First
Appearance: Thor I #301
Origin: Thor I Annual 8
Dimension of
Origin: Ama
Habitat: Earth-like
Gravity: Earth-like
Atmosphere: Earth-like
Population: 400-550 range (estimated)
Other Associated Dimensions: The Japanese underworld, a dark gloomy realm of eternal night known as Yomi, is the realm set aside by the Japanese gods to hold the shades ("astral spirits") of the mortal worshippers of Ancient Japan. It is ruled by the goddess Izanami and her son Emma-O, the god of the dead. The deepest depths of this realm are ruled by Mikaboshi who leads the Tengu, demons of Japan, and the Oni, unclean spirits of the dead. The Japanese realm is also populated by a race of "faerie-like" divinities.
History: The Kami or Gods of Japan are an extra-dimensional race of superhumanly powerful humanoid beings who were worshipped by the Ancient Japanese from around 660 BC when the Japanese Empire first came to power to 1946 when the empire dissolved its last ties to Shinto Religion, the last remaining form of its ancient worship rites to the gods. It is uncertain if there are any connections between the Kami of Japan to the Xian or Gods of China, their nearest godly neighbors. "Kami" is the ancient Shinto word for "god" or "deity."
The Kami dwell in an other-dimensional realm called Ama or "heaven," a small "pocket" dimension adjacent to Earth; an interdimensional nexus between Ama and Earth exists somewhere on Mount Fiji near Tokyo on the island of Honshu. The pathway which connects the two realms is called Ameno-kihasi-date, or "bridge of heaven." According to legend, Izanagi, the ruler of the Japanese Gods, once stood on this path as he plunged his staff into the sea and created the islands of Japan. He claimed the island of Onokoro for himself as the location of his first temple.
The precise
origin of the Japanese gods, like that of all of Earth's pantheons of gods, is
shrouded in legend. The earliest Japanese gods were Inn and Yo, the male and female
principles of the universe. It is believed that Yo was actually Gaea, the
primordial earth-mother who had survived the destruction of the Elder Gods of
Earth by infusing her life into the life-giving essence of the Earth. Many of
the Elder Gods had degenerated into demonic status and were destroyed by Atum or
had fled Earth for other planes of existence. Atum had been born from Gaea by
mating with the sentient biosphere of the Earth known as the Demiurge. Atum
later departed the earth after shedding the excess demonic energies of the Elder
Gods he had slain; some of these energies becoming demonic beings like Mephisto,
Satannish and Mikaboshi,
who became the eternal enemy of the Japanese gods. Whether the Japanese god Inn
was another form of the Demiurge or of Atum himself is unrevealed.
Inn
and Yo gave birth to the first Japanese gods, but only one couple from among
them, Izanagi and Izanami, prospered. They conceived many of the main gods of
Japan, but Izanami was badly burned by her last child, the fire-god Kagi-Tsuchi,
who Izanagi split into three pieces with an axe. (Kagi-Tsuchi later regenerated
himself and fathered several of the minor divinities of Japan.) Izanami died as a result of his
birth, and her spirit departed Ama with the souls of her children for
the underworld of Yomi, the Land of Gloom. Izanagi departed looking for her and
calling her name. Without seeing her, Izanagi heard her voice calling to him and
warned him that she had already eaten from the table of the dead and could not
return with him. She admitted she wanted to return to earth, but she would have
to ask the spirits of the dead if she could be allowed to return with him.
Izanami had warned Izanagi not to look upon her while she in the underworld, but
he grew tired of waiting for her and took a long pin from his hair to use as a
torch to look for her and his children. When he found Izanami, he discovered
that she had become a rotting corpse covered in maggots devouring her flesh and
recoiled from her horrible appearance. Collecting his children, he fled from
Yomi, but Izanami was so upset that he had peeked upon her undead body that she
sent the forces of the underworld upon him. To escape these demonic forces,
Izanagi tossed away his headdress, transforming it into grapes that the demons
stopped to eat. As they caught back up to him, Izanagi tossed away the comb from
his hair, transforming it into bamboo shoots that the demons once more stopped
to eat. When Izanami caught up to him, Izanagi reached the boundary of Yomi that
entered into the land of the living and erected a great barrier to forever
separate the land of the living from the land of the dead. Izanami cursed at him
claiming that she would take a thousand people a year from earth for revenge,
but Izanagi promised to cause one thousand and five hundred people to be born a year
so that there would always be people on earth.
After
escaping the underworld, Izanagi and his children eventually rested at the mouth
of a stream surrounded by orange trees and bushes and clovers near modern-day
Hyuga. With these sacred waters, he washed the filth of the underworld from himself and
his children and imparted portions of godhood from himself to his children from
his eyes and face. (In later myths, it was claimed he actually created his
children from his eyes by wiping them from his face.) One of his children,
Emma-O, however, remained behind in Yomi and became god of the dead.
Izanagi baptized his children from the springs to make them gods. Among his
children, he was most pleased with Amaterasu the sun-goddess, Tsukiyomi the
moon-god and Susanowo the storm-god among all of them that he divided the world
up between them. He gave Amaterasu complete rule of Japan and the other gods,
he gave Tsukiyomi reverance over the night and he gave Susanowo dominion over the
ocean and all that was within it. Susanowo, however, preferred to have gained
control over Yomi, but the underworld had become the domain of Izanami and
Emma-O. Susanowo, meanwhile, wandered heaven and earth causing trouble for the
other gods. Amaterasu, in her rule as Empress of Japan, reportedly shared her
bed with both Tsukiyomi and Susanowo looking for a perfect mate and eventually
accepted Takamimusubi, the sky-god, as her husband, but he only had a certain
amount of power in the marriage, and had no real power over the pantheon under
Izanagi.
