They have a kook off their western shore and the powerhouse of China staring them in the face.
The Japan of today is not the Japan of the 30s and 40s so they have the right to defend themselves the same way we do.
Believe me, I hated the Japanese for the longest time for Pearl Harbor and the Bataan death march and for sucking up to Hitler.
Japan is now a clone of the USA and it will ever be like it was 70 years ago.
If you read Japanese history books you might discover that Japan loves to do sneak attacks. They lull their opponents asleep and attack when they least expect it. And when they invade a country they wreak as much destruction as possible. What happened in the 30s and 40s was just a pattern of behavior the Japanese utilized before for countless centuries.