2.1 Overview | 2.2 Nature and Religion | 2.3 Symbolism and Colour | 2.4 Mushi | 2.5 Brief History of Japan

Nature and Religion

Anthropologist Ishida Eiichiro (1972) defines the essence of Japanese culture in terms of a “unique national feeling for nature”.

The importance of nature in Japanese culture is fundamental to religion in Japan. Buddhism and Shintoism teach the notion of man as being an integral part of nature.

Shintoism is a combination of nature worship, Animism, Taoism and Shamanism.

Animism in particular is defined as the belief in the existence and powers of souls or spirits embodying all components of the universe; humans, animals, plant life, rocks, and so on.
Animism is thought to be one the earliest types of spirituality practiced by humans, and its basic principles are shared by religions of Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity. It also shares interesting parallels and distinctions with Japanese character culture.

Jamie Rapp (2004), explains that at a young age, humans have an ‘egocentric’ view of the universe in which “all beings function as themselves and despite attempts to rationalise the child, some remnants of this concept remain into adulthood”
Japan ’s ‘childlike conception of the world’ could explain the modern animistic view in Japan. There is more emphasis on the metaphysical and imaginative than the real world. It is not considered silly in Japan, as in Western cultures, to believe that inanimate objects have spirits.

Hayao Miyazaki's critically acclaimed masterpiece Spirited Away tells the story of a 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, who is accidentally thrown into a "spirit" world inhabited by Gods and monsters; “…they are in the rocks, in pillars, or in the trees” (Miyazaki, 2001).
In modern Japanese society, the notion of lending life to inanimate objects has transcended the natural plane. ‘Things’ can take on the characteristic of cute to add life to them in much the same way rocks take on the characteristic of spiritual embodiment to render them divine.