diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 70c1e9fa8..8979c4049 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #1580: Fix paragraphs in longtable don't work in Latex output
 * #1366: Fix centered image not centered in latex
 * #1860: Fix man page using ``:samp:`` with braces - font doesn't reset
-* #1610 Sphinx crashes in japanese indexing in some systems.
+* #1610: Sphinx crashes in japanese indexing in some systems
+* Fix Sphinx crashes if mecab initialization failed
 
 Release 1.3.3 (released Dec 2, 2015)
 ====================================
diff --git a/sphinx/search/ja.py b/sphinx/search/ja.py
index 5ccff34b6..3acbb649a 100644
--- a/sphinx/search/ja.py
+++ b/sphinx/search/ja.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     native_module = False
 
+from sphinx.errors import SphinxError
 from sphinx.search import SearchLanguage
 
 
@@ -93,7 +94,9 @@ class MecabBinder(object):
         self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2.restype = ctypes.c_void_p
         self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_sparse_tostr.argtypes = (ctypes.c_void_p, ctypes.c_char_p)
         self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_sparse_tostr.restype = ctypes.c_char_p
-        self.ctypes_mecab = ctypes.c_void_p(self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2(param.encode(fs_enc)))
+        self.ctypes_mecab = self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2(param.encode(fs_enc))
+        if self.ctypes_mecab is None:
+            raise SphinxError('mecab initialization failed')
 
     def __del__(self):
         if self.ctypes_libmecab: