"Japan as it is http://home.snafu.de/jgkb/archive-japanasitis/start.html
Culture
1. Divination
CALENDAR
AND FORTUNETELLING
[…]
I have explained here the traditional theories in Japan to understand nature and accordingly to evaluate the activities of people and tell fortune. I cannot but help having impression that our traditional culture is almost the direct transplantation of Chinese culture.(*) The contemporary Japanese are still very much influenced by Chinese traditional wisdom.
(*)"Feng Shui" (wind and water), the dominant system in the contemporary Chinese society especially in Hong Kong and Singapore, is also based on the traditional Chinese theories as I explained above.
However, the present popular methods for fortune telling in Japan are also more and more Europeanized. So, for example, European type horoscope becomes very popular and ladies magazines have pages dedicated to fortune telling according to zodiac signs.
Also new system for evaluating human characters and chemistry becomes popular. Blood type, for example, is a new theory invented probably in Japan. (**)
(**) According to the theory, different blood type has different character and the chemistry of a couple is determined by their combination of blood types.
Blood type and character
A scrupulous and earnest B egocentric and imaginative
O generous and loose AB nervous and whimsical
It seems that many need some irrational and superhuman oracles as guidelines for their decision what to do. I am personally not interested in these things. However, it is not easy to get rid of the influence of all superstitions, especially when we have lost all rational hope ... A drowning man will catch at a straw ;-p "