People going through the embassy in Brazil have reported that they did not have to translate things. But Portuguese is a lot easier to learn to read for an English or French speaker than Japanese, which is what the OP is dealing with. The foreign service officers tend to move embassies every two years or so, which is obviously not enough time to learn to read a language like Japanese, Chinese, etc. - so some of them will most definitely not be able to read the official language of the country they are posted to. CIC states everything has to be in French or English; submitting untranslated evidence may work sometimes, but you run the risk of having this evidence ignored, and thus maybe not getting the PR visa.
