The essay on Shinto in Anime and Manga that I wrote in January 2018 is now available for purchase on Gumroad. It isn’t systematic or deeply analytical, but I think it is a good introduction to the way Shinto tends to be portrayed, and used, in manga. Most of the examples are from manga; I think I could write an essay of similar length on Shinto in Miyazaki Hayao’s anime, but that has probably been done already. Buy Essay
The highest decision-making body at Jinja Honchō is the Oversight Council, as described in my last post here. Its meetings have tended to be a simple rubber stamp for the proposals brought forward by the Board of Directors, but that was not entirely the case at this October’s meeting. Before people get too excited, I should emphasise that it did rubber-stamp all of the proposals brought forward by the Board of Directors. The accounts and budget were approved, as were the various changes to Jinja Honchō’s rules. Quite a bit… Read More »Vigorous Debate
The Oversight Council (評議員会, hyōgiinkai) is the highest decision-making body in Jinja Honchō. It appoints the chairman, directors, and auditors. It must approve all budgets, and all major changes to regulations, and the board of directors is required to respect its decisions when conducting day-to-day business, unless there is a really good reason not to. The regulations require it to meet once a year, and the chairman may convene it more often if he feels that it is necessary. In practice, it is convened twice a year, once in May… Read More »The Oversight Council
I have mentioned before (in the book if not on this blog) that most Shinto priests are responsible for multiple jinja. Simple arithmetic makes this clear: there are about 80,000 jinja, and about 20,000 priests. However, things are worse than that makes it sound, because large jinja in cities may have over a dozen priests, leaving even fewer priests to serve multiple jinja in rural areas. I read something that referred to a man who was chief priest of over a hundred jinja, but I’m not sure how reliable that… Read More »Priests of Many Jinja
Some more of the old Patreon essays are now available for purchase if you missed them. First, The Descent from the Heavens and The Hyūga Generations are available on Amazon in Imperial Origin Myths. These are the myths of how the ancestors of the Tennō got to Japan, and what they did there, up to the birth of the first Tennō, Jinmu. They were first released earlier this year. Second, Shinto from the Shore is available independently on Gumroad. This essay is from 2017, and describes how I thought about… Read More »More Back Issues Available
A few days ago, I was talking about translation with people at Jinja Honchō (as I often do, that being my job…), and the difficulty of translating certain words came up. I have mentioned before that “kami” is basically untranslatable, which is why I don’t. In this post, I want to talk about “worship”. It is not uncommon for “sūhai” or “hairei” to be translated as “worship”, “haiden” to be translated as “worship hall”, and “sūkeisha” to be translated as “worshipper”. I try to avoid all of those translations. “Sūhai”… Read More »“Worship”