/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Why do so many Japanese videogames and anime involve the protagonist killing God? Is this some cultural thing?

[Anonymous No.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan#Killing_the_Buddha

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
Because they're usually based on Christianity or other non native religions that are pretty much considered invasive.

It's not like Western games don't involve killing gods though. They're usually Norse or Greek/Roman gods, so it seems unimportant though. Plenty of "I have become god" types though.

[Anonymous No.]

Because triggering christfags is fun.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586212
tru tru

[Anonymous No.]

Literally maximum power fantasy without the restrictions of Ameriburger culture.

[Anonymous No.]

Do Japanese have monotheistic God anyway? What do they believe in? Miyazaki films lead me to think they believe in a bunch of minor deities stemming from village tradition

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586284
>>16586284
They don't believe in anything.
The creation myth involves a pair of creation deities, but Shinto is a construct of a mishmash of old folk religions made to promote worship of the emperor and celebration of Japaneseness so it doesn't mean anything anyway.

Buddism doesn't really have a god for reasons in >>16585927

Some are Christian and they may indiscriminately say god or gods and may or may not mean the jewish one.

They mostly just believe in superstitions and rituals over proper religious beliefs though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
>Is this some cultural thing?
They don't know God.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
>games revolve around beating bosses
>power creep
>strongest boss is "God" pretty much by default.

It just sounds cool, I don't think I've even seen it refer to actual Abrahamic God, it's always just a word for "dude in charge with cool powers"

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586232
Learn to talk properly or faceplant off the top of a train onto a rock outcropping covered in garbage.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586250
Level 10 Super Oozaru Good!

[Anonymous No.]

Inscript the Dark God to a rotting body!
Flare!

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
It's their vendetta for not giving them souls.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
because they're heathens and hate Christ.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16590973
http://www.sharecom.ca/poet/tactics/fftsayings.html

you seem familiar???

[Anonymous No.]

Cause it's a cool ass concept, when done right anyways

[Anonymous No.]

>>16587809
SMT, no?

[Pseudo-Eliade No.]

>>16586323
This is a little too reductionist

It's not quite that Japanese religions don't have gods, but rather that they are a little more accessible to humans that then god is in western Abrahamic religions. Through very specific historical processes that have occurred within Judaism, and subsequently through Christianity and Islam, God in the west is perceived as this highly inaccessible, non-anthropomorphic, invulnerable, omnipotent, omniscient, transcendent supra-being, a perception of the divine that didn't really exist in pre-Christian European religions, pre-Christian and pre-Islamic Arab beliefs. As this the western point of reference, anything less than beliefs that promote this ideal is generally seen as less than religion, and is often called a tradition, cult, folk-religion, or is otherwise weaseled out of being given the legitimacy of being called religion. Even the concept of "Religion" that is an entity separate from public life, politics, and the rest of the world was originally, and still largely is, an occidental perception. In many places around the world, Japan especially, god(s) are accessible and spend their time among humans, and as such, are seemingly that much more responsive to human actions, including violence.

As for Buddhism, it has largely been syncretized with pre-Buddhism Japanese religion, and it has largely adopted some of its Gods in various forms, as deities themselves or as Bodhisattva, enlightened beings who aim to teach all sentient being enlightenment. The same process has been true of Buddhism since it left India/Nepal: Along the way, it picks up local beliefs are reuses them (Mahayana Buddhism, which is the basis for all traditional Japanese Buddhism, actually has a precedent for adopting local beliefs in order to promote the teachings of Shakyamuni/Siddarta Buddha, which is called Upaya). Thus, When Buddhism finally gets to Japan, it is already highly developed, and has a host of Indian, Pakistani, Chinese and even Korean minor and major dieties attached to it.
Furthermore, Buddhism itself isn't nearly as monolithic or "philosphical" (Especially in the Western sense) as it is made out to be, and it is really a messy group of religions with differing values and beliefs, like how Christianity is divided into Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant, with many further sub groupings. Even in the earliest teachings, Buddhism has had gods who were directly involved with Siddhartha Gautama's enlightenment, and not ever used in an atheistic, metaphorical sense. These were largely held over as Buddhism developed, and was adopted: The notion that Buddhism is some atheistic, spiritualist philosophy is an orientalist marketing tactic to get it to sell in the Western world.

>>16585927
Where this comes in from a notion that exists in the Chan/Zen traditions of Buddhism, which is that in order to truly be consciously free of all attachments, a precedent for enlightened thinking, one must even be free of their attachment to the Buddha(s). The Wikipedia article has a commentary from Shunryu Suzuki basically explains this, and I would agree that this probably has also helped set the precedent for Japanese media to involve god-killing, alongside the differing perception of gods as more accessible.
>>16586200
This is probably also true, though I would imagine that because Norse and Greco-Roman gods are no longer worshiped in a relevant fashion, and that a lot of god-killing goes on in the mythology of Norse religion, Greco-Roman religion and other Indo-European religions, it is easier for modern westerners to kill of Gods in Media (see the side-scroller Apotheon, for example)

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586212
>>16586232
>>16590874
It's like I've gone back in time to 2008 when it was cool to shit on fundamentalist Christians on /a/ or 420chan

>>16591277
Christian god is like 40% pagan anyway, so why split hairs

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591508
very informative

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591508
You took some classes at your local university, we get it congrats man

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
Ultima isn't a god.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591544
I *specialize* in some classes at a local university, thank you very much

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591535
I just don't like typos is all. What sane god would allow this place to exist?

