Japanese raccoon dogs are often mistakenly translated into English as "badger" or "raccoon" (as used in the English translation of the film Pom Poko and outlined in Tom Robbins' book Villa Incognito), two unrelated types of animals with superficially similar appearances.

Like cats, the Japanese raccoon dog arches its back when it is trying to intimidate other animals; however, they assume a defensive posture similar to that of other canids, lowering their bodies and showing their bellies to submit.

However, following morphological and genetic analysis across multiple studies, all of which indicated that N. viverrinus was a distinct species, it was later classified as such by the American Society of Mammalogists.

[3][12] Genetic analysis has confirmed unique sequences of mtDNA, classifying the Japanese raccoon dog as a distinct isolation species, based on evidence of eight Robertsonian translocations.

This taxon is synonymized with N. p. viverrinus in Mammal Species of the World,[13][16] but comparative morphometric analysis supports recognizing the Hokkaido population as a distinct subspecific unit.

[13] The IUCN places the raccoon dog at "least concern" status due to the animal's wide distribution in Japan and abundant population, including as an introduced species throughout northeastern Europe.

In many European countries, it is legal to hunt raccoon dogs, as they are considered a harmful and invasive species.

[18] In Japan the species is hunted mainly to prevent them from damaging crops; however, their fur is desired for use in calligraphy brushes and was exported chiefly to the United States before the outbreak of World War II.

The earliest appearance of the bake-danuki in literature, in the chapter about Empress Suiko in the Nihon Shoki written during the Nara period, there are such passages as "in two months of spring, there are tanuki in the country of Mutsu,[19] they turn into humans and sing songs.

[21] In some regions of Japan, bake-danuki are reputed to have abilities similar to those attributed to foxes: they can shapeshift into other things or people,[21][24] and can possess human beings.