I suggest you go to How-to-learn-any-language.com and visit their forums. This question has been answered many times by experienced polyglots with several languages under their belts, rather than people with little experience.
Immersion is effective, but when I say that I am including active input in my definition of immersion. I am saying that you cannot passively learn anything. In my view, there really is no such thing as passive input--not sublingual language tapes, no "just being around speakers" without mental effort engaged in trying to understand them, will put vocabulary and grammar into your head. Being around people, watching tv, etc, all have to be used actively.
So you don't need to go to your target country. When you visit that site, you will see there was an experienced polyglot who never left Italy but learned something like 20 languages. All you have to do is give yourself as many high quality active input hours as possible.
The rest is moot, really. There could be a lot of time spent worrying over which method is best, but in the end it's probably best to "Ready, Fire, Aim" and just spend all that time studying.
The most important thing is that you have a good textbook with good grammar that will take you a while to work through--you can find vocabulary lists online for free. I recommend you do everything for free and do not enroll in a class unless you have motivation problems. Self-studying is more effective because classes will go too slow for the energetic goal-aspiring learner, and they will not be molded to your individual goals.
When you need pronunciation help, you can do language exchanges over Skype and other online methods, post on Craiglist (like someone else said) for language exchanges, or go to your local university campus and meet Japanese students. At that time, you should up your listening skills with all the free audio and video content that is available in your target language on the web.
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