With the end of the war, the few surviving Japanese destroyers (to give an example of exactly
how few, only
Yukikaze survived out of all the pre-war DDs) continued in service, but it was obvious more destroyers would be needed. As a result, two designs were approved, one of which improved on the
Akizuki-class. The main armament layout of four twin Type 98 3.9-inch turrets was retained, but the new ships were given the upgraded Mark II design, which solved the problem of the short barrel-life of those guns mounted on the preceding
Akizuki-class. The antiaircraft guns were also upgraded; the 25-mm. mounts were scrapped in favor of twin-mount 40-mm. Bofors and 20-mm. Orelikons. The bridge structure was enlarged, and the newly-designed Type 26 surface-search radar was mounted on the foremast, with the also-new Type 23 air-search radar mounted on the mainmast. The quadruple torpedo mount was removed; these were the first Japanese destroyers to
not carry the infamous 'Long Lance' torpedo, but by the time these ships would be ready for service, it was obvious to even the Imperial Japanese Navy that Solomon Islands campaign-level surface actions were a thing of the past. Instead, a second funnel and more boilers were added, along with the same engines installed in the
Umigiri-class DDs. The result was an improved
Akizuki-class ship with the speed of an
Umigiri-class ship. In the end, it was found that with the lighter gun mounts and no torpedo tubes, the ships achieved speeds faster than the
Umigiris, with
Yamazuki achieving an incredible 43.7 knots on acceptance trials.
There would be sixteen ships of the class in all; laid down between February 1947 and June 1951, launched between January 1948 and May 1952, and commissioned between November 1948 and March 1953, with numerous upgrades to their equipment throughout their service lives, these vessels would serve the IJN well into the early 1980s.