I heard a talk by a Japanese investigator who remarked that though Japan is the 8th least religious country in the world several people report cases of claimed reincarnation broadly similar to cases that have been reported in India, Lanka, Thailand & Burma. He also mentioned that

even in the 1800s such a case had been reported & bore close parallels to cases found in the Indosphere. He seemed have gathered some interesting data on such cases & remarked that he had e.g.s of kids who claimed such memory were not significantly enriched in bauddha-s.

The 1800s Japanese metempsychosis claim offers an independent parallel to those investigated by modern sleuths like Stevenson, Pasricha etc. It does raise the question as why these cases have cross-cultural similarity.