The Jap Zero, unrivaled among carrier based fighters at the start of the war, weighed about as much as your SUV and produced 940 horsepower. If you can imagine driving an SUV with 940 hp, that’s what handling the Zero was like.
They zero had no sealing fuel tanks and no pilot armor. They sucked, really. I read Samurai! by Sakai and he had nothing but admiration for the toughness of USN planes even the lowly f4f wildcat.