My country, Brazil, apparently had the largest immigration of Japanese in the world. We recently celebrated one hundred years of immigration and the influence that this culture had on us is undeniable, since we are already mixed by nature and we also have German and Italian neighborhoods, as well as a great African influence. My town has a Japanese park and several sakura trees, as well as a Japanese cultural center with a baseball team. I really love it.
The best example of what you're saying is true is the fact that you call them Sakura trees instead of cherry blossom trees in America we refer to them as cherry blossom trees
This video is full of mistakes in just the beginning alone. Japan didn't adopt Western traditions after WW2, that began during the Meiji Reformation in 1868 when the emperor banned most traditional Japanese culture and forced society to adopt Western norms and practices. Even martial arts and most traditional crafts were forbidden. It's actually during and after WW2 that the Japanese revived many lost Japanese art-forms, often times in watered down forms from their original. Japan wasn't unfamiliar to Abrahamic religions. The Portuguese began trading with Japan in 1543. Catholic Christianity was introduced to the nation then and quickly became a fast-growing religion until it was banned in 1614.
This is so wrong... the Japanese tried to go radically westernized only in the first 2 decades of the meiji era... with too much criticism going on, the reforms started taking a very limited approach. Wakon yosai (Japanese spirit with Western learning) means adopting Western arts while valuing Japanese traditional spirituality, and harmonizing as well as developing them. The idea of Wakon yosai was against the idea that 'Western culture is superior and Japanese culture is behind', which emerged after the civilization and enlightenment of the Meiji restoration until the early 1890s. As a matter of fact, as late as the 1940s, most Japanese women wore Japanese clothes and Japanese women dressed like modern westerners were said to look like promiscuous bitches. Most Japanese traditions disappeared after world war II because of the westernization re-education forced by U.S. occupying forces, the country was in total ruins (air bombing), the state was separated from religion the emperor was no longer a living god. All this accelerated the reorganisation of cultural property protection and gave rise to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties (文化財保護法) which was drafted on May 30, 1950 and came into force on August 29 of the same year
No actually the westernization of Japan started long before WW2, it started during in the Meiji Restoration ( 1850 - c. 1889). Almost 100 years before the end of WW2.
I have Japanese in-laws and I’ve had a number of discussions with them about religion. Most Japanese don’t believe in God or any higher power, yet they regularly engage in strict Shinto/Buddhist rituals and traditions without really understanding why they’re doing it. This is why Japan is sometimes called the most religious and least religious country in the world.
The Japanese like Chinese and Koreans and strict Philippines and Indonesia and other parts of the Far East in even Central Asia a lot of that area is very deist not personal theist like the west world. The east thinks and teaches that God(s) has need need for mortals dead or alive is too far above it all. So God is there and not there the same time makes theological sense philosophically religiously excetera.
And because they don’t believe in hereafter, Morality from the Divine and even the very purpose of life is to serve the Divine One. They are one of the nations with the highest rate of suicidal people… because they don’t have spiritual goals and they don’t have clear picture of what the Universe is and what is their purpose in this world … like their gods(kamis) that just popped up out of chaos.. their life so confusing… and some how blurred…
@@hayyanmintgreen8561 you’re making the mistake of correlation= causation. Actually the suicide rate isn’t because they don’t believe in a religion or have any spiritualism it’s because of the toxic work culture and strict societal expectations
@@hayyanmintgreen8561 just because they don't share your idealism from the West doesn't mean they have purpose they have their own purpose is just not Guided by the same exact kind of divine principles or ruling it that the West belief of God has and actually some cases it's better in the East a lot better because Mortals Supernatural and not take their own responsibility and govern their own principles with with honesty and respect in fact Japan is secular doesn't have suicide rates that are high in fat the lawn mower suicide rates we've looked at or the Western World Main the United States because of religious ruling and foolishness
@@hayosh9309 just look at the rate of suicidal case between majority atheist nations compare to the nations that are believers of the Abrahamic Religions..
I can't believe you claim Japan didn't aspire to Eestern culture until after WWII. The Meiji restoration of the mid-1880s was, to a significant extent, specifically about such modernization, and it's easy to find pictures from around 1900 that show Japanese people in western garb - especially military. It was a time of transistion to be sure, but by the time WWII had started, Japan was already very westernized. Not to say it was a fait accompli - you'll find a thorough mix of old and new before WWII.
