Banzai charge

A banzai charge is the term used by the Allied forces to refer to Japanese human wave attacks mounted by infantry units. This term came from the Japanese cry "Tennōheika Banzai" (天皇陛下万歳^?, "Long live the Emperor"), shortened to banzai, specifically referring to a tactic used by Japanese soldiers during the Pacific War.

The banzai charge is considered to be one method of gyokusai (玉砕^?, "shattered jewel"; honorable suicide), a suicide attack, or suicide before being captured by the enemy such as seppuku. The origin of the term is a classical Chinese phrase in the 7th-century Book of Northern Qi, which states "丈夫玉碎恥甎全", "A true man would [rather] be the shattered jewel, ashamed to be the intact tile." In Japan, since the Sengoku period, samurai followed the code called bushido, defining behaviors loyal and honorable. Among the rules there existed a code of honor that was later used by Japanese military governments.

With the revolutionary change in the Meiji Restoration and frequent wars against China and Russia, the militarist government of Japan adopted the concepts of Bushido to condition the country's population to be ideologically obedient to the emperor. Impressed with how samurai were trained to commit suicide when a great humiliation was about to befall them, the government educated troops that it was a greater humiliation to surrender to the enemy than to die. The suicide of Saigo Takamori, the leader of old samurai during the Meiji Restoration, also inspired the nation to idealize and romanticize death in battle and to consider suicide an honorable final action.

...
Wikipedia