Why Japanese damage control produced uneven results

Was poor Imperial Japanese Navy damage control caused by training, construction, or both?

Both mattered, alongside hit location and luck; even good procedures cannot make every damage pattern survivable.

A ship's construction and crew practice both matter, as does where a bomb or torpedo lands. Tribal-class destroyers show that a ship might survive losing its bow yet be destroyed by a hit into vital central spaces. Aircraft carriers add their own stability problem because their high structures make poorly judged flooding especially dangerous. Counter-flooding must be controlled carefully, but refusing to use it when necessary creates a different danger.