Imo a lot of people here are seriously underestimating Japanese viability as a faction. Sure the Japanese don't have any amazing super famous tanks like the Panther or Tiger mainly because why would they need one in the Pacific war? Those tanks would be useless in the jungles of the Pacific island campaigns, and would be overkill against the light and medium tanks they were facing. Their infantry tactics and training allowed them to overwhelm massive armies and garrisons 2-3 times the size of their own.
Sure in coh2 they would have nothing to counter the ISU-152 or KV-8. But that might be a coh2 design problem. Right now these tanks can be super OP, wiping out full-health squads in one shot. Only my last 3v3 I played I just saved up my resources and called in 3 ISU-152s and spammed my way to victory. These kind of strategies goes against the spirit of coh and I think Relic will nerf them so we don't have the team lategame meta revolving around these supertanks.
I might be the only who wishes for a different setting of WW2 in coh, especially since we are going back to a setting that was already done. But choosing to ignore the pacific campaign or far east war, which was fought since 1937, 2 years before the war in Europe started and ended a few months later than VE day, I think this is a worthy setting for an expansion.
On topic:
I really like a lot of the ideas, great work
Someone just needs to make a mod and do some balance testing