He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in film studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fujiki's research mainly explores the industrial and socio-cultural history of Japanese film stardom and the local reception of American and European films in relation to Japanese modernity; the history of film audiences in Japan, especially the construction of social subjectivity, the period of the Japanese empire and questions of nationalism, citizenship and transmediality; and ecological issues in contemporary Japanese and other documentary cinema regarding the depiction of radiation, animals, waste, the Anthropocene and the public sphere.