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

[Furiea]

What is Tonberry like? Is the community nice? Are there any nice FCs? OH and I would kill to eventually be in an FC with a place Shirogane with an RP habit (though only if its English speaking or whatnot lol)

first thing first... Tonberry is prob the only JP server that's over populated? they added Tonberry to the overpopulated list. so I am not sure if Tonberry should be your first choice. Maybe another world that's in the same Data center as Tonberry? so you get the cheap price items and housing (tonberry housing is 100% full) while benefit from the skilled player base of tonberry.

I think Tonberry has decent amount of English speaking players and large Englihs FCs ... multiple of them.. are they nice? I don't know. but they do recruit often in Chat. (you can take a look at the English World section on the forum and see what FC are recruiting) http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/666-Community

I think most JP players are used to seeing English player even known you will still see "JP only" in Party Finder. but don't let it get to you. being unable to communicate for difficult raid is a problem. the rest really is the same. I was on Sagaratas before I moved to tonberry... the first thing I noticed besides the ping is how much more skilled the player base is than Sagaratas.