They actually started modernizing the army before 1880s. Oda nobunaga was importing portuguese guns in 1550s in exchange for allowing portuguese missionaries to spread christianity. The guns basically allowed him to become the first great unifier of japan because you could arm ashigaru with guns and they were effective with little training. This in turn led to development of japanese lamellar plate armor which was created specifically to stop bullets. For comparison, european heavy cavalry used cuirasses up until the end of napoleonic wars.
your grandparents or great grandparents probably had some turn of the century japanese porcelain which was in part manufactured for sale to american servicemen and as such afforded wide international distribution.
Japan's unique folklore is likely due to it's inhabitants' isolation after settling the archipelago, that coupled with their less serious attitude surrounding their ancient mythologies leads to the "anime-understanding" of japanese myths
Japan was not really isolated until the Tokugawa unification, which ended the Sengoku era (also called the Warring States era) at the beginning of the 17th century. The Tokugawa shogunate enforced this isolation, even within to a fair degree, for ~260 years.
The first foreign cultural interference (with the west) was the Dutch, Portuguese, and the Jesuit missionaries in the south. Japan developed a Christian minority significant enough that it was deemed dangerous by the Shogunate. The Shogunate clamped down on it to keep it from spreading beyond Kyushu.
The systematic reference to Abrahamic religion is somewhat disturbing, the whole video makes it seems like a western audience has no frame of reference outside of those, when it's not really the case, at least in Europe with ancient influence and mythology being integral to a lots of countries culture.
True, a lot of local traditions have their roots in pagan rituals. Especially in the Scandinavian countries. Some of which was adopted by Christianity at large. Christmas in December? Former celebration of the winter solstice.
@@Ikajo If you study enough of it you'll realize it's all the same thing. To sum this up in a way you might be able to understand this like all myths and religions comes from alchemy. That's why the mythologies are all similar because they actually revolve around the same gods. The early builders discovered sacred geometry and realized the all can be seen as a code within all things in the universe. This is why early science was mixed with spirituality. At some point the information was used against us instead of to help us. They created the myths in an attempt to explain the all. Then they turned and worshipped their creation rather than the creator. We've had a one world religion for thousands of years. All secret societies stemmed from the larger cult who created it. They're the ones doing this to us now. The nwo is real, and their intentions are insane.
@@Ikajo also Christmas was moved to December because the stars change allignment in cycles. This is where the ouroboros comes from. I originally thought the Vatican did this to trick people into worshipping Baal. Now I know what they did was accurate and it all revolves around Baal and Baal was the first man. That's why his name is used with so many gods. Anyways in regards of the sun it's symbolism for the philosopher's Stone. The belief these people are worshipping the sun is a huge misunderstanding.
@@Allyourheroswenttohell what do you mean "moved to"? Number 1, the "Vatican" had nothing to do with what Christians were doing in early centuries, number 2 the eastern Christians don't care one flip what the western Catholic church says or does. I mean, you peoples' anachronistic ignorance is just so shameful
The video confuses different concepts. An ideology can have inside itself a philosophy but not the other way around. A religion can have (also) an inherent philosophy and even support an ideological preset, but not necessarily the other way around: A philosophy refers to an approach of looking and analyzing life an existence (that the whole concept of existence, “what is” and “what is not” is under the concept of ontology or metaphysics). Therefore “philosophy” is not limited to those studied by academia, there are thousands of philosophies and even some aren’t consistent or share their space with other philosophies within a same culture/society. An ideology instead looks at a social state of things and proposes a correct way to fix it: it is fixed and represents a view of things (that can be contained by a philosophy and even a religion) and doesn’t accept alternatives. An ideology could be whether secular (not necessarily paired with religious belief) OR religious therefore contain a religion. You could have MANY political parties that are under THE SAME ideological umbrella, politics being the HOW to reach such change expressed and desired by an ideology. In some authoritarian countries only ONE and just ONE ideology is permitted (like under communism) and (sometimes) only ONE form of politics that correlates to said ideology. You can ALSO have different ideologies in the same society and the struggles may be big or even huge. Usually a constitution of a country expresses one philosophy (in the West many have an inherent Humanist philosophy) that ALLOWS for many ideologies as long as they get along with said philosophy; if not, constitutional reformation would happen. Nevertheless there are constitution that support whether one and only one ideology (example: some Communist ones) or countries that accept one and only one religion as that of a country (example: most Muslim countries). A key component for religion is its supernatural assumption: it’s an ontology that already starts with the idea that some things go beyond the limits of natural laws or physical laws and it’s not contained by logic. From there on the variety of concepts that sustains its hierarchical structure (whether it has one God, gods, no gods, everything is God or gods, etc.) can be paired with philosophical views on reality and sometimes (as expressed above) with an ideology. Another key ingredient of religions is faith: that that needs no proof to be deeply believed. In science you may rely, at the end of a rational or empirical road, on a belief that can’t advance beyond a certain point BUT while science will always look after an explanation beyond that, religion doesn’t. Religions that have strict codified belief that have to be adopter without differences are called dogmatic, that is, they have certain tenets that should not be touched to be considered part of said religion: non dogmatic religions can be on the other hand syncretic. They can mingle and integrate concepts from other religions, even add gods to their own, even share different mythologies and even have different stories or myth for their gods.
