Still need to wait in long immigration lines at Narita?
 

The last time i traveled to Tokyo, four years ago, nonresidents needed to wait 2 hours to get through immigrations while residents breezed through because many more agents were staffed for those queues.

Are the queues still so bad for tourists? This was the only negative experience we had during our fascinating week of touring Tokyo and Kyoto. It's especially tough after a 12+ hour flight and with another hour on the Shinkansen to get to DT.

I think it depends on how many flights are arriving.
Last year we were through customs and immigration in less than 30 minutes.

I'm not sure about the length of time wait for tourists, but the lines for non-residents were very long when we arrived back March 7 this year. As residents, we waited maybe 2 minutes, then waited for bags for about 5 minutes, and had cleared customs and sent the bags home ahead of us in a record time of 20 minutes. Nonresidents had a longer wait at immigration, but I'm not sure how long...each line had maybe 30 people in it, maybe more. Resident lines had 2 or 3 people. But like ange says, it depends on how many flights have aarrived at the same time, which is highly variable...and it also depends on how many nonresidents are on each flight. I'd allow an hour for the whole process...and if it's less, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Use Nagoya instead.

I was in Tokyo 2 years ago and arrived around 10am and the lines were long but nothing close to being 2 hours. I would say I was in line no more than 30 minutes. Actually I don't think it's a big deal at all. You sat in a plane for 9-12 hours, so what's the big deal waiting a little longer to get past customs?

We flew into Narita in the evening, 7pm last Thursday - we went through very quickly & lines were short. Guess it depends.