If you ask an English-speaking Japanese person about religion, you will probably be told something like this: “I am not religious but I practice Buddhism and Shinto because that is my tradition.” This leads many people to conclude that Japan is not a very religious country. After all, most Americans would claim to believe in Christianity, even if they never go to church.
Things aren’t necessarily that simple. We need to allow for cultural differences in how people talk about religion and what religion means to them. The “non-religious” Japanese person may actually spend more time in religious activities than the typical American Christian. And any anime fan who is paying attention will have to agree that there is vastly more religious content on Japanese TV than there is on American TV. Religious sites and artifacts appear constantly. Clerical characters such as monks and mikos are regularly included in the cast. (Imagine if a high percentage of American TV shows included a nun with supernatural powers.) Ordinary characters routinely pause to engage in some sort of religious observance.
Sometimes the religious elements aren’t obvious to outsiders. Most Americans who watch My Neighbor Totoro would never think of it as a religious movie, yet it is loaded with Shinto symbolism (and to a lesser extent, Buddhist symbolism.) Shinto in particular is so different from what Americans think of as a religion that references to it are sometimes overlooked.
Even those Japanese who do not think of Shinto as literally true tend to think of it as a key part of their national and cultural identity. One reason that anime characters are so often shown visiting or praying at a Shinto shrine is that this is an easy way to establish that they are Japanese and proud of it, without invoking nationalistic symbolism that might be seen as militaristic and controversial.
Even secular symbols of the nation often show a Shinto influence. The Japanese flag for example features a red disk, representing the sun goddess Amaterasu, on a white field representing purity.
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