Tokyo Explorer

Japan is a nation of roughly 127 million individuals. Read the governmental white paper on religious belief, however, and you’d think there were almost 250 million cramped into the four main, and 3-4,000 other smaller islands.

Why? For the simple reason that the vast majority, for reasons unknown are registered as believers in both Shintoism and Buddhism – a concept that is largely alien to the West, but in Japan passes unnoticed for the most part.

In much the same way as being Jewish usually equates to being (able to be) Israeli and vice versa, being Japanese is almost always associated with an attachment to Shintoism.

Shinto – the religion – has its origins on the mainland of Asia and is one of the world’s most basic of religions. Practitioners worship nature, the natural passage of time, representations of nature including ancestors and the spirits of a whopping 8,000,000 (eight million) gods no less!

At the same time, they are also Buddhist – but the blend is simple…kind of.

Shinto rules ‘this’ life and the trials and tribulations associated with being human, while Buddhism oversees the next.

In the proverbial nutshell, birth rituals, age related and anniversary rituals are carried out at Shrines. Wake ceremonies, funerals, memorial services and all such events associated with moving on to the next cycle of existence belong to the realm of Buddha and his followers.

So, while the main two religions seem to do a life / death associated trade-off of sorts, the question may be asked ‘Does this leave any room for other religions – Christianity, Islam etc?’ And, the answer is yes.

Although Japan has an amazing 2,000 registered religions, most are wacko types out there with the fairies – presumably helped in their beliefs by the tax free status of religions in Japan!

On a more serious note, while Islam is not very well represented in this corner of the globe, Tokyo does have a new mosque in the Yoyogi area for visiting and / or resident Muslims.

Christianity on the other hand is much more established with between one and two million followers including, according to research, many of the last century’s upper classes; a brother of the previous Emperor and the more recent Prime Minister Ohira to name but two of a long list.

Thousands of churches can be found scattered throughout the country belonging to Christianity’s main denominations with Catholicism perhaps the best represented; a result of the early work of individuals such as Francis Xavier in the 1603-1867 Edo-era. He done well it seems!