When I went to Japan a lot of people spoke English. I don't think we had any trouble. Everyone was very helpful. At one point my granddad and I were looking at a map trying to figure out how far we were from our hotel, and a guy came up and asked us in English if we needed help, and when we told him where we were staying he walked with us like 2.5km to make sure we got there! (This was in ye olde days before smartphones, so we were using paper maps.)