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The moon rabbit story is itself an import. In the original Indian Jātaka tale, a rabbit met a hungry beggar in the forest, had nothing to offer but grass, and so offered itself instead — leaping into a fire to feed him. The beggar revealed himself as a deity (Indra in the Indian original, the Man in the Moon in the Japanese adaptation) and lifted the rabbit to permanent residence on the moon, where it has been pounding mochi ever since. The story arrived in Japan during the 7th century along with Buddhist literature and was absorbed into native folklore alongside the older Shinto materials. The Inaba hare story is older and indigenous. Recorded in both the Kojiki (712 CE) and Nihon Shoki (720 CE), it tells of a white hare on Oki Island who tricked a line of crocodiles into forming a bridge so he could cross to Inaba on the mainland. The hare insulted the crocodiles in his moment of triumph and was caught and skinned for the offense. The first eighty brothers of the god Ōkuninushi found the suffering hare on the beach and falsely advised him to bathe in salt water, worsening his pain. The youngest brother, Ōkuninushi himself, found the hare next and gave true counsel — to bathe in fresh water and roll in cattail pollen. The hare was healed and prophesied that Ōkuninushi would marry the princess his older brothers were competing for. The story is structurally a prophecy of Ōkuninushi's rise to become one of the most important gods in the Shinto pantheon. The hare's role is to recognize true kindness — and to repay it in the form of divine favor.

The Tsukimi (月見, "moon-viewing") tradition has been celebrated in Japan since the Heian period (794–1185), when aristocrats would gather on the night of the full autumn moon to compose poetry, drink rice wine, and offer round white tsukimi-dango — small mochi cakes — to honor the moon rabbit and the harvest. The tradition descended from court ritual into broad popular practice during the Edo period and remains an active autumn observance today. The Japanese language carries an embedded pun about this tradition. Mochitsuki (餅つき) means "pounding mochi" — the action attributed to the moon rabbit. Mochizuki (望月) means "full moon." The two words differ only in voicing of one consonant. The pun is so old that it is no longer experienced as a pun; the moon's phase and the rabbit's labor are linguistically inseparable. The nami-usagi (波兎, "wave hare") motif — rabbits running across breaking waves — became a popular Edo-period decorative pattern, appearing on kimono, lacquerware, and family crests. The image carries double meaning: the moon reflected in waves (since the rabbit lives on the moon) and protection against fire (since rabbits are associated with water through this very motif).

Tsukimi is still observed nationally. Convenience stores and supermarkets stock tsukimi-dango around the autumn equinox, and major fast-food chains release seasonal "moon-viewing" menu items — often eggs on burgers, where the egg yolk represents the moon. McDonald's Japan has run the Tsukimi Burger campaign almost every year since 1991. The campaign is one of the most reliable seasonal markers in Japanese consumer culture. Okazaki Jinja in Kyoto and Tsuki Jinja in Saitama are the two most active rabbit-venerating shrines. Both are particularly visited for prayers concerning safe childbirth and family prosperity, drawing on the rabbit's traditional fertility associations. Stone rabbits stand at the entrances in place of the customary komainu. The rabbit is the fourth animal of the Chinese-Japanese zodiac cycle, associated with tranquility, gentleness, and the year 2023 in modern reckoning. People born in rabbit years are traditionally said to have the temperament aligned with these qualities. The 2023 zodiac year saw a noticeable uptick in rabbit-themed merchandise, decorations, and naming.

The Inaba hare story makes the underlying cultural logic explicit. The hare is presented as gentle and easily wounded, but also as a recognizer of true kindness — a creature whose role is to distinguish performative niceness from real care. In a tradition where most divine messengers are powerful figures (foxes for harvest, deer for nobility, wolves for mountain protection), the hare's particular contribution is being small, hurt, and able to tell the difference between people. The moon connection is more atmospheric. Hares and rabbits are crepuscular — most active at dawn and dusk — and their pale coloring catches moonlight in a way that other small mammals do not. Anyone who has watched a rabbit at twilight in a Japanese garden has seen the basis for the myth: a gentle, glowing figure that seems to belong to the moon rather than to the earth.