diff --git a/spacy/ja/__init__.py b/spacy/ja/__init__.py
index f9ab7b560..2915d6330 100644
--- a/spacy/ja/__init__.py
+++ b/spacy/ja/__init__.py
@@ -14,6 +14,9 @@ class Japanese(Language):
     lang = 'ja'
 
     def make_doc(self, text):
-        from janome.tokenizer import Tokenizer
+        try:
+            from janome.tokenizer import Tokenizer
+        except ImportError:
+            raise ImportError("The Japanese tokenizer requires the Janome library: https://github.com/mocobeta/janome")
         words = [x.surface for x in Tokenizer().tokenize(text)]
         return Doc(self.vocab, words=words, spaces=[False]*len(words))