Brainwashing by culture would be a better way to put it or heavy propaganda like modern North Korea would be a better.

Captain Motoharu Okamura commented that "there were so many volunteers for suicide missions that he referred to them as a swarm of bees,"

"Many of the kamikaze pilots believed their death would pay the debt they owed and show the love they had for their families, friends, and emperor. "

"So eager were many minimally trained pilots to take part in suicide missions that when their sorties were delayed or aborted, the pilots became deeply despondent. Many of those who were selected for a bodycrashing mission were described as being extraordinarily blissful immediately before their final sortie."

Seems pretty clear to me the culture they were raised in led to this illogical thinking as I'm sure western countries in those time and modern japanese know how hogwash those ideals were. Good luck getting that many volunteers now in japan to kamikaze say ISIS or China. Al;though to be fair even people in japan have called out the nationalist portrayal of kamikaze http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/technology/10iht-MOGUL.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

To me it looks like it was heavy propaganda nation wide along with heavy encouragement/ideas into young soldiers in the military (what I meant by brainwashing ). I mean it's even done today no? Look at those "delusional" isis recruits. Are both suicide bombing really less irrational than the other? Look at these kids, it must have not been hard at all to feed them that " FAR DA EMPERARAR!" and my death will actually mean something (most likely it didn't even gonoticed)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/72nd_Shinbu_1945_Kamikaze.jpg

The one holding the puppy died performing kamikaze at the age of 17.