I don't think the Japanese are as pacifist as they pretend.
You bring up a very interesting thought. It seems that young Japanese men are only interested in playing games, and Japanese women consider them wusses. But there could be a lot of suppressed yearning to be warriors like their ancestors, waiting to be unleashed. Hitler awakened that spirit in youth during the 1930s because of disenchantment from a crushed German mentality after WW-1, result was WWII.