Same card worked via Apple wallet for other transactions, and the Visa thing is a known issue historically (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255018680?sortBy=rank). A local friend confirmed the fix, but I can't seem to find any info from Apple or Visa about it.
It's working now (https://atadistance.net/2023/12/15/apple-pay-suica-visa-rech...) and has been working since ~2023. The last hurdle many face is that if you disable location services, sometimes the transaction is still blocked as they can now geofence it to just Japan with foreign bank cards.
