Kazuo Matsumura (1953–) is a Japanese scholar of mythology and the history of religions, and professor emeritus at Wako University. Drawing on comparative mythology, he has studied Greek, Japanese, and Indo-European mythological traditions, examining how stories of gods, heroes, and goddesses reflect social structures and religious ideas. His work also introduced Japanese readers to major approaches in European comparative mythology. In “Shinwagaku Nyumon” (An Introduction to Mythology), he traces the development of modern myth studies through the work of Max Müller, James Frazer, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Joseph Campbell, and others, showing its connections with linguistics, evolutionary theory, psychoanalysis, and religious studies.
