What I Learned Cause of College

What I Learned Cause of College

Because of our Contextual/ Essay/ Presentations class I learned a little bit about Japanese Legends, mostly the ones that follow along with the Studio Ghibli movie, Spirited Away. I learned about some of the spirits they believe in. 

In the Shinto religion they believe in Kami spirits. Kami is a term for supernatural forces that exist in nature. The spirits are generally associated with natural phenomena. They are thought to be associated or housed within nature, like in the rivers, mountains, trees/forests, etc. 

Yokai are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folk lore. They range from malevolent to mischievous or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them. Sometimes they possess animal features and other times they appear mostly human. There are also some who look like inanimate objects and others have no discernible shape.

I've learned some legends about the spirit world as well such as the story of Izanagi and Izanami. Izanami, mother of japan died during birth. Izanagi went to the land of the dead (spirits) to get her but found she had eaten some of the food. Unfortunately it is believed that if you ate food from another world it would be difficult to return forcing the eater to stay. Which is entirely what happened in Spirited Away.... Just saying. 

All of the information I found out was mostly notes so sorry for the disjointed wording and sentences. Also everything was made relevant to my essay and presentation because they are about Spirited Away and the folklore that some Ghibli's are based on. None of this has any relevance to anything else in my life but I thought I would share because if you know the movie I thought someone... maybe... might find this information slightly interesting.