Japan's benchmark Nikkei index spent most of the day in negative territory to close down 0.19% at 18,264.22.
After surging almost 8% on Wednesday, the Tokyo index closed down 2.5% on Thursday  - among Asia's big losers.
Investor concern over whether or not the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week has set in.
Investor sentiment has also been affected by the slowing Chinese economy, which is the world's second-biggest after the United States.
Japan's investors seem to shrug off news that Japan Post is seeking to raise as much as 1.39tn yen ($11.5bn, Â£7.4bn) in a stock market listing  - including its banking and insurance arms -  that would be one of the world's biggest this year.
The plan for the state-owned giant would be one of Japan's largest public share sales in more than 30 years.
Chinese shares traded mixed with the Shanghai Composite closing down 0.1% to 3,200.45, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended down 0.3% to 21,504.37.
Fresh measures from regulators to ease the volatility in the market may be working as both benchmark indexes did not move dramatically this week.
In Australia, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 closed down 0.47% at 5,071.10 points despite gains on Wall Street overnight.
Analysts said investors there were also concerned about a possible rise in US interest rates.
After being the one bright spot in Asia yesterday, South Korea's benchmark Kospi closed down 1.06% at 1,941.37. The Bank of Korea left its benchmark rate unchanged at 1.5% on Friday.

Lithuania violated an article on free elections in the European Convention on Human Rights, the ruling said.
Mr Paksas was impeached and removed from office as president after the Baltic state's constitutional court found that he had abused his position.
He is now a Euro MP in Strasbourg.
The judgement by the Strasbourg court on Thursday is binding, meaning that Lithuania, an EU member state, will have to act on it to prevent any similar violation in future.
But the judges did not award Mr Paksas compensation, saying their ruling was in itself "sufficient just satisfaction".
Lithuania was found to have violated Article Three of Protocol One (Right to free elections) in the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2004 Mr Paksas became the first European head of state in modern times to be impeached and removed from office.
The former Soviet republic's constitutional court found that he had illegally arranged Lithuanian citizenship for a Russian-born businessman, Yuri Borisov.
But Mr Paksas, an aerobatic pilot in Soviet times, was cleared of the charge of having leaked state secrets to Russia.
After the constitutional court had backed Mr Paksas's disqualification, the Lithuanian parliament adopted a new electoral rule barring anyone from becoming an MP if they had previously been dismissed in impeachment proceedings.
Mr Paksas complained that the rule had been passed deliberately to bar him from office. He also said the constitutional court had lacked impartiality and had exceeded its powers.
The Strasbourg judges accepted that a breach of the constitution was "a particularly serious matter", but they argued that Mr Paksas's permanent and irreversible disqualification from running for election was disproportionate.
In 2009 Mr Paksas was elected to the European Parliament. He sits with the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, which seeks to defend national sovereignty and prevent the further concentration of power in Brussels.
Asia's markets were mostly down in trade on Friday following a rocky week featuring particularly volatile swings in Tokyo.
[NEXT_CONCEPT]
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Lithuania was wrong to bar former President Rolandas Paksas from running for parliament after he had been ousted from power in 2004.