One example I can think of immediately is CitiBank.
They do have branches in Japan, so if you have an account, you should be withdraw your money from the bank or ATM here in Japan.
Many Japanese banks have their branches abroad, but not sure if they handle personal accounts, as I understood that their main function is to deal with other banks abroad.
Basically, it is possible to transfer money from any bank abroad to any bank in Japan, as far as one has an account to receive the money.
[Edit: these banks abroad should be handling foreign exchange business.]
The problem is, charges for international money transfer is very expensive.
Last year my friend sent me JPY10,000 from Hungary to my account in a Japanese bank in Tokyo.
The charge was taken from the amount by the Hungarian bank (JPY750), and when I received the amount, my bank also charged me JPY2,500 (this is standard as the charge to receive money from abroad to an account in Japanese bank), so the total amount I actually received was JPY6,750. In this case it was JPY3,250 but it could be more, depending on the banks.
Another problem is that not all the banks have correspondent agreement with every bank in the world. That means, if you use bank A in your country to transfer the money to bank B in another country, and if the banks A and B are not correspondent banks, the transfer needs to go through yet another bank C who has correspondent agreement with both A and B. If there's no such bank, then the money goes through yet another bank D.
Each bank charges either the sender or receiver of the money, and total cost could be way too much especially when the amount of money one intends to transfer is not so big.
I've read somewhere that using internet banking system could charge much less, but I have no experience there...
by that I don't mean english-speanking bank, of course, but some that will not make problems like demanding to have seal for signature etc...
