How was Japan able to send so many troops despite being such a tiny country?

Question

I’ve been watching a number of WW2 films and I realized that Japan is such a tiny country, so it baffles me how they had so many troops. Did they require all the males healthy or not to join the war?

In: Other

Answer 1

“Japan is tiny” is actually a holdover perception mostly from wartime propaganda, to make the enemy seem smaller and weaker and thus keep western ally morale up.

In actually, if lined up on a US map, Japan stretches from Maine to Florida. It’s larger than every country in “main” continental Europe. About 50% more population than Germany, twice the UK or France, etc.

And remember, this wasn’t just the Japan of today. By the time the West entered the war, the Japanese Empire already included Korea, large sections of northern China, Taiwan…