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I've moved to 15mm as my scale of choice, with a fairly random collection - some goblins, Spartans & Persians, for some fairly random fantasy gaming (the aim was to cover the 2nd Persian invasion of Greece, but with more compatibility). I also want to do a feudal Japan army but want it to scale so I can do what-if games in future should I find any westerners (like Crusaders, or Greeks I guess, if you bend time a bit).

My big (and potentially insensitive question is): If I get them in 15mm, will they be the same size as my 15mm westerners, or should I be looking at say, 12mm Japanese to fight westerners? At 5'11" I towered over Japanese locals when I visited, and could barely squeeze into XL armor, which is still tiny. I get that westerners of the period were probably shorter as well though.

So what do you guys think? Should I go with 12 or 15mm Japanese to scale with 15mm <whatevers>?

I don't think it's worth trying to get models to represent actual people's heights especially as sizes between different manufacturers in the same scale can vary. Also if you get a different scale it won't just be height but the whole model that is shrunk including equipment like weapons

That's a good point, I hadn't considered equipment sizes. I've no idea how they scale

Yes, there is a lot of variation of size of a standard model between different manufacturers.

Especially in 15mm there is less scope for making samurai smaller than Europeans. Historically I don't know if samurai of say 1400 were actually smaller than Europeans. The standard of nutrition was not exactly good in Europe at that time.