One book you might want to check out is Japan at War An Oral History edited by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook . It covers a whole range of perspectives from multiple angles, civilian and military. Another recent account in the same vein is Leaves from an Autumn of Emergencies: Selections from the Wartime Diaries of Ordinary Japanese edited by Samuel Hideo Yamashita. To good literary accounts of the war, and ones often referenced in the postwar, are Shohei Ooka's Fires on the Plain and Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama (although the latter did not serve in the military). *Soldiers Alive by Ishikawa Tatsuzo may not have the cachet as the other literary works, but it does vividly portray the war in China in its brutality.

I posted this on another recent thread but one example that has been translated into English is Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story by Shohei Ooka, although it mainly deals with his POW experience and doesn't spend much time on the fighting itself. It's not the most readable book ever, but it does give great insight into the experience of Japanese soldiers in the war and their experiences with the US in general. Ooka's novel Fires on the Plain, while fictional, is based on his experience fighting in the Philippines and is also a good look into the mentality of the time and place.