I think the idea of shifting the ranks down one to exclude gaijin and make the awesomest at 5000, would make sense.
Gaijin should be the top rank anyway!
BTW Dogmeat, are you serious or having a laugh?
I've been in this crazy country for quite a while... and what you said if taken seriously is quite arrogant TBH.
Just to explain in a little more detail:
gaikokujin -> "gai" means outside, "koku" means country and "Jin" is a phonetic alteration of "nin", meaning person or human. "ningen" means person.
some of the titles have this "person" title combined;
3 Shonin: Merchant
6 Ronin: Mercenary, Masterless Samurai
8 Jonin: High-Ninja
others have honorific titles combined or just simply descriptive words for the job at hand.
The reason why Gaijin is seen as racist is because it's a shortcut of the proper title, slang in other words. You won't find it in the Japanese dictionary as being a proper word.
The way people use this word does differ though. "gaijin" like myself use it sparingly to describe each other, or a service for us. Like "gaijin house" etc. Although if a Japanese person, not in your immediate circle of friends were to use "gaijin" it would be deemed insanely racist. There's a thin line between racism and familiarity, as any black american male could attest.
So basically, Japanese people have no concerns about saying the word to each other, neither do foreigners, but used out of context to formally describe people, to their face or in writing is discrimination and people have even been taken to court over it. (admittedly only by one guy here in japan, he's a kind of racial equality campaigner)
In closing, I can't really understand the logic of a Japanese class system with Gaijin being in there at all, because many "gaijin" came to Japan originally as traders and would therefore be above all classes, not being ruled by Japan but rather their sovereign lands. In addition they would be treated with respect over that of any farmer or simple warrior.
