I'm not a Japanese expert but in my humble opinion, it's hard to call any fonts with Japanese support equivalents to Latin designs because of the writing style differences.

Having said that, I would suggest a gothic style for Univers and a Mincho style for a serif or Sabon.

You can get an idea of the styles available here:
http://www.ascenderfonts.com/category/japanese-fonts.aspx

Could work:
Univers -> Hiragino Kaku Gothic
Sabon -> Adobe Song/MSung
Courier -> M+ 1m

See also here:
http://typophile.com/node/62645

Finding the Japanese equivalent of Courier is the interesting bit. Courier is used for many reasons. Sometimes, it is used to evoke the output of typewriters. Sometimes, it is used mainly because it is a monospaced font, especially to display code.

Now, because most Japanese typefaces are monospaced anyway when it comes to the kana and the kanji, it's tricky to decide what to use for the translation when in the original Courier was used only because it is a monospaced font.

I might be wrong, but I have the feeling that in Japan the Courier rough equivalent is probably the monolinear, rounded ナール(Nar). It's visually distinct from the Mincho or Gothic styles, and is quite widely used. I'm having trouble finding any information on it in English, though. Here's the Japanese Wikipedia page: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ナール

I would browse the fonts at the Morisawa or Iwata websites. Your body font (the Univers equivalent) will probably be a basic Gothic of some kind. For the other two, you'll want to choose whatever fits the character of the book. Don't constrain yourself too closely to matching Sabon or (ugh) Courier.

It's hard to say the equivalents without seeing the design you try to make, but,

If you need to set Japanese font and Univers together in the same page, I recommend you use AXIS Font from Type Project. AXIS Font covers wide range weights and has smart skeleton, each weight style of which was developed along with the one of Linotype Univers. Axis trial fonts are available to use from here. The trial version font has only Regular weight and the limitation that Kanji have about 1000 characters only, but all Hiragana and Katakana characters are included, so you can check the looking of it before buying it. Of course, the retail version of AXIS Fonts have all Kanji characters (Adobe-Japan1-3).

The retail site is here.
This site is only Japanese language, but the customer support via Contact will answer your request in English.

Apple Japan uses AXIS fonts on its web site. You can also browse them here.

Sabon goes well with Mincho style. Kozuka Mincho from Adobe might be good for Sabon. And Kozuka and AXIS, both Kanas of these have similar skeleton, I think these work well together. Kozuka family has Gothic style but it has tiny serifs on the end of strokes, so I recommend AXIS for Gothic style.

Unfortunately, almost of Japanese foundry don't support the order from overseas. However, Linotype deals with Typebank family, it would be helpful for you to get Japanese fonts quickly. Typebank Gothic and Mincho would be useful to combine with Univers and Sabon.

Which Courier, rounded or edged? Its hard to find the an equivalent of Courier. I can say rounded san-serif might be better, but Gothic would be also no problem for it.

M+ 1m might be good for it, but it seems to be in progress now, so it doesn't have enough Kanji characters to set Japanese texts.

I hope it would be helpful for you.

Best regards.

Kunihiko Okano Shotype.com

hello,

when i was living in japan, i bought some cds with japanese typefaces on it, which i used here and there since then. it contains a lot of type, with a lot of different styles; some of them might very well fit your requirements.

send me an email if you want to discuss this: davidrault (a) gmail.

dr

thanks everyone for your input. this is incredibly helpful.

the main typeface will be the univers equivalent - and from the discussions here, it seems Axis, Hiragino, will work. Sabon equivalent is not used often, but i realized is set in a multiplicity of styles (regular, bold, italic, bold italic). i will need to make some decisions about type based on the mincho selection. the courier type is the rounded version. the ナール(Nar) typeface seems to fit this purpose.

thanks again.

the rounded version. the ナール(Nar) typeface seems to fit this purpose

You could want to search for "maru" in the english names of fonts for that style.