Do Japanese believe in heaven?

Question

I've seen a few anime through the years. And my concern is that they always focus on characters going to hell and everything.
So my question is do they beleieve in a Heaven? Where do they think they go after they die? or after they''ve had like tons of reencarnations??

Answer 1

The majority are either Shinto or Buddhist. Both have a pretty undefined theology and leave it to the individual.

Shinto has a Heaven and a Dark Land, but they do not have details or even a moral code that clearly defines what separates them. So the answer is sort of, but not the way you meant it.

Answer 2

Japan’s Religious Mission—World Conquest

25 State Shinto was equipped with its idol as well. “Every morning, I clapped my hands toward the sun, the symbol of the goddess Amaterasu Omikami, and then faced east toward the Imperial Palace and worshiped the emperor,” recalls Masato, an older Japanese man. The emperor was worshiped as god by his subjects. He was viewed as supreme politically and religiously by reason of his descent from the sun-goddess. One Japanese professor stated: “The Emperor is god revealed in men. He is manifest Deity.”

26 As a result, the teaching was developed that “the center of this phenomenal world is the Mikado’s [Emperor’s] land. From this center we must expand this Great Spirit throughout the world. . . . The expansion of Great Japan throughout the world and the elevation of the entire world into the land of the Gods is the urgent business of the present and, again, it is our eternal and unchanging object.” (The Political Philosophy of Modern Shinto, by D. C. Holtom) There was no separation of Church and State there!

27 In his book Man’s Religions, John B. Noss comments: “The Japanese military were not slow in availing themselves of this point of view. They made it part of their war talk that conquest was the holy mission of Japan. Certainly in such words we may see the logical outcome of a nationalism infused with all the values of religion.” What tragedy was sown for the Japanese and for other peoples, based mainly on the Shinto myth of the divinity of the emperor and the mixing of religion with nationalism!

28 The Japanese in general did not have any alternative but to worship the emperor under State Shinto and its imperial system. Norinaga Motoori’s teaching of ‘Ask nothing, but submit to divine providence’ permeated and controlled Japanese thinking. By 1941 the whole nation was mobilized into the war effort of World War II under the banner of State Shinto and in dedication to the “living man-god.” ‘Japan is a divine nation,’ the people thought, ‘and the kamikaze, the divine wind, will blow when there is a crisis.’ Soldiers and their families petitioned their guardian gods for success in the war.

29 When the “divine” nation was defeated in 1945, under the twin blows of the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and much of Nagasaki, Shinto faced a severe crisis. Overnight, the supposedly invincible divine ruler Hirohito became simply the defeated human emperor. Japanese faith was shattered. Kamikaze had failed the nation. States the encyclopedia Nihon Shukyo Jiten: “One of the reasons was the nation’s disappointment at being betrayed. . . . Worse yet, the Shinto world gave no religiously advanced and appropriate explanation of doubts that resulted from [defeat]. Thus, the religiously immature reaction of ‘There is no god or Buddha’ became the general trend.”

Answer 3

Its not the Japanese, thats a generalization, theres many different Japanese with different beliefs.

Muslims do.

Answer 4

you're wondering about their religion based on anime...wow.

that's like asking, "Do Americans believe in God? I watched Bugs Bunny and he didn't say anything about God..."

Answer 5

some of them probably do

Answer 6

like anywhere else some do some dont!

Answer 7

Shangri-La, maybe.