I think either this is ASB, or we would see a land based invasion of the Soviet Union with the only naval action being in support roles.
The reason is that, with the advent of aviation, by the 1930s ship to ship combat was pretty much a thing of the past, and even a blind man could say that. Submarines have no use in a land based war. If Japan goes into WW2 with no carriers, she would still probably have had some early success against the Philippines and Indonesia/Singapore, but after mid 1942 she would (remember, no OTL Midway and Coral Sea,) have a huge nightmare. Even though America only had 3 carriers at the start of the war, that's still 3 more than Japan has ITTL, and we ended the war with 79, AFTER taking losses.
In other words, no Japanese carriers equals a stupid move on part of the IJN, and an earlier victory for the US.