[2] Despite this, he would eventually earn an athletic scholarship to play college soccer at Western Illinois University after moving to the United States, where he took an intensive English-language course and the SAT, on which he achieved a near-perfect score on its mathematics section.

[1] A four-year letterman with the Leathernecks from 2003 to 2006,[3] he also played with the Thunder Bay Chill of the USL Premier Development League.

Kimura was traded to Portland Timbers in exchange for allocation money and an international roster slot in July 2012.

[8] Five months later, Kimura was traded to New York Red Bulls along with a second-round pick in the 2013 MLS SuperDraft in exchange for Home Grown Player rights to Bryan Gallego and allocation money.

[15] Kimura holds a U.S. green card which qualifies him as a domestic player for MLS roster purposes.