【 Anime and Shinto 2 】 Also in Buddhism, which is another basis of Japanese culture, we find a similar qualitative difference between the original Buddhism born in India, and the Japanese Buddhism, which was transmitted through India, Tibet, and China, and finally experienced a unique transformation in Japan. In the orthodox Buddhism, it is only those who adhered to the precepts and trained themselves in ascetic practices that can attain spiritual enlightenment and become Buddha. In Japanese Buddhism, by contrast, it is not only humans but all sentient beings, including animals, plants, trees, mountains, and waters, that can become Buddha. This idea of Japanese Buddhism originates in the ancient Japanese belief that there exists “inochi (life force)” in every being – not only in human beings, but in all such beings as animals, plants, and even rocks. This idea has long been nurtured by the Japanese since before the arrival of Buddhism of 1,500 years ago. As Hayao Miyazaki expresses in “Princess Mononoke,” all the leaves in forest had possessed their minds (inochi) and noisily talked to each other until humans started the development of primeval forests. In Osamu Tezuka’s “Fire Bird,” the death of an individual is not considered to be the end of inochi, but one inochi is linked after another, each time changing the place/body to stay, to make a billions of years’ life, like a strategy of DNA. Here, inochi is an important keyword in understanding Japanese religious culture. Inochi means anima, that is, “one that breathes.” Anima is the life force, the ultimate foundation of life, which enables animals to move actively. That is why the word “animal” is derived from anima. This concept of anima, which is called “ki” in Japanese, lies on the basis of Japanese religious consciousness. The purpose of Shinto ritual consists in providing a way to keep this vital energy called ki all the time, with a feeling of awe towards its mysterious power, so that your body and spirit are always rejuvenated and animated. In the previous ritual, you saw that the Shinto priest was waving a tool like a big duster called Ohnusa above your heads, the shrine maiden was shaking bells while dancing, and the priest was quivering his voice to invite the descent of Kami – all these actions aim at letting the life force in your body vibrate, and invigorating your inochi – anima. Let me give you an example to explain this more clearly. In warming up a cold soup, if you use a stove, you are heating it with fire; in other words, you are providing the soup with the heat energy from outside. But if you use a microwave oven, the oven does not give heat energy from outside; instead, it lets the molecules of substance in the soup vibrate with its microwave and generate heat by themselves. In this way, Shinto ritual aims at constant rejuvenation of anima (life energy), which Japanese people have engaged in, day after day for many thousand years. Shinto does not have any high-developed structure of dogma, as in the case of Christianity and Buddhism. That is because Japanese people’s religious concern has been directed toward how to keep their life energy always vivid and animated. Now you all understand the inseparable relationship between anime and Shinto. The essence of animation consists in giving “life” to pictures, to thousands of pictures drawn on paper, by letting them move as if they were actually living. At such moment, there is no “qualitative difference” between an animator and the animated pictures; for, as in Shinto, the Japanese anime does not presuppose a gap between the creator and the created. This is why the Japanese anime is unique in the world. Indeed, it is not anybody but you, who are truly excited and animated by Japanese anime, that understand very well the essence of Shinto, the Japanese primal religion. So, next time you enjoy Japanese anime, please recall what I told you today. Then you will get more and more findings in Japanese anime.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 19:46:35 +0000
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