Which string data type is best for a field containing Japanese characters?

The best choice for a field containing Japanese characters is WString. WString, or Wide String, is specifically designed to handle Unicode, which is essential for representing characters outside of the standard ASCII range, including complex character sets such as those found in Japanese.

The reason WString is preferred for languages like Japanese is that it uses two bytes per character, allowing it to encompass a much broader array of characters. This makes it suitable for not only Japanese but also for many other languages that utilize symbols, accents, and characters that do not appear in the Latin alphabet.

In contrast, the other string data types may not retain the integrity of the characters when processing Japanese text. A standard String type typically accommodates basic ASCII characters and may fail or lead to incorrect representations of characters from a broader set. VString is less commonly used and pertains to variable-length strings, while Char generally represents single bytes, which are also inadequate for multi-byte character representations needed for languages with extensive character sets like Japanese.