The paper offers an overview of the historiographical studies in Japan, through the analysis of outstanding Japanese and Western scholars, focusing on the recent trends and development of historical research over the last decades. In this respect, it concentrates on some main issues, approaches, views, schools, associations, and the interaction of Western thought ¬‒ specifically the Annales school and the social sciences ‒ with the Japanese traditional historiography. In today’s Japan, some key historical topics like national identity, collective awareness or modernity, have been interpreted according to the new methods and theories, while most relevant historiographical traditions, such as nationalist history, Marxist historiography and modernist school, are changing their perspectives as well.