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591535
Christian god is 100% pagan. He's just one member of a West Semitic pantheon that happened to be the patron god of a tribe that happened to conquer a bunch of other tribes in Canaan and found a kingdom centered at Jerusalem, who then decided their god was stronger than all the others and spent the next thousand years focusing more and more on him until they stopped acknowledging the others had any power at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
Because powercreep.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591582
What do you specialize in, if I may be so 4chan bold to ask without calling you something dumb?

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591794
[blog]Religious Studies, specifically the History of Yoga and Early Buddhism[/blog]

[Anonymous No.]

>>16592299
In a way, Touhou is a pretty complementary hobby to my arts degree

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591599
Source: my ass

[Anonymous No.]

>>16586212
Mfw I'm nihilist but love triggering atheist because I noticed most atheists still followed religious moral code even after renouncing their faith.

atheists are skeptical of the existence of god, but they are credulous and gullible when you replace the word ‘god’ with another mysterious thing called ‘morals.’

[Anonymous No.]

>>16590874
>Learn to talk properly
I think you mean to tell them to learn how to type properly.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16594224
when did miu-chan get so fashionable

[Anonymous No.]

>>16594094
read a book or two

[Anonymous No.]

Most of the times the "gods" that get killed in Japanese videogames aren't actually gods but are closer to the gnostic definition of Demiurge, so they are doing the world a favor by vanquishing them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591508
>Japanese religions don't have gods
I never said that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16592316
Make your thesis about touhou!

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591508
Neat

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879

How can you beat Yukka on Hard and Lunatic? Do you have to hack stats, because I don't see any other way to get the sunflower other then on normal. This also includes Super Flan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
It's more why do so many Japanese cartoons/movies/videogames have characters achieving apotheosis and becoming god-like beings that then need to be taken down.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16623503
Basically everyone can become a god in shinto, so I think it's for>>16591508 kind of reasons

[Anonymous No.]

Probably the whole omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god you must worship above all things and you have to strictly be a member of one religion doesn't rub well with the Japanese.

But more importantly, godslaying makes people feel cool.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
They know very little about Christianity and it looks cool. The funny thing about FFT was the game triggered the Roman Catholic Church because it was an indirect criticism of the pre-Reformation Church.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16594224
>most atheists still followed religious moral code even after renouncing their faith
There is some sort of morality focused on egalitarianism which is held by most atheists. They talk of "being a good person" and all, but don't skepticize over what makes person good.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16624777
>The funny thing about FFT was the game triggered the Roman Catholic Church

Is there any source on this? Because as far I know the Christians who get triggered are always dumb Americans.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16624870
My mother was a fundamentalist type Protestant-you have no fucking idea.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16624861
Most folks just don't want to think about such things. People spend their entire lives agonizing over what it means to be good, whether good and bad are even quantifiable, and other questions that are easily, if arbitrarily, answered for them when they are a part of most religions. Most atheists and other irreligionists still want that easy way out from the rabbit hole that is philosophy, and really just want freedom from theism, so they end up being consensus-informed moralists rather than doctrine-informed ones. Of course, the secular moral consensus around them is usually practically indistinguishable from the religious, even if one generally takes a bit to catch up with the other.

It can't be helped.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16624896
>Protestant
>Roman Catholic Church
???

[Anonymous No.]

>>16594224
>>16624861
I'm an absurdist and I don't get why people want validation for their actions or opinions, if they already don't believe in inherent meaning. I don't do something because I believe it's inherently "good" or because someone else wants me to, I do things because I want to. Now, I do have a desire for people to be happy and free, I can't help it. I've always been overly sympathetic. So, I try my best to help people if it's within my range of ability. I don't think it's "good", or that it matters in any way, I just do it because it's what I feel I want to do. Why should what you do come from anyone else anyway? Why would you even need something to justify your actions? Like evolution and the survival of the fittest, the only justification for an action is that you actually make it happen. Everything else is just talk. I don't do things because I think I should, or because I think I'm justified, I do it because I want to and I can.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16585879
After losing WWII, most Japanese believe that God is dead.

[Anonymous No.]

I want to know why missionaries get turned into demons so often

[Anonymous No.]

>>16624870
http://www.christiananime.net/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1545

Here's just one example of it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16633141
>(This game was a huge hit in japan and so were the other Final Fantasies, I don't know if tehy are as atheistic as this game though)
>Althought around 98% of Japan needs to be saved, it's becuase they have a casual view on Religion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16633141
that's literally just one example of a person who probably went out of their way to misinterpret it. More likely than not, the game's creators were, as mentioned by another person in the same thread, trying to go with a medieval theme and this being a game that isn't a commentary on religion in society or anything of the sort, simply takes various aspects it found appealing and made a patchwork quilt of elements to form a plot.

[Anonymous No.]

>>16591535
>It's like I've gone back in time to 2008 when it was cool to shit on fundamentalist Christians on /a/ or 420chan
Haven't you thought that people calling your beliefs retarded aren't doing it to be "cool" but because they actually think they're retarded? I know it's hard to believe when you have your head in your ass but that's how things are in reality.