That's why this is troubling. Perhaps in 20 years she may gain that capability. But for now, it's not a problem.
Exactly, but Navies take a long time to build. Japan has great quality and a nucleus of highly trained crews. Their diesel boats are absolutely top notch. Their Atago class DDGs are nominally better than our Burke class. But it takes five to seven years to build a flattop, and another couple of years to train up a crew. Of course they can do a lot of the latter with the Hyuga. They know that if they are going to take on China in 2020, they need to start building their fleet now.
Of course the Japanese are good at playing fast and loose with definitions like "Self Defense". After all they call the Hyuga a destroyer. An 18,000 ton "destroyer" that can operate half a dozen F-35s, strictly for self defense of course.
The Japanese have indicated no solid plans to outfit F-35s to the Hyuga or other baby flattops. Other than the political dimension, the fact is that these ships remain very small to support anything more than a handful of F-35Bs. Besides I think they would need to modify the ships with a ski-jump for optimal performance.
After all they call the Hyuga a destroyer. An 18,000 ton "destroyer" that can operate half a dozen F-35s, strictly for self defense of course. Determining equivalency between current and WW II types is more than a little slippery. In terms of displacement, Hyuga compares with IJNS Hiryu and Soryu and the bantamweight US carrier, USS Wasp, which displaced about 15,000 tons, and the US "fast" cruiser-hulled and -engined CVL's like USS Casablanca (whose assistant nav officer, at commissioning, was a young officer named Gerald R. Ford).
But those carriers all carried 40-50 aircraft each, or a short wing per carrier, with full air wings embarked in the big carriers.
In terms of numbers of aircraft embarked, these smaller carriers and LHA's recall the slow, pokey, merchant-hulled and -engined CVE "jeep" carriers like the "Taffy" carriers jumped by Adm. Kurita off Samar, and the escort carriers that protected late-war convoys from German U-boat wolfpacks.