Investing and discount brokerage in Japan

Hello,
has anybody on this list any experience in personal investments into shares, funds and ETFs here in Japan. Any information on this topic is welcome since I don’t seem to be able to understand how things are done in Japan.
Do discount brokers exist and can you recommend any financial services or bank?
What about the NISA? Is anybody participating in this plan?
Maybe there is a foreigners investor club out there where people can share information.
Thanks,
MM

I don’t have any specific recommendations, but Ben (Sendai Ben) has an excellent blog “Retire Japan”, he’s written about NISA accounts e.g. http://www.retirejapan.info/nisa.html

One key tip, for any brokerage website accounts you set up in Japan, be sure to choose the account type where it automatically calculates any tax due at year end - I think this is normally called the “ippan” (一般) account.

Thank you, keep up the good work!
MM