diff --git a/spring-restdocs-core/src/main/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifier.java b/spring-restdocs-core/src/main/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifier.java
index b722038e..e53ff431 100644
--- a/spring-restdocs-core/src/main/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifier.java
+++ b/spring-restdocs-core/src/main/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifier.java
@@ -17,8 +17,8 @@
 package org.springframework.restdocs.operation.preprocess;
 
 import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
+import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
-import java.io.StringWriter;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ public class PrettyPrintingContentModifier implements ContentModifier {
 		if (originalContent.length > 0) {
 			for (PrettyPrinter prettyPrinter : PRETTY_PRINTERS) {
 				try {
-					return prettyPrinter.prettyPrint(originalContent).getBytes();
+					return prettyPrinter.prettyPrint(originalContent);
 				}
 				catch (Exception ex) {
 					// Continue
@@ -72,24 +72,25 @@ public class PrettyPrintingContentModifier implements ContentModifier {
 
 	private interface PrettyPrinter {
 
-		String prettyPrint(byte[] content) throws Exception;
+		byte[] prettyPrint(byte[] content) throws Exception;
 
 	}
 
 	private static final class XmlPrettyPrinter implements PrettyPrinter {
 
 		@Override
-		public String prettyPrint(byte[] original) throws Exception {
+		public byte[] prettyPrint(byte[] original) throws Exception {
 			Transformer transformer = TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer();
 			transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.INDENT, "yes");
 			transformer.setOutputProperty("{http://xml.apache.org/xslt}indent-amount",
 					"4");
 			transformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.DOCTYPE_PUBLIC, "yes");
-			StringWriter transformed = new StringWriter();
+			ByteArrayOutputStream transformed = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
 			transformer.setErrorListener(new SilentErrorListener());
 			transformer.transform(createSaxSource(original),
 					new StreamResult(transformed));
-			return transformed.toString();
+
+			return transformed.toByteArray();
 		}
 
 		private SAXSource createSaxSource(byte[] original)
@@ -145,11 +146,13 @@ public class PrettyPrintingContentModifier implements ContentModifier {
 
 	private static final class JsonPrettyPrinter implements PrettyPrinter {
 
+		private final ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper()
+				.configure(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT, true);
+
 		@Override
-		public String prettyPrint(byte[] original) throws IOException {
-			ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper()
-					.configure(SerializationFeature.INDENT_OUTPUT, true);
-			return objectMapper.writeValueAsString(objectMapper.readTree(original));
+		public byte[] prettyPrint(byte[] original) throws IOException {
+			return this.objectMapper
+					.writeValueAsBytes(this.objectMapper.readTree(original));
 		}
 	}
 
diff --git a/spring-restdocs-core/src/test/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifierTests.java b/spring-restdocs-core/src/test/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifierTests.java
index 8e5633a7..84accb52 100644
--- a/spring-restdocs-core/src/test/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifierTests.java
+++ b/spring-restdocs-core/src/test/java/org/springframework/restdocs/operation/preprocess/PrettyPrintingContentModifierTests.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2014-2015 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2014-2016 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -16,12 +16,17 @@
 
 package org.springframework.restdocs.operation.preprocess;
 
+import java.util.HashMap;
+import java.util.Map;
+
+import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;
 import org.junit.Rule;
 import org.junit.Test;
 
 import org.springframework.restdocs.test.OutputCapture;
 
 import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.equalTo;
+import static org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.is;
 import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.isEmptyString;
 import static org.junit.Assert.assertThat;
 
@@ -68,4 +73,16 @@ public class PrettyPrintingContentModifierTests {
 				null), equalTo(content.getBytes()));
 
 	}
+
+	@Test
+	public void encodingIsPreserved() throws Exception {
+		Map<String, String> input = new HashMap<>();
+		input.put("japanese", "\u30b3\u30f3\u30c6\u30f3\u30c4");
+		ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
+		@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
+		Map<String, String> output = objectMapper
+				.readValue(new PrettyPrintingContentModifier().modifyContent(
+						objectMapper.writeValueAsBytes(input), null), Map.class);
+		assertThat(output, is(equalTo(input)));
+	}
 }