MySQL database character set and collation

The default character set is latin1_swedish_ci .  I will use utf8_general_ci instead since it seems to be the most up-to-date character set and the article I found (see reference) suggests we do.  However, I have never encountered an issue just using latin1_swedish_ci for Japanese materials.  My questions are:

  1. Can I change it back to other options later?
  2. What does "ci" mean?
  3. There are many types of utf8 in the option.  Is utf8_general_ci really the good option?

Reference:

https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204403914/default-mysql-character-set-and-collation

 

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