Kantai Kessen and expected American behavior

Was this account of Japanese naval strategy too Mahanian and too Western?

No. Kantai Kessen was only one option, and Mahanian assumptions appear partly because Japanese planners expected the United States to follow its own influential theorist.

Kantai Kessen, or decisive fleet battle, was one option within a broader Japanese naval doctrine. It became useful only if attrition and an American advance created the right conditions. Japanese planners nevertheless viewed the United States through Alfred Thayer Mahan because Mahan was an influential American theorist. Benjamin Armstrong's counterfactual study is cited to show that the United States did not actually fight the Pacific War by following Mahan mechanically. Japanese planning therefore reveals as much about its expectations of an opponent as it does about its own preferred methods.