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Were they unanimous? No, of course not. But most of those willing to fight on were merely doing so to try to maneuver to a face-saving position. No Japanese army had been defeated on the home islands for at least the last thousand years. Face-saving is very important in their culture (just look at their baseball, where they often played to a tie so as not to show-up the opponent too much; this mindset has only very recently begun to change BTW). If they could do so by getting at least one "condition" in the surrender terms - the issue of what happens to the emperor - they save face. Some were willing to fight on till they got that condition. That was as much a function of our own stupidity in broadcasting our insistence on "unconditional surrender" as anything else. Tactically, saying such things is foolish, as it usually makes the enemy fight even more desperately, when they stand to "lose everything" if defeated.

The fact of the matter is that no one in Japan just plain wanted to fight to the bitter end, without consideration of any conditions. And they were incapable of mounting any meaningful defense offshore anyway; if it came down to it, we could have simply blockaded them and deprived them of all outside resources if we were so worried about really losing up to a million men. The peace-wing in the government, along with the general population, would have overridden whatever hawks were left in the military in pretty short-order, once blockade-induced privations really kicked in. The evidence is overwhelming that our own military leaders never bought-into that figure of a million casualties, it was purely for public consumption as a justification for dropping the atomic bombs.

“The peace-wing in the government, along with the general population, would have overridden whatever hawks were left in the military in pretty short-order, once blockade-induced privations really kicked in”

Another lie...the militarists would have prevailed as they did on Saipan and Okinawa...your ignorance of Japanese society at that time is laughable...and regardless of the civilian sentiment the armed forces would never have surrendered short of the additional Imperial Rescript specifically addressed to them by Hirohito

“The evidence is overwhelming that our own military leaders never bought-into that figure of a million casualties...”

Another lie...name your evidence...documents, memoirs etc...there are none...the last Magic reports before August had Marshall so concerned about the build-up of 500,000 Japanese troops on Kuyshu so much so he began to work tactical nukes into Operation Olympic...

You sir are a gutless lying coward...

if it came down to it, we could have simply blockaded them and deprived them of all outside resources if we were so worried about really losing up to a million men. The peace-wing in the government, along with the general population, would have overridden whatever hawks were left in the military in pretty short-order, once blockade-induced privations really kicked in.

Japan, at least its civilian population, had been suffering "privations" for years at the hand of the military leadership, as strategic materials were allocated to the war effort. This accelerated as they prepared for ketsu go.

A blockade would have led to mass starvation and disease, from which it would have been those same elderly, women, and children who suffered most.

When all rhetoric called for total material sacrifice to defend the homeland, I think it's pretty naive to assume the blockade would have had some instant enlightening effect.

Is it more moral to starve elderly, women, and children to death?

" We could have simply blockaded them and deprived them of all outside resources if we were so worried about really losing up to a million men. "

There you go again, making the case, that it's more moral to slowly starve a whole nation to death than it is then to drop 2 a-bombs in just 2 cities, yeah, slowly starving people to death including children is somehow more the " Christian " thing to do then dropping a-bombs.

And they were incapable of mounting any meaningful defense offshore anyway; if it came down to it, we could have simply blockaded them and deprived them of all outside resources if we were so worried about really losing up to a million men.

One additional benefit of dropping the Bomb was that it unambiguously informed Stalin that we had the means to stop him from taking over Western Europe, and would not hesitate to use it.

The fact of the matter is that no one in Japan just plain wanted to fight to the bitter end,

You really don't understand what was going on.

When the Emperor decided to make peace there was an attempted palace coup.

The general population of Japan had to be ORDERED not to commit suicide by the Emperor when told that they were surrendering.

Trying to judge what they would have done by western standards is foolishness.

As for the idea blockade, Japan is not a barren island chain, it has many resources to use to keep fighting, there was never a blockade that could not be broached, it would have required the entire Allied fleet plus and the Japanese would have used every weapon they had to break it and that includes the biological and chemical ones they had used in the past.

You still would have killed far more people then using the A-bombs did.