I feel there's a bit of a miss-conception about the attack on Pearl Harbor in this question that needs to be dealt with first.

Pearl Harbor was a military operation to support Japan's push to the South from the home islands, into the Philippines and Dutch East Indies. Navy Leaders were planning the attack on Pearl Harbor, but they were not really considering the larger issues of whether or not Germany would jump in.

That said, the political leaders were not in lock step and there was much difference of opinion regarding entering the war and what outcomes there might be. Generally, it was considered a large advantage for Japan that Germany had already invaded Russia, focusing Russian efforts away from their eastern borders (there was actually some debate as to whether or not Japan should attack Russia instead of to the south as it was felt the two nations would inevitably fight some day and there were large advantages to striking while Germany had so much of Russia's military occupied - see "The Rising Sun" by John Toland between pages 70-83).

Privy Council President Yoshimichi Hara was actually afraid that the attack on the US by Japan would cause American politicians to make peace with Germany, since they were all Caucasians, to focus on Japan ("Rising Sun, P.131). This is merely mentioned to highlight the earlier statement that the Japanese leaders were not in lock step with each other.

The meat to the answer of your question is on page 180 of 'Rising Sun," where Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō instructs Japans ambassador to German Hiroshi Ōshima to warn Hitler of potential sudden military actions on November 29 but did not request a declaration of war against the US from Germany. The same day he spoke to German Ambassador Eugen Ott and did ask if Germany would provide assistance "if worst came to worst."

So the truest answer may be "Japan hoped Germany would declare war, but did not truly expect or ask for it."