Japan tends to be severely underrated. The UA changes how you play and how Japan is played against. It is not at all statistically insignificant, the only thing is that most players play to stack promotions above anything else and aren't open to the possibility that Japan might open new tactics. Frankly, even though they aren't high tier, I enjoyed playing Japan about as much as any other civ for the UA alone.
Samurai are outclassed by a lot of other UUs, but are worth using and I don't buy into the idea that blockers are bad units. That rhetoric mostly comes from real time players, which is a bad format.
Zeroes are very good, but like any late game unit, suck because they are late game units. They won't impact whether you win or lose.
The problem with the new Japan is just that they are boring. Bonus to being near shore? That's not even really historically accurate. Like, they're on an island, but they sure as shit weren't England. Most cool Japanese history was internal. But it's in general such a lame type of bonus that makes you reliant on the type of map your playing.