Very interesting choice of words "unique" I think when comparing something to something you know makes it unique. Every mythology is unique and strange.
6:50 This makes it a very benign religion in comparison to Abrahamic religions, which are quite closed to change and criticism, Islam in particular present day but all of them for the vast majority of their existence. Living like we're still in the middle or bronze age isn't exactly good for progress... That was a really interesting video though, I always find polytheism a far more interesting subject than monotheism, which just comes across unimaginative and a bit ridiculous to me.
Japanese Mythology is far from unique, the details might be, but the concept of indistinct boundaries between gods, demons, monsters and spirits is common across East Asia.
Not only east Asia… some form of animism has existed on every continent. A lot of japanese myths even have parallels in China and Korea (though there wasn’t nearly as much interchange as Korea/China, or the mythologies of Western Europe. Japan has been historically isolationist for a lot of its history.). Shinto has a lot in common with Korean Shamanism. It’s weird how people, even educators, are willing to just discount other existing religions and mythologies because they aren’t in popular media
@@harrylane4 If you study enough of it you'll realize it's all the same thing. To sum this up in a way you might be able to understand this like all myths and religions comes from alchemy. That's why the mythologies are all similar because they actually revolve around the same gods. The early builders discovered sacred geometry and realized the all can be seen as a code within all things in the universe. This is why early science was mixed with spirituality. At some point the information was used against us instead of to help us. They created the myths in an attempt to explain the all. Then they turned and worshipped their creation rather than the creator. We've had a one world religion for thousands of years. All secret societies stemmed from the larger cult who created it. They're the ones doing this to us now. The nwo is real, and their intentions are insane.
Actually I understand that approximately 1% or so of the Japanese population follows Christianity- including Roman Catholicism which has traditionally been centered in Nagasaki, even today...
This whole article was an in-depth description of a cover of a book. ZERO information ABOUT Japanese mythogy. Just a long-winded and repetitive essay stating that Japan HAS mythology. Thanks for NOTHING.
I’ve heard that Japan has a saying, paraphrasing but everyone is born in Shinto and dies Buddhist. Basically Shinto doesn’t have much in the way of funerals from what I understand
@@Membarock not only that, but Shintoism has a preoccupation with ritual purity and so from a pragmatic standpoint they don't concern themselves with the handling of dead things (burial) and occupations related to tanning and the butchering of animals.
I truly wish various aspects of Japanese culture, traditional and contemporary, were more known and popular in the west. It's so fascinating and a lot of certain aspects are exceedingly more practical and respectable than how the west thinks and behaves.
If you study enough of it you'll realize it's all the same thing. To sum this up in a way you might be able to understand this like all myths and religions comes from alchemy. That's why the mythologies are all similar because they actually revolve around the same gods. The early builders discovered sacred geometry and realized the all can be seen as a code within all things in the universe. This is why early science was mixed with spirituality. At some point the information was used against us instead of to help us. They created the myths in an attempt to explain the all. Then they turned and worshipped their creation rather than the creator. We've had a one world religion for thousands of years. All secret societies stemmed from the larger cult who created it. They're the ones doing this to us now. The nwo is real, and their intentions are insane.
@@Allyourheroswenttohell um, no. Religion came from shamanic animism and ancestral worship. Alchemy developed much later out of Taoism before migrating to the West and influencing Hermeticism, but most of the Big 5 religions are completely unaffected by alchemy.
@@lucyferos205 You've been lied to about when and where alchemy was created. The symbolism shown in alchemy as well as secret societies goes back thousands of years before it's creation. The only way you have any chance of discovering this for yourself is through studying the occult. Clear as day alchemy existed in the first known civilization.
@@lucyferos205 also if you look through pictures of shamans you'll find something in common with freemasons. They both wear aprons over their crotches. You're so sure you have it figured out, but at the same time you know nothing
The biggest mistake made here is all religions are mythology not just non monotheistic religions. It is obvious the person writing this was religious in the western ways not the oriental or non bias.
@@user-yp7ke4et7o of course many do believe in God, but practice is way more important. No one would even ask you if you believe as long as you keep the traditions... You might even be an atheist for all they care... And many Jews actually are secular.. about half. I'm sure that some Shinto followers also believe in Kami, but the practice is more important.
