/jp/ - Otaku Culture

Gegege no Kitarou will tell you everything you need to know about Japanese religion. They do not get the idea that religions are supposed to be mutually exclusive and instead just try to appease any spirit they think might have any influence on their lives. Shakyamuni is the particular version of the Buddha that most Japanese worship. Budhism and Shinto exist side by side but do not tie into one-another on a philosophical or theological level. Instead, they fulfill different social and psychological needs. Certain birth-related ceremonies, marriages, and funerals are essentially Budhist, while most public festivals are Shinto. Japanese Buddhism has no central head, just the senior monks of individual temples. The Japanese royal family is considdered to be decendants of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, but, since Shinto has no formal dogma, just a hap-hazard collection of rituals, this is more a justification for the emporer's claim to worldly power than a claim to religious leadership of the type a Pope or Mullah would weild.