So... I am moving to Japan from America soon and there's a world transfer program...

[Furiea]

I shall answer all your questions.

First of all, is there an English setting available to players in Japanese servers? I may be going to Japan, but my kanji skills are really bad, and at the very least, I want to be able to read my quests without having to flip between google translate and the game, and my concern for being able to chat with others around me isn't that big a concern.

if you registered English copy of the game.. when you re-download/re-install.. it will be in English just like how it is in NA. the keyboard setting is tied to your PC's keyboard setting. one thing you need to do is to highlight/enable other language in your Duty Finder setting otherwise the DF will search pure English party for you.. which means you will wait in quene FOREVER.

Second of all, what is the lag like between Japan and the US? If it is not so bad, I might be willing to not change to a JP server... or, transfer servers well before my trip

I am located in NJ,USA, which is very close to the original NA server before it moved to CA. BUT I have been playing on Tonberry, a JP server for 2 years now.. the connection is fine at 180~220 ping. You don't get instant feedback from server but the delay is not nearly as bad as what people sad. I haven't get knocked over by anything for a long time now. (I was knocked out by titan the first 3 times I fought him becasue I was not used to the initial ping change.)

Third of all, is there a way to copy chat that is in-game onto your clipboard and paste it somewhere else? I know you can highlight it...

use boarderless setting. bookmark google translate on the google search page (instead of the webpage of the google translate) you can copy & paste Party Finder comment. (SE put this in 2 patches go and I was super excited because now I can translate them) you can also highlight chat, Ctrl+C to copy them.

I use the google translate on the search page because you can hit the left/right arrow and start typing English and have it translated into Japanese for you. (this can not be done in the google translate webpage.) but be warned... the google translate is not almighty... use simple word like "bathroom" instead of "oh man.. I am not really well.. i need to take a big one on the toilet" my friend laugh at the translate that came out from google translate all the time... lol