Could be, but in a Tiger? Did they have a sub big enough to carry one back to Japan if they bought one, or are they just "kicking tires" so to speak.
It would have been a photo op for the folks back home. I'll see if I can find that pic of Hasegawa in a -262.
The Japanese did buy a Pz.kpfw. VI Tiger, chassis number 250455 for 645,000 RM. They also bought a Pz.Kpfw. V ausf D Panther. s far as I know they were never shipped back to Japan. Good, thing because neither tank would have been practical or added any capability to the Japanese military. They were expensive in resources and industrial capacity and the areas they could have operated were extremely limited due to terrain types, lack of or inadequate transportation infrastructure and logistical support requirements.
The individuals are Japanese military attaches, but their identies have not to my knowledge been 100% confirmed. Japanese military attaches are known to have visited both the Henschel plant and sPzAbt 502 in the field.
Since I can't start a new thread, I'll post this one here. Number 12 pic to pic apart. Seems like it would have been damaged more after crashing.
The picture looks reasonably authentic. It is possible it was a test run that never got up to speed. Hitting the ground at 400-450 miles an hour would likely caused it to disintegrate as Takao sagely pointed out!
Seems to be a still from a video. A reverse image search turned up a statement that this is in Holland (I doubt the accuracy of this given that it was on a photo sharing type website), but otherwise there I could not find further detail.