A couple years ago Switzerland changed the rules that companies shipping to Switzerland must collect and administer Swiss VAT and companies the size of Amazon said fuck it! and thus don't ship from the US any more. I suspect that the same goes for Amazon Japan.
That sounds very strange. Norway is in a similar position as Switzerland in terms of trade, and Amazon has for the past 10 years collected Norwegian VAT up front when using express shipping.
This year the government mandated that international sellers registered for VAT and Amazon has registered all their local stores in Norway
A couple years ago Switzerland changed the rules that companies shipping to Switzerland must collect and administer Swiss VAT and companies the size of Amazon said fuck it! and thus don't ship from the US any more. I suspect that the same goes for Amazon Japan.