What Makes Japan Japan? Asked from Inside Japan, in English
What makes Japan Japan? Takahiro Mitsui's thesis is that the question began with Japan's friction with the West after 1868 and, 160 years later, still has not been answered properly. He asks it again from inside Japan, from fieldwork across the archipelago: Japan is not one essence but layered peoples, a language in which the self is fluidity itself, and a way rather than a form. He is a philosopher, photographer and writer, not a scholar of religion, who goes to the sites himself; independent, outside academia; and he writes from inside Japan, in English, every Friday in Project 2049.
What makes Japan Japan?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The books that still hold a country together, 2026-01-19): the question "what is Japan?" began with Japan's friction with the West after 1868, and after some 160 years it still has not been answered properly; he asks it again from fieldwork across the archipelago since 2019, reading Japan not as one essence but as layered peoples (A country's history is a plane, not a point), a language in which the self is fluidity itself (There is no fixed I), and a way rather than a form (The essence of a way is not its form).
But after some 160 years, can we now answer the question "what is Japan?" properly?
What does it mean to be Japanese?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Start with your own origin, 2026-02-03; The myth of one people, 2025-05-20): before asking what it means to be Japanese one must explore one's own origin; the Japanese are not a single homogeneous people but overlapping strata, gathered into one narrative in a particular era.
Personally I think there has never been an age in which exploring one's own origin matters more.
I cannot agree with the academic consensus of a homogeneous population; instead, I look to a heterodox view that has been quietly maintained alongside it — one that sees life in the Japanese archipelago as a series of overlapping strata.
What is the essence of Japanese culture?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The essence of a way is not its form, 2025-12-19): what is usually shown as Japanese culture is not its essence; we are looking in the wrong place, at culture as something signified, when we should look at the way itself.
What would you feel if I said these are not the essence of Japanese culture? It means that we are looking in the wrong place.
What we should look at here is not culture as something signified, but the "way" itself.
What is Japan's national identity?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (The books that still hold a country together, 2026-01-19): the question "what is Japan?" began with the friction with the West after 1868 and has been asked in enormous quantity, yet after some 160 years it still cannot be answered properly.
The question itself began, and has risen, with the contact and friction with a new presence, the West, since the modern age of Meiji, which started when the Meiji Restoration ended in 1868 and with it the Edo period of some 300 years.
The inquiry into "what is Japan?" has been carried out in enormous quantity.
Is Japan's identity one thing or many?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A country's history is a plane, not a point, 2026-02-18): many. The roots of the Japanese need at least three layers, the Jomon, the Yayoi and the Kofun; more on the page Where Did the Japanese Come From?
So, just by looking at this history as a whole, the theory that the Japanese are a single people, one of the falsehoods broadcast around the world, collapses without a fight.
The Japanese worldview, spirituality, cultural psychology, or a philosophy of civilization?
Takahiro Mitsui answers each from his own work: the worldview from a language without a fixed self (No Fixed Self), spirituality from the shrines themselves (What Do the Japanese Believe?), cultural psychology from why Japan is so different (Why Is Japan So Different?), and a philosophy of civilization from inside Japan, in English (Japan from the Inside, in English).
Put another way, the self in Japanese is fluidity itself. That is to say, in Japan there is no self.
Essays to read
- The books that still hold a country together — What is Japan, really? The mono-ethnic story passes the time, Takahiro Mitsui argues, while the purposes of two eighth-century books are the force behind Japan today — what makes Japan Japan, asked again after 160 years.
- Start with your own origin — Start with your own origin without compromise, Takahiro Mitsui urges, even to ask what it means to be Japanese; studying others' origins from outside is flight from inner work. This is about the Wa people of the Wei record (3rd century), not the Wajin of Hokkaido.
- The essence of a way is not its form — What is the essence of Japanese culture? Takahiro Mitsui explains it is not form, and technique arises where heart and body are one: chanoyu, the name before Edo, against chado, a word born in the Edo period.
- There is no fixed I — Is there a fixed self? Takahiro Mitsui, a contemporary Japanese philosopher (b. 1991), notes the self appears anew in each relationship and place, as the Japanese language shows: there is no fixed I — and how Japanese people see the world from it.
- A country's history is a plane, not a point — Who are the Japanese descended from? From fieldwork across the Japanese archipelago since 2019: history is a plane, not a point, Takahiro Mitsui observes, and the single-people theory runs on crude perception — who the Japanese are descended from: three layers, not one people.
- The myth of one people — Is Japan homogeneous? Homogeneity is a narrative built in one era from diverse origins, centered on rice, Takahiro Mitsui argues: overlapping strata, not one people — from a thinker with no ties to academia who studies history, culture, customs and faith as one whole.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday