session itself (e.g., setting the same font as in the Editor and esp the *script*--in this case, the latter to Japanese) .

Btw, is this on an American machine running US Windows (not just US Regional settings but the actual Japanese version of Windows)? Also, you mention DirectRT--I ought to ask to be clear--these answers are just for MediaLab--right now DirectRT is a different story altogether--even if it's embedded within a larger MediaLab session. Worst case, btw, I can certainly help hook you up with some other users who have had success in using Japanese fonts with MediaLab. I know users from as far back as 4-5 years ago who worked this out--esp after we added the script function in the MediaLab preferences menu.

And a note for future reference re MediaLab and DirectRT--in the next versions (v2010) I'm hoping we can switch out the text fields in the experiment editors with "formatable" ones like you see in Excel--and that you can then see that formatting automatically carried over into your MediaLab and DirectRT sessions. This would included font, size, colour (color), underlining, script, italics, bold, etc., where you could apply such to any individual field.

If any other users have experience/success with the use of non-Western/European fonts, please feel free to continue this exchange here--it might provide useful info for those looking to deal with similar issues.