I recently read Anthony Beever's Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943 and was shocked at the level of incompetence on both sides.
Was there a similar level of incompetence in the Pacific Theater? Were the Japanese and/or Allied leadership as oblivious of the realities their soldiers faced as the German/Soviet leadership was on the Eastern Front?
Once the tide turned against the Japanese, was the Japanese leadership at the highest level as far into a fantasy world level of denial as Hitler and his staff were?
As far as your second question goes:
By 1944 many Japanese high ranking officials knew their country was losing the war and that there was no way of turning the tide in their favor. Japan's last chance at turning the tide (by some miraculous act of God) would've been to hold on to the Mariana islands. This island chain was extremely important in the sense that it was close enough to Japan for B-29 Superfortress bombers to begin operating with consistent success. Up until Saipan was captured B-29s had been operating out of China but this was not efficient.
So after the fall of the Marianas in the summer of 1944 there really was no way of stopping the Allies from Japan's perspective. The Japanese weren't stuck in a fantasy that they confident they could still win the war somehow like Hitler was – again, Japan knew it was losing – they just masked that reality from the public (with propaganda for example) and did their best to delay the inevitable invasion.