Suitor Moji, a strategist at Daiwa SB Investments, said the market could have fallen further after worse-than-expected economic data for September raised concerns that Japan's economic recovery may be stalling.
"I think it's fair to say the data that came out this both the industrial output numbers and the wage-earner spending were quite bad," he said.
The data, released before the start of trade, showed that Japan's industrial output rose 0.2 percent last month, lower than a median market forecast for a 2.0 percent increase.
Wage earner spending was also below expectations. But many investors opted to concentrate on earnings results instead of the data, picking up strong earners such as Mitsubishi Corp, Moji said.
"While the bad results are really bad overall, I think you can say we're seeing some decent earnings," he said. The Nikkei average ended the day down 70.54 points at 13,346.54, snapping a three-day winning streak.
It had risen a total of 2.37 percent in the previous three sessions. For the week it squeezed out a rise of 1.11 percent. The broader TOPIX index finished down 0.28 percent or 4.00 points at 1,419.84.
Honda, Japan's third-biggest auto maker, fell 1.6 percent to 6,260 yen after posting a surprise fall in quarterly operating profit as sales costs in the United States ballooned.
Promise tumbled 6.8 percent to 7,320 yen after the consumer lender cut its full-year profit forecast, prompting brokerage Goldman Sachs to lower its rating on the stock to "underperform" from "in-line".
Mitsubishi Corp rose 4.2 percent to 2,250 yen after the trading company boosted its already record-high annual profit outlook by 21 percent on Friday due to soaring raw materials prices.
It also reported that first-half profit nearly doubled from a year.