Check to see what output encoding your console has, to make sure the output of your apps don't end up encoded as Ascii.
> $OutputEncoding
IsSingleByte : True
BodyName : us-ascii
EncodingName : US-ASCII
HeaderName : us-ascii
WebName : us-ascii
WindowsCodePage : 1252
IsBrowserDisplay : False
IsBrowserSave : False
IsMailNewsDisplay : True
IsMailNewsSave : True
EncoderFallback : System.Text.EncoderReplacementFallback
DecoderFallback : System.Text.DecoderReplacementFallback
IsReadOnly : True
CodePage : 20127
Set it to UTF8
> $OutputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding
> $OutputEncoding
BodyName : utf-8
EncodingName : Unicode (UTF-8)
HeaderName : utf-8
WebName : utf-8
WindowsCodePage : 1200
IsBrowserDisplay : True
IsBrowserSave : True
IsMailNewsDisplay : True
IsMailNewsSave : True
IsSingleByte : False
EncoderFallback : System.Text.EncoderReplacementFallback
DecoderFallback : System.Text.DecoderReplacementFallback
IsReadOnly : False
CodePage : 65001
Choose a font that supports your desired character set:
- right clicking on the powershell title bar and choose properties
- Go to the font tab
- SimSun-ExtB supports Japanese characters