1. It takes a long time to get to Brazil as Japan.
2. If you are building up SZ60 fleet defense via new ships early in the game, then Russia will NOT be contained and turtled (in fact, Russia may well get “out of the box” and grab extra income from Japan territories).
3. If you do not go straight for Brazil and the Allies build up their shucks, it IS a suicide mission.
4. If the Allies have already established their shuck to Africa, then Japan does NOT hold Africa, the Allies do. Japan cannot get enough forces to Africa early in the game to hold against a US, let alone a UK/US joint counter.
5. If Japan, in addition to building new fleet defense in SZ60, is also going heavy to Africa, then Russia is CERTAINLY out of the box, or at a minimum there is a static front in Asia with Russia out basically no income.
Aways remember, early in the game, Japan has only 70% of the income of the US. They are VERY weak on land forces in Asia. And they need to expand quickly in order to get some income in order to be a viable threat to anything.
Last but not least…
Power in this game is STACKS, not a few units here and there. And this Japan Brazil move has Japan spread WAY too thin…
starting with 3 different naval groups to defend, none of which are in range to support each other (SZ34, SZ60, SZ22)