I’m very suspicious of this, mostly because I don’t really believe that any sort of cultural values can override basic survival instinct on a mass scale, most members of al-Qaeda or ISIS aren’t willing to be suicide bombers and they’re generally true beliebers, so I highly doubt that most Japanese conscripts were eager and willing to die for Hirohito. Part of me thinks that this is basic “they’re so different from us” war propaganda, not too different to the “human waves” myth on the Eastern Front and that kamikaze runs and banzai charges were less indicative of a suicidal mentality and more acts of desperation by men who were about to be killed (or believed they were) trying to take out some of their enemies; it also seems like there is some caricaturization going on, for postwar humiliation or some other reason, banzai charges are talked about like they’re absolutely insane but the same tactic — bayonet charges have been employed by mechanized Western armies successfully after WWII, in the Falklands and Iraq by the British for instance.
There are several things to consider when we talk about the minds of the Japanese soldier during the Pacific war. The most obvious one is that it consisted of individuals with different peronalities, whenever one attempts to assign character traits to a nationality or ethnicity one may slip into pseudo sciences.
We can however analyze the cultural influences that influenced them throughout their life. There existed an association between going to war and dying, which we don't really find in the other participants of WW2. While any soldier has to consider the possiblity of their own death, after joining the army, a Japanese soldier sent abroad was not expected to return. The Kore dake Yomeba Ware Wa Kateru(Read this and the war is won) a field manual that was handed to soldiers and officers before the start of the pacific war included an old poem:
„Across the sea, corpses soaking in the water; Across the Mountains, Corpses heaped upon the grass. We shall die by the side of our lord. We shall never be back.“
Recruits were alo instructed to write their own will and leave a lock of their hair to their relatives. Surrendering was stigmatized and field manuals made clear that a soldier should rather die than surrender. None of this means that every soldier was looking forward to dying, but every soldier who served abroad knew that was expected of them.
Before the need for recruits peaked during the latter stages of the war, the Japanese army was quite selective in their recruiting and placed a special emphasis on the psychological aspect, rejecting recruits who were physically capable, but not expected to show the required level of discipline.
A superior fighting spirit was seen as the only option Japan had to succesfully fight againt a nation with more men and a larger industrial base and was therefore encouraged during the inter war period. Self sacrifice was portrayed as something admirable and honourable. In that regard, old ideals of Samurai life were co-opted, except that this emphasis on self-sacrifice over dishonour was now expected of a large army of conscripts, rather than of a small social elite.
The Japanese army was brutal, not just toward its enemies, but also by allowing its members to physically abuse the people below them. Beatings by officers were not guaranteed, but still common place. Couple that with severe supply shortages and the stigma of surrender and we can see why some Japanese soldier were seemingly careless with their lives. In this context it should also be noted that (unauthorized)military suicides were more common in the Japanese military than the civilian population, something which is usually the other way around in a war time society.
Finally, the perception of the enemy has to be considered. Generally speaking it can be assumed that soldiers are more likely to surrender if they can expect good treatment. The Japanese soldiers were not just discouraged from surrendering by the stigma, but also due to the (partially correct) assumption that they may be mistreated. While the high command generally wanted to take prisoners, it was not uncommon for soldiers to kill Japanese soldiers who tried to surrender, either due to a fear of ambushes or xenophobia. The brutality of the allied forces was exaggerated by the Japanese propaganda, but not entirely without merit.
With neither surrender nor desertion really being an option, a cultural emphasis on self sacrifice and the generally miserable experience as a conscript, we can see how this perception of the individual soldier as a fearless fanatic came to be.
If anyone wants to read more, here are some relevant papers that are available for free on jstor.org:
-Bergerud, Eric: No Quarter. The Pacific Battlefield. In: Yerxa, Donald A.(Hrsg.): Recent Themes in Military History, Columbia, 2008
-Matsumura, Janice; Wright, Diana: Japanese Military Suicides During the Asia-Pacific War. Studies of the unauthorized self-killing of soldiers. In: The Asia-Pacific Journal. Volume 13 Issue 25, 2015
-Wray, Harold: A Study in Contrasts. Japanese School Textbooks of 1903 and 1941-45. In: Monumenta Nipponica. Vol. 28, No. 1, 1973