Comment 7 for bug 616159

I've solved this problem for me.

Following information here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1487447
Basically I removed all Japanese fonts listed as installed in Synaptic, and then installed only these:
ttf-kochi-mincho-naga10
ttf-kochi-gothic-naga10
ttf-sazanami-gothic
ttf-sazanami-mincho

Now I am getting the correct kanji consistently.

Unfortunately, I do not know which of the fonts I uninstalled was corrupted, as I do not have the time to test and experiment. I will report if I work it out, though.