About civillians:

People were throroughly shocked. They had revered the emperor as a God. Imagine their disbelief when the emperor announced their defeat. This bit by Kenzaburo Oe, Literature Nobel Prize winner, shows the shock they felt specifically when they could hear the emperor speak in a human voice. A lot of the young people, who had grown up in an age of extreme nationalism (which started as early as the twenties), started to feel betrayed, and lied to. Not immediately of course, but in the course of a few years it came to light how much they'd been lied to, how recklessly the war administration had acted.

Some people committed seppuku when they heard the Emperor say the nation had been defeated, but most accepted it, albeit very scared.

General MacArthur, responsible for the occupation of Japan noted that the defeat was a sobering experience for the Japanese, and wrote thus: "the defeat created a moral and fysical void. It was the collapse of a belief, the decay of all they had believed and had fought for"

People could be divided into two groups, one smaller group having a hard time accepting the defeat, but the other, bigger half, wanting actual reformations, and thinking the current reform wasn't even radical enough. Most Japanese wanted to leave the past behind as soon as possible, and turned away from all militarism and any tarnished signs of the Japanese tradition. They felt betrayed and victims of their own system, and wanted it cleared for once and forever.

MacArthur and the Americans allowed the emperor to stay even though he held considerable responsibility for the war, which was a smart move. The Japanese had lost belief in their emperor as a God (the Americans even made him declare that he was a human on New Year 1946), and people came to see him as a 'rebuilding figure of peace'. He was seen as a poetry-loving Japanese example, now no longer god, but one of the Japanese themselves. Any blame he had for the war, he's never had to face openly. Lots of historians argue that this is the reason Japan still hasn't come to fully accept it's war past, and some still see themselves as victims more so than the ones responsible.

Another reason Japanese people often supported the occupators, is that they had already shown intent to democratisation before, since the Taisho-period. Even before MacArthur could mention civil rights, the Japanese had already come up with a huge petition for woman voting rights. This allowed for a more smooth cooperation between the (progressive part of the) Japanese and the Americans, which in turns made the changes in law and politics less of a shock, and less forced, because they could be better tailored for the Japanese situation, and were often presented by Japanese people.

Sources: Een geschiedenis van Japan (translated: a history of Japan) - W. Vande Walle

Op zoek naar het nieuwe Japan (looking for the new Japan) - E. Adriaenssens & D. Vanoverbeke