"Zeromania" of 1941/42: when every "Jap" was Zero

[GuerraCivil]

Looking from early Allied accounts of December 1941 and until mid 1942 it seems that every Japanese fighter was "Zero" for Allied airmen - even Ki-27 "Nate" with fixed undercarriage was identified as Zero by famous Boyd Wagner (and many others). And not to speak of XXX times when Ki-43 "Oscar" was identified automatically as Zero.

Was there a kind of "Zeromania" among Allied airmen which made them to think that every Japanese fighterplane was a Zero? Or was it just a poor general knowlegde about Japanese aircraft?

One thing which seems to clear is that Japanese Navy Air Force (IJNAF) aircraft were more widely known than their IJAAF counterparts. How much there was knowledge among Allied about the difference of these two Japanese air arms and that they used different aircraft?

At what point "Zeromania" started to loose and when did more widespread knowledge of other Japanese fighter types take place among Allied airmen? By what point "Oscars" started to be identified more widely as "Oscars"?