Quote from learner2007:
I live in Japan, so I'm not sure of this, but from what I've heard the only brokers in the U.S. thru which you could trade Japanese stocks would be IB or ETRADE.
Many people think they can open an account with a Japanese broker here. That's not possible from outside Japan as they require a local address. However there is one Japanese broker that is going to offer trading to institutional clients who are overseas from next month. But when I last spoke to them they said they might consider an individual account based on size. They didn't say how much but I would imagine $500,000+.