The Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship for his book, Shaku Unshō to kairistu no kindai 釈雲照と戒律の近代 (Hōzōkan, 2022), a study of the monk Shaku Unshō and his precept revival movement in modern Japan. The committee praised his book as a study that avoids a standard linear approach to modernity and instead situates Shaku Unshō within his intellectual context and also incorporates both Japanese and foreign scholarship to offer a theoretically rich study that goes beyond standard social historical approaches centered on the biography of a single monk. They further note how he goes beyond traditional approaches that focus on Jōdo Shinshū monks as the agents of Buddhist modernization; challenges ideas that the modernization of Buddhism meant rejecting precepts; and highlights both continuities and ruptures between the early modern and modern periods. This is one of the most prestigious awards for religious studies in Japan and Mitsuhiro joins a list of luminaries in the field who have previously received it.

In addition to The Japanese Association for Religious Studies Award for Outstanding Scholarship announced in September, Mitsuhiro has also received the 9^th Nakamura Hajime Prize for the Promotion of Oriental Studies. The official announcement praised his work for offering a new interpretation of the Japanese monk Shaku Unshō (1827–1909). While past scholarship has seen Unshō as anti-modern, Mitsuhiro’s work shows how he carved out a new form of Buddhism in the Meiji period. As the award committee noted, it is an important work for considering the meaning of Buddhist precepts in Meiji Buddhism, but it also has significance today. The award announcement can be found here.