You didn't provide an actual quote to address, but in general, that's a gross exaggeration.
During the Battle of Nomonhan, the Japanese air forces in Manchuria were SPECIFICALLY ordered not to attack inside the Soviet Union. So of course they did, prompting a massive Soviet reaction.
There are numerous examples of both failures and outright insubordination which didn't result in either suicide or even prosecution.
The Japanese seldom punished anyone who was too aggressive. There were too many "nut cases" on the Imperial Staff who backed that sort of behavior.
The Bushido code, within the Samurai, meant that a warrior maintained his honor and code even to death. However, by the time WWII came along, it had been corrupted to mean death before dishonor, that surrender was dishonorable, and that death was the ultimate in honor for the warrior.
I don't believe that mandatory suicide was ever written into the formal military codes, but Japanese soldiers, airmen, sailors, and officers of both services were expected to die on the battlefield, or by their own hands. Battlefield accounts of the fights in the Aleutians, Tarawa, Saipan, and many others, bear this out. Sea battles resulting in Japanese ships being sunk, showed Japanese sailors refusing to accept POW status by remaining in the water when offered rescue by allied sailors.
There wasn't a whole lot that could be done if a warrior didn't die in battle, and didn't commit suicide. And increasing numbers of Japanese soldiers and sailors did surrender as WWII progressed.
Even as militaristic as the Imperial Staff was, there was little they could do once a unit surrendered to the enemy. They might attempt to shame the family, but they did not punish them for transgressions against Bushido, as the Nazis actually did to families of men who "dishonored" Nazism.
Even for their war crimes, many Japanese officers were not convicted and executed for their abuse and execution of allied prisoners. There was no "Nuremberg" style wholesale trials, convictions, and executions of Japanese military officers and officials; whether by design, or the fact that the allies had filled their taste for retribution against Germany.
