When Admiral Yamamoto prevailed on his view that the IJN should concentrate on building better carriers, smaller ships that could carry the Type 93 torpedo and larger submarines that could carry the similar Type 95 torpedo, that made the IJN much more formidable.
Indeed, instead of building the Yamato, Musashi and Shinano as battleships (all three projected battleship projects were shelved before construction started), they became aircraft carriers bearing the same names but larger than the Soryu and Hiryu. And just as fortunate, Mitsubishi started work on a successor to the A6M Type 0 fighter in 1940 and by 1943, fielded the A7M Reppu, which was far superior to the Grumman F6F Hellcat and was easily a match for the Vought F4U Corsair. (Grumman started production of the F8F Bearcat that could have beaten the A7M, but the war ended before that came into wide service.)