Lovecraft's acclaimed novella The Shadow Out of Time, Lin Carter's study Tolkien: A Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings", Lord Dunsany's fantasy works The Gods of Pegāna, The Charwoman's Shadow and The Travel Tales of Mr. Joseph Jorkens; George Macdonald's Lilith, William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land and The House on the Borderland; Abraham Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar and Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian novel, Hour of the Dragon.

Circa 1979, he was browsing through old bookstores at Tokyo University in the Kanda District and rediscovered lost natural history collections by Oro Bakufu and Georges Cuvier.

[5] Thus as a small side project, he began writing a novel entitled Teito Monogatari that would incorporate elements of lesser known Eastern occult phenomena with recognizable modern Japanese history.

In 1987 he began publishing the Atlas Anima, which introduced the works of Conrad Gessner and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon to modern Japanese readers.

[8] His works span a wide range of topics from the occult to natural history, literary criticism, biology, cartography, and iconography.

Along with acclaimed yokai expert Natsuhiko Kyogoku, Aramata is a senior member of Shigeru Mizuki's Kwai (Scary Team) Organization.