Most of the other troops in the world would have surrendered. Closer to religous fanatics then soldiers in that sense.
I disagree. Clearly the Soviets under similar circumstances fought to the bitter end. You can't tell me that a bunch of guys holed up in a fortified basement while Germans poured gasoline and grenades down the stairwell lacked for commitment. Likewise, US Army forces in the Phillippines held out under similar circumstances far longer than the Japanese expected, although ultimately they were isolated and had nowhere to go. Some of 'em simply refused to surrender and were overrun and died in place. Others refused to surrender and waged a reasonably effective guerilla campaign that paid huge dividends in 1944 (Ramsey comes to mind).
The tendency to surrender or not seems to have been largely determined by one's expectations from the enemy to whom one might surrender. The Japanese were fairly constantly indoctrinated into the belief that their lives were as valueless to potential captors as they were to the Japanese high command. So they on the whole expected no quarter and tended not to give quarter. In many instances, the consequent outrages stood the more noble ideals of "Bushido" squarely on its head.
