I don't think most Japanese CC terminals have that option. Even if it did I highly doubt most merchant staff have been trained on how to do so. In any case, I've had problems with mine as well, and the same places won't play nice with my UA Club card so I'm guessing it's the metallic design.

I should note that at a couple of small shops in Komatsu I was asked if I had "a normal card" and as far as I could figure out they just wanted a chip card; my (still metallic) Marriott Visa worked fine in those cases.