The Kamikaze-class destroyers were part of the 1904 Imperial Japanese Navy Emergency Expansion Program created by the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War.

However, with operational experience gained in the Russo-Japanese War, the Kamikaze class employed shorter smokestacks with spark and glow arrestors to give the ships a more stealthy capability for night combat operations.

Internally, design and production issues still existed with the Japanese copies of the Yarrow water-tube boilers in the coal-fired triple expansion steam engines, which could produce only 6,000 shaft horsepower (4,500 kW); however, with the final three vessels (Uranami, Isonami, Ayanami), many problems had been resolved, and the engines modified to be run on heavy fuel oil as well as coal.

Armament was the similar in layout to the previous Harusame class, but with larger secondary guns; i.e. two QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval guns (on a bandstand on the forecastle and on the quarterdeck), four additional short barrel 12 pounder guns (two sited abreast the conning tower, and two sited between the funnels), and two single tubes for 18-inch (457 mm) torpedoes.

Considered too small, unsuitable for heavy seas, and obsolete by the time of completion, the Kamikaze-class destroyers were quickly removed from front-line combat service after the end of the war, and were de-rated to third-class destroyers on 28 August 1912.