Can you buy japanese ebooks for Kobo from overseas?

Hello,

I'm considering buying a Kobo e-reader (the Aura HD), and I would like to know how this lines up with japanese learning.

Can you buy japanese ebooks from Rakuten's shop if you don't live in Japan? Do you need a VPN? Do you also need a japanese credit card?

I would really like to know if anybody has any experience with this; the only ebook threads I found seem to deal with Kindle exclusively.

Thanks.