Takeo Doi, the man who made "amae" a household word, later wrote this book about "omote" and "ura" and their extensions, "tatemae" and "honne." The first of these terms indicates a confident, if indulgent, leaning upon others for support, which Doi has said goes a long way toward defining Japanese character. The latter terms have been elegantly defined by Shuichi Kato in his multivolume "A History of Japanese Literature":
"The Tokugawa Period began with the division of the rulers and the ruled. With this division came the dual value system of 'duty' ('giri') and 'feeling' ('ninjo') and the dual mode of behavior of the official, formal and rigorous (omote) and the unofficial, informal and loose (ura)." It follows that tatemae implies some kind of official group convention, and that honne indicates something more informally individual.
In this rather slim volume, originally published in Japanese under the title "Omote to Ura," Doi explores these terms and their extensions with rigorous arguments. A major thrust is that this dyadic pair is not to be read (despite the English title given this book) as one "versus" another. Rather, like so much else in his model of Japan, they are symbiotic, mutually constitutive. One supports the other: Without omote there could be no ura, without tatemae, no honne.