Japanese control of Ainu territory tightened after the Meiji Restoration (1868). During this period, Japanese racial (race) discourse about the Ainu—which had long belittled the latter—became increasingly pejorative. Japanese observers had noted that the Ainu were hirsute in comparison with themselves, a fact emphasized by traditional Ainu customs in which men wore heavy beards and women had facial tattoos that at first glance appeared to be mustaches. Other physical distinctions included the absence of an epicanthal fold and a tendency to have lighter skin and hair colour than other East Asians. For a variety of reasons, late 19th-century Japanese pseudoscience fixated on Ainu hairiness and postulated many preposterous notions for its cause, claiming, for instance, that the Ainu interbred with animals in order to produce hirsute children. These notions, which supported the derogatory appellation “hairy Ainu,” provided rationalizations for forced assimilation and the perpetuation of discrimination.

Throughout the 20th century, large numbers of ethnic Japanese settled on Hokkaido and intermarried with the Ainu. Although most Ainu rituals are no longer enacted in a strictly traditional manner, they continue to be celebrated through events at museums and festivals. At the end of the 20th century, Ainu activism and cultural revitalization movements (revitalization movement) became increasingly effective; activist Kayano Shigeru was elected to the Japanese Diet (parliament) in 1994, the first Ainu to achieve that distinction, and a number of legal reforms protecting Ainu culture were passed in following years. In 2008 Japan officially recognized the Ainu as an indigenous people, reversing an 1899 action that had declared them “former Aborigines.”