The founder of Japanese folklore studies. While traveling the country as an official of the Agriculture and Commerce Ministry and investigating the actual conditions of rural villages, he published "Tono Monogatari" (The Legends of Tono) in 1910 and became a pioneer of folklore research. "Tono Monogatari," which literarily recorded the traditions of kappa, zashiki-warashi, and mountain folk handed down in the farming and mountain village of Tono (Iwate Prefecture), is a landmark of Japanese folklore studies. He subsequently systematized 29 volumes of folklore and cultural anthropology research collected as the "Complete Works of Yanagita Kunio." He worked to clarify the structure of Japanese common people's culture by introducing concepts such as "hare and ke" (sacred time and ordinary time) and "jomin" (ordinary folk). A versatile person who also held official positions including League of Nations Committee member and Secretary-General of the Privy Council. He died in 1962 at eighty-seven.

An intellectual seeker who tried to find the essence of Japanese culture in the lives and traditions of ordinary people. Never content with his position as an official, he challenged himself in both fieldwork and theoretical construction. The concept of "jomin" (ordinary folk) symbolizes his egalitarian cultural perspective.

"Tono Monogatari" continues to be read as a bestseller as the origin of Japanese folklore studies. Concepts such as "hare and ke" and "jomin" have become basic vocabulary in contemporary Japanese cultural theory and folklore studies.