personally, no way. On US 1, Japan can only kill 3 combatants, and the counterattack is not good.
You only make the US economy stronger by prompting a direct confrontation without reaching threshold income first. Japan doesn’t gain money off “at war” NOs like the US does. It loses income.
Japan can spend the whole game threatening that area, if however they fail to take Hawaii when they make their move, the counterattack is…miserable as every USA plane can come and land on Hawaii.
If the USA is KGF-ing, or a noob, then Hawaii is yours, its his backdoor.
in G40, there is no “clean” PH because its set in 1940. In other versions like 42.2 you get a chance to attack a real fleet, but its at the cost of losing your momentum because of the counterattack.
In every version I have played (Classic, 42.2, 42.3, G42, G40, G41) attacking PH in the early game is meant to be a tempting wild goose chase, IMO