The western historians , in their analysis of Japan, liken Japanese experience to that of the Western Industrial Revolution. If you've read any western authored book on the history of Japan you will see this and observe that they associate Japanese industrialization with say the American or German experience.
Japanese industrialization, early on, was focused on military development and modernization. That was the very sole reason for Japan's development; to maintain and support a considerable military for the purpose of resisting Western Imperialism. The catalyst for this was when Japan was forced to open its doors to the West vis a vis Commodore Matthew C Perry of the U.S. Navy, who compelled Japan to open the port of Kanagawa and US trade else be fired upon by US Warships. That was the way the West entreated Japan early in our relationship.
After that , and after learning of the West's domination of Asia, the colonization of Vietnam, the Malaccas , and even the imposition of Spheres of Influence in China , traditionally the dominant power in East Asia, was an alarm bell for Japan. Seeing that Asia was forced to submit to the West was the very reason the Bakufu took to necessary change and thus Japan had the Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Emperor saw the necessity to industrialize , modernize. But unlike the West where their industrialization was focused on economics and traded (at first), Japanese industrialization was for purely militaristic purposes. Industrialization was necessary for us to build a large navy, a modern army, an effective engineering corp that would enable Japan to resist any western power. Economic industrialization happened later on, probably around the 1890s, the same time Japan and China fought the 1st Sino Japanese War. With the acquisition of Korea and Taiwan, for the first time Japan squired new territories with a significant population , and it was the burden of having new subjects to feed and new lands to develop that spurred civilian industry. So in terms of civil industry, the Japanese Empire started off late as compared to the West. Japan proper didn't industrialize enough because a large sum of national budget was spent in the development of both Korea and Taiwan; both countries with very large population. In fact it was eve. Argued that Taiwan (Taihoku) was more developed than many prefectures in Japan mainland. The city of Taipei was even more developed than my own home city of Sapporo, or Maizuru, even Yokohama! Taipei was considered a class 2 urban center by 1940.
The war was basically the worst thing to happen , it reversed all our gains, and most importantly it led to the loss of Korea and Taiwan, territories that were part of Japan for most of it's early industrial period.