At the end of the day, they weren't beaten in a way that beat the nationalism out of them. Germany had Soviet and Allied Troops marching through their towns, their cities sieged, their industry completely toppled. It was clear they were losing. To many in Japan, the lack of an invasion meant it felt like they could still fight. Yes, their cities were bombed but they fought for over a year while that was the case. So when one day they were just told the war was over and that they had lost, it came as a shock. Many didn't hear about the nukes until weeks or months after the war had ended. All they had to blame was weak politicians and weak generals, not the fact that they, as a nation, had lost.

I would encourage you to read the Operation Downfall wiki, specifically the Japanese defense of the islands section, Operation Ketsugo. I'm not disagreeing with you that the nation was beaten militarily, and they knew it, however they still had considerable military assets at their disposal. Their navy was heavily damaged but still useable for home island defense, and their airforce was still going to be a problem. By the time Okinawa was captured, Japan was already losing. That didn't stop Okinawa from being an absolute bloodbath for the Allied forces.

I would also add that Japan being an island is exactly why it wasn't beaten as badly as Germany. There's no denying that. Just by virtue of the differences of the theaters, Japan losing was never going to be as bad as Germany losing without a fullscale naval invasion.

I think one of the differences is how badly Germany lost vs Japan. Germany was broken, crushed, and occupied completely, and had no say in how their own country was going to be run going forward. Japan was also fully occupied, but not through outright conquest, but through an agreement to surrender in the face of overwhelming force. Japan still had a great deal of fight left in it when it surrendered, and infact still occupied a lot of territory in Asia. In essence, Germany had the Nazis beaten out of it, whereas Japan had to and still to this day has to contend with the fact that the militaristic nationalistic side of it never died, it just had to slink away for a few generations