Shinto
Shinto (神道, shintō), or Shintoism, is the native religion of Japan and was once its state religion. Because of this, all of the Fatal Frame games are highly influenced by Shinto beliefs and rituals.
Shinto involves the veneration of kami (神, kami) which is a difficult concept to translate exactly in English, but can be considered to be the equivalent of "spirit" or "deity." Kami includes the life force present in any object in nature, characters in mythology, and even historical figures and ancestors. Because of the meaning of the two characters that make up its name in Japanese, Shinto is also known as "the way of the gods."
Symbols of Shinto present in the Fatal Frame games include the Shinto gate (鳥居, torii), which are often seen near shrines and mark the threshold of a sanctified space. In the Fatal Frame games, Shinto gates are found near places where there is an opening to hell. Braided rice straw rope (注連縄, shimenawa), to which zig-zag paper streamers are often attached (紙垂, shide), are also used to delineate the boundaries of a sacred space. In the Fatal Frame games, shide and shimenawa can be found strung within buildings and religious structures, as well as to certain ghosts such as the Kusabi.
Shinto houses of worship are known as shrines (神社, jinja); Buddhist houses of worship are known as temples (寺, tera). The two belief systems do overlap a great deal at times, leading to a mixture known as syncretism.
Purification rites are essential to Shinto. Blessing and purification by water are two examples of this seen in Fatal Frame; certain objects are blessed, and outside of the Engraving Shrine in Fatal Frame III, an ablution font can be found where visitors would ritually wash themselves to purify themselves before entering the shrine. In particular, Shinto sees death as impure, and most Shinto events and rituals deal with beginnings, such as weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies. Since Buddhism is more concerned with the afterlife, funerals and other burial customs are typically Buddhist in nature. In addition, certain things in Shinto are seen as taboo; women were not allowed to climb Mt. Fuji until 1868, for example. In Fatal Frame II, referencing the Hellish Abyss in any way was considered extremely inauspicious.
Shinto lost its status as the state religion of Japan after World War II. While some practices and teachings are no longer taught or practiced today, others still exist as inextricable parts of contemporary Japanese society.
Japanese Culture
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| Religion |
| Buddhism - Shinto |
| Japanese Ghosts/Creatures |
| Funayūrei - Goryō - Hitodama - Ikiryō - Onryō - Ubume - Yōkai - Yūrei |
| Specific Japanese Ghosts/Creatures |
| Oiwa - Okiku - Yuki-onna |
| Terms |
| Dosojin - Grave Mound - Hannya Mask - Higanbana - Jizo - Kaidan - Miko - Mukoyōshi - Sanzu River - Shimenawa - Toro-Nagashi - Wara Ningyo |
| Locations |
| Northeastern Japan - Shizuoka - Sugisawa Village - Tono |
| Media and Entertainment |
| Kagome, Kagome - Ringu |