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Japanese Ghosts, spirits, oni, etc: A bit of a crash course


Clephas

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First, the simple basis for understanding the way Japanese think about the supernatural. Simply put, Shinto, which was the country's official religion and is the religion that originated there, is an animistic faith, with a strong tendency toward the personification of nature and objects. Second, Buddhism was the dominant faith in Japan for centuries, when the various shogunates tried to weaken the Emperor's power by strengthening the influence of Buddhism as a rival faith.

Why is this relevant? Shintoism personifies the dead and believes in the concept of living gods. The Buddhist tributaries in Japan generally believe in reincarnation. Both faiths create a belief that there are things in the world that exist alongside us that cannot be seen by 'normal' people. Both have a belief in life after death, and both have a concept of 'lingering' and 'ascension'.

Generally speaking, Japanese spiritualists hold to a belief (or so they say) that if you can see a spirit, you can effect it and it can effect you. It is vital to understand this before anything else when dealing with Japanese spiritualism in general. While the idea of ghosts harming or possessing those who can't see them isn't denied by Japanese spiritualists, those who can 'see' them are thought to be more vulnerable, if left untrained ('training' generally resembling Buddhist asceticism and meditation).

Now, the word 'oni' is perhaps the most overused name for spirits in Japan. This is because it can be taken to be any spirit that can and does cause harm, refer to humans whose souls have fallen into evil, and/or the legendary giant ogre-type creatures like Shuten-doji that litter Japanese legend. Because of this, it isn't uncommon for ghosts, youkai, and even some 'kami' (the animistic idea of gods in the Shinto faith) to be considered 'oni'. This should give you an idea of how useless any attempt to define what an oni is can be, and why it is so conveniently used in VNs, anime, and manga.

A lot of this lack of discrimination comes from the fact that Shinto attributes souls to all things, whether they are humans, animals, natural disasters, or even inanimate objects.

Now, the two attitudes 'traditional' people in Japan take toward ghosts tend to be: 'seal them up' or 'banish them'. While Shinto can be said to be nature-worshiping, it is at its heart a pragmatist's faith. 'Cleanse people's souls so they don't do bad things'. 'Cleanse a place to prevent possible disaster'. 'Worship a god so it doesn't squish you'. Simple, isn't it? Of course, there are a lot of deeper details, but that is what you should keep in mind as a core reality of the faith and its view on spiritualism.

In otaku-media, it is extremely rare for fantasy anime that deal with ghosts, spirits, or demons to take a single-faith approach to it. You'll almost always see a multi-faith approach, with one or more being dominant (including Christian ones at times). Shinto is dominant the most often, though Buddhism tends to dominate when you get into stuff based a few centuries in the past. Onmyoudou, one of the original types of 'spiritualism' in Japan is very much a fusion of Buddhist and Shinto ideas, if you want an example, since it is extensively used in various anime.

What does this all come down to? Basically, traditional Japanese viewpoints on ghosts and spirits tend to be ones of rejection, and this is something to keep in mind when reading a VN or watching an anime that deals with ghosts, youkai, or other supernatural beings.

A few bits of vocab:

kami- While it is a term that is also used for the Christian god, it is a universal term for all supernatural beings that have worshipers or need to be be/have been worshiped. By Japanese standards, angels and demons would be considered to be kami under the right circumstances, as the Japanese consider 'enshrining' a harmful existence to be a way to keep it from harming them.

akuma- Simply, demon. This is a relatively modern term made of the kanji for evil and the kanji for 'that which is outside/heretical'.

oni- both a name for a specific type of ogre-type youkai and a generalized umbrella term for evil spirits, humans who have fallen into evil ways to an extreme degree, and aspects of certain kami.

youkai- spirits of Japanese legend. The most common are nature spirits, animal spirits, dragons, and 'object spirits' (Tsukumogami). It isn't uncommon for beneficial or powerful ones to be raised up as 'kami' and enshrined to gain the benefit of their blessing and prevent them from doing harm. Whether they are seen as having physical form varies based upon the individual viewpoint.

Reibaishi- An almost identical concept to the Western 'medium'... basically someone who can see spirits and/or communicate with them and makes a living off of it.

Jorei- Exorcism, though it is usually of spirits rather than demons.

PS: This isn't complete... I'll be adding to it later, lol.

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This blog post goes really indepthly in things that were only touched in a Japanese theater class I once took. Thanks Clephas!

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Well I haven't heard of Nanario, but I do have an interest in learning about Japanese spirits, religion, and folklore so I enjoyed this quite a bit. I look forward to when you update it, that is if I remember to check in the first place.

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