@@brandbran6486 you do know that the only reason why Christianity is more practiced than any other religion is because your OGs killed more than everyone else, right?
There are some errors in this video. 1 it says that after world War 2, Japan started to become westernized. This is incorrect because their military and infrastructure started to westernized in the mid to late 1800 during the Meiji Restoration. 2. It also mentions that the US military was there briefly. They are still there
As a matter of fact the Shinto religion and mythology of Japan actually is in fact imbued in that movie The Grudge or juon. Just need to do the research do some study and background you'll see.
Nordic mythology is also extremely unique, i believe it to be not as prominent as it is in japan due to the wide acceptance of christianism and the assimilation with the rest of europe having it be "washed down", it is still really nice and colorful regardless and i supposed some could say the same about old greco/roman culture
Scandinavian myths definitely have similarities to Christianity. I dunno who came first because Scandinavian stories were an oral tradition for who knows how long so it is possible that they adopted some Christian ideas into their own. But they share many similarities like edun and the apple
Beautiful presentation. I have a request though: You are using too much motion in the text, transitions, and even add more moving elements on the still photos, and this gives me nausea, please reduce moving transitions and elements in the foreground and in text appearance and disappearance. Thank you. I subscribed to the newsletter and am looking forward to seeing what you have to say about Egyptian mythology which is my main interest. Best regards
Religion is culture to a great extent. Hebrews did not except Egyptian gods because they were a slave people. So the rejected Egypt and it ways... eventually forming a new kingdom under King David. Japan to a great extent feared China. So it makes since it worked to have a different culture to unite its people opposed to china.
Foreigners love Anime and try to learn our language as a result of that but fail to truly understand our culture which intertwined with the Japanese language itself.
You glossed over the big reason Shinto doesn't have missionaries .. because it is a religion for Japanese. They would find it odd if anyone wanted to 'convert' because outsiders have no ancestral/historical tie to Japan.
I can't watch this my guy, it has a heavy western look on eastern ideas. until people are able to actually see the eastern ideas from THAT point of view and completely detach from the western point of view. I'm afraid you are just trying to empty the ocean with a bucket.
Buddhism's a little bit more explicit when it comes to ethical and moral guidelines but as for with Shinto ideas of morality and ethics are left alot more open ended.
Mythology of every culture is hilarious to me like some dude just made this shit up and everyone went with it and now ppl live their lives by it lmao it’s laughable
I remember some time ago about a theory regarding, how a big migration happened in japan, bringing taoism and buddhism in the japanese lands where they met with the original inhabitant who were instead animistic, the two culture ended up blending producing this original structure. Can anyone confirm this being a thing, or at least a valod theory? Or can it be disapproved (like a wrong timelime or idk what)?
Taoism and Buddhism were brought over from China in the latter half of the first millennia AD, although I don't believe this had to do with any large migrations. The main ethnicity of Japan is the Yamato Japanese, who are descended from the Yayoi people who are believed to have migrated from China/Korea before 300 AD.
Yes, one of the earliest cultures know on Japan is known as Jomon from around 14,000 BCE. There were "nature spirits" which likely influenced the more structured Shinto. Buddhism was introduced later and just didn't conflict with the established Shinto beliefs.
@@thenew4559 this is basically confirmed since during the 3 kingdoms of korea, gaya confederacy(a neutral state on the southern tip of korean peninsula) spoke proto-japanese or something like that.
Such cringey overuse of the word "primitive" 😣 Was this script written in the 1950s or something? Call me crazy but Judeo-Christian religions that try to dominate all others seem more "primitive" to me.
Japanese Mythology isn't unique it just has survived to the modern day in all its extremities. where as other cultures either whiped out the extreme parts too make it fit more and more people. or forced it on other area's to the point where they became part of there own religion. like christianity and catholism basically destroyed all religions in europe forcing paganism to the point of extinction while also obliterating all the ancient greek and ancient roman myths.
It's extremities seem somewhat more benign than the Abrahamic religions though thankfully. As you said those religions popularity are largely indebted to our ancestors behaving like complete tyrants in the name of god. Japan have of course had their issues, but nothing for anything like as prolonged or invasive as the Abrahamics or with the same motives... Being relatively isolated can come with is own problems too though. Today Christianity seems so much more benign in comparison, but if their history and how it was enforced was squashed accurately into a 2 hour movie, it wouldn't be until the last few mins before it stopped being an utter shit show, morally speaking. It's easy to forget or to not be aware of the scope of it, when it's out of living memory I suppose.
0:22 and I'm out, "they do not find their mark" Naruto, one of the most popular ever, is riddled with folk law and fables, only slightly changed for their world.
