Hirohito surendered, and insisted on doing so, that he would spare the lives and culture of the japanese people, and TO SPARE LIVES IN GENERAL.
The generals went scorched earth and they plan would have killed 20~22 million japanese people, that is what it means to fight to the last man.
Clearly, you need to read Hirohito's book.
Hirohito surendered his divinity, and instead of his people calling him a coward, they continued to worship him, in a way very few non-japanese can understand. Two of my best friends in school were japanese, and when I got to Jr high, my counselor had the internment order on his wall. I hated that the US dropped the bomb for decades, until I read Hirohito's book. Then it mostly fell into place, and I had to check with a bunch of historians, and with the senior members of the peace organization. I belonged to for decades.
I think whatever we learned (I have read that Japan was already ready to surrender). after should be applied to future wars but not be applied to situations where the information was not available.
If anybody is responsible for Japanese suffering it’s clearly Hirohito and his generals who were too cowardly to accept defeat and instead chose to have killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese while they were hesitating.