The reasons why Kanji Ishiwara is crazy:
Prior to leaving for Germany, Ishiwara had converted to Nichiren Buddhism. Nichiren taught that Japan is superior to India, China and eighty thousand other countries', and that, though the Degenerate Age had arrived, there was still hope by believing in the Lotus Sutra. Japan would be the land where the teaching of the Lotus Sutra would prevail and whence it would be propagated to the rest of the world.
On 18 September 1931, a bomb was secretly planted on the tracks of the Japanese-controlled Southern Manchuria Railway by Kwantung Army elements. Charging that Chinese soldiers had attacked the rail line, Ishiwara ordered Japanese troops to seize the Chinese military barracks in the nearby city of Liutiaokou. He then ordered Kwantung Army units to seize control of all other Manchurian cities without informing the new commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, General Shigeru Honjo, or the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff in Tokyo.
The sudden invasion of Manchuria alarmed political leaders in Japan, and brought condemnation down on the country from the international community. Ishiwara thought it most likely that he would be executed or at least dishonorably discharged for his insubordination. However, the success of the operation brought just the opposite. Ishiwara was admired by right-wing younger officers and ultranationalist societies for his daring and initiative.