diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index a5d6dc2e5..70c1e9fa8 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ 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.
 
 Release 1.3.3 (released Dec 2, 2015)
 ====================================
diff --git a/sphinx/search/ja.py b/sphinx/search/ja.py
index 23de74d37..8536173ff 100644
--- a/sphinx/search/ja.py
+++ b/sphinx/search/ja.py
@@ -85,10 +85,15 @@ class MecabBinder(object):
         dict = options.get('dict')
         if dict:
             param += ' -d %s' % dict
+        
+        fs_enc = sys.getfilesystemencoding() or sys.getdefaultencoding()
 
         self.ctypes_libmecab = ctypes.CDLL(libpath)
+        self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2.argtypes = (ctypes.c_char_p,)
+        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 = self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2(param)
+        self.ctypes_mecab = ctypes.c_void_p(self.ctypes_libmecab.mecab_new2(param.encode(fs_enc)))
 
     def __del__(self):
         if self.ctypes_libmecab: