Moving to Japan from the US full-time

Me and my wife are both in love with Japan and it's culture. We're both living in the US now, going through school. Our dream is to move to Japan once we've gotten our degrees. My question is how realistic is this goal for us? We don't know much Japanese now but we're studying while in school. Say we both have Masters degrees (mine would be in History/Applied History and my wife would be in Studio Art), how difficult will it be to find work full-time in Japan? Our idea was to save atleast $15000 to sustain us when we did make the jump, while we looked for work.

All help is appreciated

Whats your goal, what do you hope to accomplish? Teaching english? Look at the Nova case.

Learning Japanese is important if you want to work in anything other then teaching english or somesort of IT job.

Steve you have a very ambitious goal. I lived in Japan for three years but had the military as a pillow. You should contact the respective consulates for any all information you will need. Also having a Japanese mentor I would think essential. One thing that you should plan on is to have a bail out plan. This should be a return plane ticket just in case. This was required of us and may be in your case. Japan is a wonderful country with great people . One comment. The Japanese are gracious in private social life but can be cool when it comes to work related matters so be aware. not all interactions will be cool

In my three years there we learned to speak some Japanese but were still not very good even as we lived in a japanese apt. Reading the language is another matter. For all practical matters it is impossible. I met a missionary who had been there 20 years and could speak the language pretty well but reading was still a definate problem. You suould secure work before you locate there. Try and find someone how has done this before you make the jump.

Part of me wants to say that I'd be content teaching English forever, although the more I read about it, that doesn't seem very nice.

Ideally, I'd like to start off teaching English, while learning the language. Once some time goes by, I might be fluent enough to search for a different job more suited for my field. Where would me and my wife go, job wise, once we got fed up with teaching English? What else is out there, at that point?

There are many foreign-affiliated companies in major cities like Tokyo where a lot of foreigners work. If you look at any job ads on the Englich newspapers in Japan, you may find some jobs. But, they may need experienced persons in their field.
So, I would like to suggest to you that you visit Japan as often as possible while you gain your experience in your professional field in the US.