Japan is home to one of the largest Anglican Churches, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (NSKK), in a country never part of the British Empire

Japan was first evangelized by Anglicans in 1859, when missionaries came from the American Episcopal Church, following the opening up of Japan to the West in 1853. The Americans were followed by Church of England missionaries in 1869 (C.M.S.) and 1873 (S.P.G.). Fortunately, these groups eventually did cooperate and formed the NSKK in1887 , an independent Anglican Church.

The NSKK published its first Book of Common Prayer in 1878, with a major revision in 1895. This book maintained some of the differences of the founding Churches, particularly in the Eucharist, which included both English and American forms as alternatives. There were a number of revisions to this BCP, with the last one before WW II coming in 1938. Following the war, work was started on a major revision published in 1959, portions of which are presented here. This 1959 edition had the first Japanese liturgy which was wholly original and not an adaptation / translation of English and American forms. The Eucharistic liturgy was perhaps the first Anglican liturgy to make use (albeit limited) of the liturgical revival of the previous 10-20 years, and so deviated significantly from previous Anglican forms in a number of respects; for this it received a fair amount of criticism at the time. It was, however, still in “classical” Japanese, roughly equivalent to our “Elizabethan” English. This Book was supeseded in 1990 by a new Book of Common Prayer, in contemporary Japanese. The 1959 Book is still used occasionally, however. For more on the 1959 Eucharistic liturgy, see Modern Anglican Liturgies 1958-1968, Colin Buchanan, ed. (OUP, 1968).
 

What we present here are an English translation of the Eucharist from the 1959 Japanese Book of Common Prayer, and also Morning and Evening Prayer, and the Eucharist, in Rōmaji — Japanese rendered into Roman letters, rather than the ideographs one normally sees. The English translation was made by a Canadian priest who formerly served in Japan, who has this to say about his translation:

In making this translation I have endeavoured to follow the Japanese text very closely, and although this has occasionally resulted in rather choppy English, I believe that it at least highlights the points of departure of the Japanese text. I have used Jacobean English in the translation in order to reflect that the original text is in Classical Japanese, and have tried to follow traditional Prayer Book phrasing where this is supported by the Japanese text. Scriptural passages are taken from the King James Bible.

In other words, this tranlsation is intended to be as literal as possible. The notes in the text are those of the translator.

The Rōmaji text was printed about 1964 to help (mostly English-speaking) foreigners follow the Japanese-language services. Rōmaji is seldom used in extended works like this today, but can often be seen in much shorter examples (e. g., street signs) and is sometimes used to help teach Japanese.

The 1959 Book of Common Prayer in Rōmaji:
Introduction (in English)
Morning Prayer
Holy Communion
Evening Prayer

The 1959 Eucharist Service (English translation)