Japan's core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 1.7% year over year in August, according to data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on Friday.
The reading missed the consensus forecast of 1.8% growth tracked by Investing.com and was down from the 1.8% expansion recorded in the previous month.
Meanwhile, headline inflation remained unchanged at 1.9% compared with the previous month, but was lower than the Trading Economics forecast of 2.1%.
On a month-over-month basis, Japan's core CPI fell 0.1% in August following the 0.3% increase in the previous month.
The seasonally adjusted month-over-month headline inflation remained flat in August from a 0.4% growth in July.