Born in Tokyo in 1979, Okamoto is an associate professor of Media and Communication Studies at Hokkaido University. He graduated from the College of Letters at Ritsumeikan University and completed his doctorate at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tsukuba University. He specializes in religious studies and the sociology of tourism. His published books in Japanese include Seichi to inori no shukyo shakaigaku (The sociology of religion as seen in holy places and prayer, 2012) which received the Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2013, and Edo Tokyo no seichi wo aruku (Visiting Tokyo's sacred sites from the Edo period, 2017). He has also coauthored Seichi junrei tsurizumu (Pilgrimage tourism, 2012), Shukyo to shakai no furontia (The frontiers of religion and society, 2012), and Higashi Asia kankogaku (Tourism studies in east Asia, 2017).