This is a very underappreciated subject. I lived in Japan for 10 years, dated, studied, speak and read and stuff and I think there are no Christian hangups/concepts about sex...and things like mercy and conforming
@@Ikajo yeah. People don't really understand why Christians are taught the things they are about sex. Christians dont even really. Alchemists believed in transmutation of the soul to become pure to become a vessel for the all. The Bible is a cook book for the philosopher's Stone.
@@Ikajo If you study enough of it you'll realize it's all the same thing. To sum this up in a way you might be able to understand this like all myths and religions comes from alchemy. That's why the mythologies are all similar because they actually revolve around the same gods. The early builders discovered sacred geometry and realized the all can be seen as a code within all things in the universe. This is why early science was mixed with spirituality. At some point the information was used against us instead of to help us. They created the myths in an attempt to explain the all. Then they turned and worshipped their creation rather than the creator. We've had a one world religion for thousands of years. All secret societies stemmed from the larger cult who created it. They're the ones doing this to us now. The nwo is real, and their intentions are insane.
Westerners mistake Christianity as being a religion. There is a religion of Christianity. But True Christianity is, simply put, a restored relationship with our Creator.
They saying, "Hahaha, Little Jim is very welcome, here. "We" heard about you asking questions in Memphis, Tn. and they drugged, badly. You did that own your on and alone? Hahaha, Little Jim is crazy + very real young man. Thank You from us.".
They are actully not that Unique, they are just the only that didn't got Converted by Force to be Christian In the English Iles a similiar structured Mythology once Dominated but Christianity was, well, not a big Fan to put it lightly, reflected in Arthur's Legend. a most likley Propaganda Story back then.
I'm sorry but no japan started to become more western around 1920 after us navy forcibly opened it ports to tread about 30 years early. 1920 japan was in many ways a more progress liberal place than it is now. It was much more LGBT friendly. a military cow replaces the government for the imperialistic on of ww2. that military government genocided homosexuals.I read about it the biography of the gay woman who created the yuri ( shontai realy) gounra found in amine to day.
The assumption that the struggle of "what is it that makes us Japanese" is a new thing is misinformation and not well researched. In 1910 Akutagawa wrote his famous short story Rashomon. The use of the Rashomon gate was a deliberate choice, representing the decline and corruption of japanese culture (this was during the time period imperial Japan started to emerge, also known as Shinto nationalism or State Shinto). Despite this having been before even WW1, this question for Japanese identity can even be traced back as early as the 1850s when the nation first opened its borders again. In short, the question for Japanese identity had always been a nationalist tool of stringing together the populus, it always existed and is as integral to Japan as the Torri gate.
Umm your ignoring the Christian missionaries in Japan in the mid?,1800’s high lever Japanese converted , then Christianity, etc got banned , Japan from then westernised in education, learnt to make better trains than the English. Modernised their navy ,
Important to understand that all Hindu ideals permeated Buddhism and visa versa and stretched far across into the former Persian Empire and parts of Africa long before Islam. The world was much more as one before we started thinking that Chinese and Japanese, Korean and Indian, were really that different. If you study Hinduism, the Vedas, and principles of Buddhism and for that matter the Abrahamic religions (which is just Catholicism in its continuity, itself part of Rome and the Old World that existed on all continents) that in terms of the modern world, we are looking at a shattered spirit, with nations and countries attempting to vainly call each idea their own. There can only exist a universal soul, independent of language. The action rules paramount. Kami is the same as atman=brahman and the trilogy of the Holy Spirit and the Divine Mother among other narratives. Religion is repeated action, steeped in the narrative of history that creates tradition. The narrative is not needed, as it can and has been changed repeatedly, corrupted and misused. However there does exist Laws, Principles and Virtue, that realm that remains immutable although forgotten. If we are One, we can only hope to act as such. Everything else will follow.
Shockingly condescending ("primitive religion"?!), generalisations beyond reason or usefulness, and rediculous factual errors. I don't like being mean about people's work but you should seriously reconsider this video.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds
I don't know how you spent 12 minutes talking about a subject without actually getting into the details. For those who want a more in depth understanding of Yokai and other Japanese Folklore stories, go to the Linfamy channel.
The only thing that I would really disagree with was it was not after WW2 that Japan opened up to western influence it's whole militaristic expansionism that led to WW2 was based on western ideas just with Japanese rather then white Europeans as the superior race who had the right to subjugate lesser peoples and started with the US forcing it to open it's borders in 1853.
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world
spiritualism is natural while the abrahamic religion is artificial or political, some philosopher disagree that spiritualism is religion tho, it is a natural process of human evolution that ppl preserve as art in the future.
