First, basic information about Japanese LaTeX (not related to TeXnicCenter):
Japanese version of LaTeX has two variants. pLaTeX is the traditional one, which can handle only characters in the range of JIS X 0208 (a Japanese Industrial Standard defining coded character sets). upLaTeX is the extended version of pLaTeX, which can handle all unicode characters. Also, other engines such as LuaLaTeX, XeLaTeX and pdfLaTeX can be used to produce Japanese documents, but pLaTeX/upLaTeX is the most common and convenient choice for writing an entire document in Japanese.
Your professor asked you to use the document class "jsarticle"; jsarticle supports both pLaTeX and upLaTeX, so you can choose which to use. I recommend upLaTeX because it supports unicode characters, but first you should ask your professor which to use (you may not use upLaTeX when he/she disallows).
Both pLaTeX and upLaTeX can output DVI (not PDF), so you have to convert DVI to PDF using a program dvipdfmx. You should note all the programs (platex.exe, uplatex.exe, dvipdfmx.exe) are included in TeX Live, but not in MiKTeX (MiKTeX has platex.exe too, but it's NOT Japanese pLaTeX).
When you use pLaTeX with jsarticle class, write test.tex
\documentclass{jsarticle}
\begin{document}
こんにちは、日本。
\end{document}
and compile with
> platex test
> dvipdfmx test
When you use upLaTeX with jsarticle class, add [uplatex] class option:
\documentclass[uplatex]{jsarticle}
and compile with
> uplatex test
> dvipdfmx test
You will get test.pdf with Japanese characters (such as kanji). When you like to use packages such as graphicx or color, you have to add driver option [dvipdfmx] to the class options list explicitly.
Then, setting up TeXnicCenter to use upLaTeX or pLaTeX. You should choose output profile "LaTeX => DVI => PDF" and specify paths for uplatex.exe (or platex.exe) and dvipdfmx.exe. Maybe this guide will help.
