I recently watched Letters From Iwo Jima and in the movie it shows how the Japanese were obligated to commit suicide whilst hiding from the enemy to maintain their honor. As a westerner, this seems like ‘taking the cowards way out’ compared to dying in combat against the enemy. So why the difference in attitudes towards this?
This attitude about death has been deeply ingrained in Japanese culture from ancient times. You see, in Japanese culture, collective strength is seen as more valuable than individualism in western culture, specifically America. A good example of this attitude was seen during the Fukushima disaster, when retire engineers and technicians volunteered to main the plant so the young workers could leave.
In there eyes, it's more honorable to die by your own hand than to be captured by the enemy. To them, its more cowardly to live with your failure than to pay for it with your life. In japan, Your failure is your families failure, your communities failure, and ultimately, Japan's failure. To them, a coward would prefer to live as an individual, running from death, instead of face their failure head in like a samurai, and dying.