Using the parse method of SimpleDateFormat with Japanese text retuns a null pointer. English works fine. Test case below using the unicode from Japanese text: import java.text.*;
import java.util.*;

class ParseBug {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Date date = new Date();

        SimpleDateFormat fmt = new SimpleDateFormat("MMM d yyyy");
        Date d = fmt.parse("1 \267\356 1 1998", new ParsePosition(0));
        System.out.println("d = " + d.toString());
    }
}