What is "kokugaku"

Kokugaku (Kyūjitai: 國學/Shinjitai: 国学; lit. National study) was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked to refocus Japanese scholarship away from the then-dominant study of Chinese, Confucian, and Buddhist texts in favor of research into the early Japanese classics.