Shinigami

Shinigami is a relatively new concept in Japanese folklore . It is still not clear at what point the word Shinigami in Japanese culture began to serve as a proper name for personified death - perhaps this image was borrowed from China, where mythology suggested the existence of several types of death deities and soul guides , or from Europe, where the image of Death is also personified, during the Sengoku period ^[1] .

Shinigami were quickly noticed by artists, writers and poets of that era ^[2] , and soon the shinigami appeared in the story for the album of engravings by Shunsen Takehara “ One Hundred Illustrated Stories ” of 1841. This was probably the first appearance of the Shinigami in Japanese literature.

Shinigami appears twice in the play “ Suicide of Lovers on the Island of Heavenly Networks ” based on the work of Chikamatsu Mondzaemon ^[3] (1721). The image gained significant distribution in the Meiji era (1868-1912) and was soon universally accepted by the Japanese.

The Shinigami concept can also be used in a broader sense in relation to any deity of death, because Shinigami is a rather new term that is practically not associated with Shintoism and is rarely used in traditional narratives ^[4] .

In ancient works as kami of death are:

• Emma

Emma ( 閻 魔 魔 ) , also known as Yama - the god-sovereign of the hell "jigoku", judge of the dead ^[5] .

• Izanami

Izanami ( イ ザ ナ ミ ) is a Shinto goddess, the wife of Izanagi . She was the goddess of creation, but later began to bring death to the world of people.

Death Note

The gods of death are gods who live in their own, separate from the human world, from where they can watch the world of people. Their purpose is to take people’s lives. The murder weapon is death notebooks, their use requires strict rules . Notebook can use not only the god of death, but also man.

According to the plot, the death gods are very bored in their world, so one of them - the death god named Ryuk - decides to “drop” the Notebook in the world of people and see what happens. High school student Yagami Light ( Japanese. 夜 神 月 Yagami Raito ) , who picked up the Notebook, begins to use it to cleanse the world from crime.

Dark butler

Shinigami (shinigami) is also present in the manga and anime "Dark Butler". True, this Shinigami differs from Ryuk in appearance, in human form.

Soul Eater

The central object of the manga is, of course, the Shinigami Academy, located in the City of Death. The city itself is located in America, in the state of Nevada (in the manga). In its center, in the room of Death, Shinigami himself lives, students study at the academy itself.