Abstract: The purpose of this essay lies in introducing recent Japanese studies on the Cultural Revolution (CR). It will focus on research published after 2000, a turning point in the field from which a large amount of new research on the period began to surface. After its outbreak in 1966, the impact of the CR was felt almost immediately in Japan. Seeking to reform Japanese society and Japanese policy on China, contemporaneous research “invoked the underpinning ideology of the CR as a vehicle to critique the contemporary ills of Japanese society.” From the 1990s onwards, the interests of Japanese scholars expanded to include the political trends in the rural and private sectors of the period. Research that reevaluated the CR from a sociological perspective became particularly prevalent. The essay will review a number of studies under the following headings: “The Central Political Situation,” “Rural Areas and the Private Sector,” “Education,” “Culture,” “The Reception of the Cultural Revolution in Japan,” and “Memoirs and Interviews.”