I wouldn`t say that Japan is as much a cash society as people often say - credit cards are pretty common and these days most places accept them.
However, debit cards are pretty much nonexistent. It`s either cash, card, or recently prepaid electronic cash cards. There really isn`t anything that will draw money from a cash well in the bank like a debit card or a check.
My household bills are paid by direct withdraw. I get a notification for the amount, and it is automatically taken from my bank account. One or two (net and long distance, lumped together) are paid by credit card (which is paid by auto withdraw, so really it`s auto withdraw in the end.)
If something special comes up, I usually pay by bank transfer.
For groceries I pay with cash about 75% of the time. If I go to Aeon/Jusco - I pay with Waon (prepaid electronic cash card). The Waon card is automatically charged via my credit card in 3000 yen amounts when it drops below 1000 yen... And my credit card is paid by automatic withdraw.
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What happens if they're making a spur of the moment large purchase but don't have enough cash on them? Do they leave, get the money, and come back?
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What do you consider a "large purchase"? That is an important part of the question. $50? $100? $500?
I regularly carry around 30,000 yen. I feel stress if I have less than 10,000 stashed away in my wallet. As I tend to get the cash out at pay day and actually budget for the rest of the month - depending on the plans, I occasionally have 100,000 in there.
I can`t really imagine making a spur of the moment purchase of over 30,000. To be quite honest, I can`t really picture one of over about 8000. That`s sort of where my spending regulator kicks in. (As it`s hard to cover without pain)
And really, even if for some incredibly strange reason I decided to throw reason to the wind and buy something 30,000+ on the spur of the moment... I find it hard to think of anything I would want that would be sold somewhere that didn`t accept credit cards.