Amaterasu
became the ancestor of the ruling Imperial family of Japan, but when she tried
to share her hospitality with Susanowo, she became upset when his display of
power ruined her palace at Hokkaido. Susanowo had become offended by the means
the food-goddess Uke-Mochi produced food from her body and slew her, and
Amaterasu in disgrace fled for self-imposed exile within a cave on Mount Fiji.
According to legend, her absence resulted in an eclipse over Japan. The Japanese
gods tried luring Amaterasu from the cave with no success, but the goddess,
Uzumei, turned over a pot and performed a lascivious dance while dropping her
clothing that attracted the attention of the other gods. When Amaterasu heard
the party and revelry, she looked out to see what was happening and
discovered a reflection of herself in a mirror crafted by the gods Amat-Sumara and Ishikori-dome. Trapped by
her own reflection, Amaterasu was pulled from the cave by the other gods as
sunlight returned to Japan.
As
the Japanese gods grew tired of living on Earth, they retreated to Ama to
preside for eternity. When Amaterasu finally departed earth, she left her mirror
and throne to her grandson, Ninigi, and departed Earth for the final time.
Several of the Japanese gods continued to live between Earth and Ama for
centuries to live among their worshippers. Around 1000 AD, an
edict by the Third Host of the Celestials forbade the Japanese Gods with
trafficking with mortals, but worship of the Japanese gods, or Shintoism,
continued well into modern times. During the encounter with the Celestials,
Izanagi had met with the rulers of the other pantheons of earth and became a
member of the Council
of Godheads. As per a pact with Odin,
Chieftain of the Asgardian gods, Izanagi donated the necessary life-energies to Thor
to restore the Gods
of Asgard to life after the Fourth Host of the Celestials.
Under unrevealed circumstances, the
bridge of heaven known as Ameno-kihasi-date,
that connected Ama to Earth was severed, and Mikaboshi, the god of evil, sought
the Grasscutter Sword, the most sacred weapon of the Japanese gods. It is
believed that the Grasscutter was once known as Kusanagi, the mystical sword
Susanowo cleaved from the corpse of the eight-headed serpent, Yamato-no-orochi.
(Some myths claim Susanowo merely found the sword in the serpent's body). The
sword had rested for millennia within a temple guarded by the spirits of the
warriors slain by it until Thor came in search of it as part of a quest.
Afterward, the sword passed through several mortal hands until Mikaboshi claimed
it and conquered Yomi and Ama, killing or driving many of the Kami to earth or
other dimensions. In trying to slay the Olympian
gods, Mikaboshi kidnapped Alexander Aaron, the mortal son of the war-god, Ares, in order to encourage him to usurp his father. Hermes,
the Olympian messenger-god, and Inari the Japanese rice-god, meanwhile used
subterfuge to unite the Olympians and surviving Kami against Mikaboshi. Joined
by Kumari, the Japanese goddess of freshwater, the Olympian god Poseidon
flooded Yomi, defeating Mikaboshi and losing the Grasscutter sword again for
perhaps eternity.
The
Japanese gods and the Olympian gods have been close allies ever since. The
Japanese gods still have worshippers today, having been overwhelmed by other
religions like Buddhism, where they are worshipped under other names, and even
Christianity introduced to Japan from the West. While the
extent of their worship is not as great as it once was, Shintoism is still a
practiced religion in many parts of Japan and the islands of the Pacific rim.
Relationships
to Other Pantheons: The Kami or Gods
of Japan have undefined tenuous links with the Xian
of China, the Kahunas
or Oceanic Gods of the Pacific and even the Devas
(Hindu Gods of India) due to their connections to Buddhism. Each pantheon has
left an indelicate mark on the religion which has resulted in several of their
deities to share attributes as Buddhist deities; for example, the Japanese
goddess Benten is often linked to the Hindu goddess Sarasvati.
In recent years, the Kami have become allies of the Olympians against Mikaboshi.
It has also been suggested that the Kami might have ties with the Anasazi
gods of North America and the Coatli
of Central America based on vague similarities between the culture of the Orient
and the Ancient Mexican culture.
Body Type:
Humanoid
Avg Height: 5' 11"
Avg Weight: 425 lbs
Eyes: Two
Hair: Normal
Skin: Normal
Limbs: Two
Fingers: Five with opposable thumb
Toes: Five
Special Adaptations: The Kami or Japanese gods are exceptionally
long-lived, but they are not immortal like the Olympian gods; they age very
slowly upon
reaching adulthood, but they are not invulnerable to death. They are physically more durable than human beings; their
skin, bone and tissue being three times more durable and dense than similar tissue in human
beings.
Avg. Strength Level: The average male Japanese god possesses superhuman strength enabling him to lift (press) about 30 tons under optimal conditions; the average female Japanese goddess can lift (press) about 25 tons under optimal conditions.
Known Powers:
The Kami or Japanese gods possess superhuman strength, speed, stamina
Known Abilities: The Japanese Gods are versed in a full range of martial arts superior to most forms of unarmed combat resembling earthly ninjitsu, tae kwan do, judo or karate. They also have skills equal to their fields of expertise, Bishamon, the war-god is a brilliant military strategist well-versed in weapons and Fukrokuju, the wisdom-god, is well-versed in the knowledge and secrets of the Orient.
Type of
Government: Monarchy
Level of Technology: Magic
Cultural Traits: The Kami were worshipped as gods by the people of
Ancient Japan and parts of the South Pacific, into recent times as part of the
modern Shinto religion.
Names of Representatives: