So I fear that your schooling did you a diservice by never dispelling two common fallacies that it looks like are in play here. The first being what Japan's plans for war were and how Pearl Harbor fit into them. The other being how the IJN, and especially Yamamoto thought about carriers, and as a result the importance of the USN carriers.

On the first point we need to outright say that attacking Pearl Harbor, and the Philippines and other US-UK positions in the Pacific were not the plan they expected to win them the war or at least a favorable peace. They were a means simply to implement their real plan on their terms seemingly most favorable. But paralyzing the Pacific Fleet for the most part Japan could both seize the crucial resources of the Dutch East Indies, and as important, solidify their frontier holdings. That was how Japan planned on making war too bloody for the US to stomach and to force a negotiated peace.

The various former Mandate or Western islands and especially the Marshall's, Gilberts, and Marianas were to become interlocking defensive bastions. Each one supported by aircraft leapfrogging across the network to the point of attack. And each one would pin the enemy armada in place to allow light forces such as subs and surface combatants to aid aircraft in whittling down the force. And if it came to being needed when the US had penetrated deep enough into the Pacific then the Combined Fleet's Main Body, supported by Kido Butai and other formations could sortie and force a decisive battle in the spirit of Mahanian Naval Doctrine. And even in life we see this play out, the landings on Saipan prompted a low rent version of an attempt by the IJN to muster their forces and force an ultimate decisive clash. The resulting Battle of the Philippine Sea or "The Great Marianas Turkey SHoot" was certainly decisive, but for the US.

The second point I would address is how in the first half of 1942 the IJN viewed its carriers. Simply put even at that hour even Yamamoto himself still adhered to the idea that eventually the carrier's power would giveway as the range between the fleets closed and the battleship gun lines would need to settle the matter in a full fleet battle. And that colors much of how the IJN plans it operations, the convoluted mess of a plan at Midway most of all. With the main battleship force too far to support the carriers as it was hoped to keep them hidden until the US fleet had sortied as it was feared they might be too timid to sail if they knew they were present. Kido Butai was simply thought of, built as, and run like a raiding force, it was not in the lane of a modern carrier group or even later USN ones in 1945 that could stand off an island and reduce it to rubble, it was a brittle force. And in many was the USN assumed the same was true of the USN. That the carriers were little better than a raiding force now incapable of playing a real part without the gunline backing them. And that the US leadership would not risk them for anything but key objectives.

And in some ways they were right, the early carrier raids on the Mandates, Lae, and Wake Island were perfunctory, fleeting raids with little in the way of real damage except building frustration. That changed though with the Doolittle Raid in large part and the growing boldness of USN leadership under Nimitz with King's prodding. The raid was incredibly shameful to the IJN and Yamamoto himself as these ships he had counted as basically out of the game and desirable to sink but not an immediate need had dropped bombs within sight of the Imperial Palace! And from this new found motivation and fixation the plan for Midway was born in Spring 1942. And while other needs could not be ignored that meant that compromises were made and the 4th Carrier Division was sent South to aid in the operations against Port Moresby where they were again met by US carriers in a place they didnt really expect them at the Coral Sea foreshadowing the clash at Midway a few weeks later.

Now fast forward 2 months and as news comes in that the US have used the post Midway lull to land at Guadalcanal to protect Australia and the sea lanes, Yamamoto doesnt really alter how he plans to fight. Kido Butai as it is rebuilt is still a raiding force to ultimately support the battleships that would silence Henderson Field before the Army's attacks.

And a year after that after Yamamoto's death and the US beginning its great cartwheel across the Central Pacific the IJN really does more or less implement its plan of mutually supporting island airbases. It just doesnt work, while the Marines die on Tarawa the fleet dodges nighttime attacks by torpedo bombers, but the losses are acceptable for the US and unsustainable for the IJN and eventually the bases run out of planes and the islands fall, while the advance moves on.