Just posting this in case it can help anyone who finds themself in a similar situation to me yesterday.
I was about to meet a friend for dinner, went to withdraw some cash from my Mizuho account at a combini, and my card couldn’t be read.
To be sure the issue was my card and not that specific ATM, I found an actual Mizuho branch and tried an ATM there. Same thing, it tried to read my card for a while, made a clicking sound and spat it back without letting me enter my pin, saying that it couldn’t be read.
I figured I’d have to visit my local branch today order a new one and be card-less for a couple of weeks, but turns out there’s another way!
I tried my card in the ATM again, but this time I didn’t change the language to English.
I still got an error message about being unable to read the card, but I now had the option to enter my pin. I did, and the next message I got was along the lines of ‘There was a problem with the magnetic strip of your card, but it has now been rectified’. After that I was able to withdraw cash no problem.
I’m not sure what the issue was, and not sure if this is a Mizuho only thing, but turns out you can fix your un-readable cards at their ATMs by attempting to withdraw cash or getting a balance statement, but only if you keep the interface in Japanese.
Found some extra info on it here:
https://www.mizuhobank.co.jp/tetsuduki/card_repair/index.html
by galakei