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David Chart

Pray for Today, Ask for Tomorrow

Jinja Honchō has released a couple of very short videos on their channel. One is 15 seconds: And the other is 30 seconds: These are actually publicity videos for Jingū Taima, and Jingū Taima do appear, on modern-style kamidana, right at the end of the video. The tag line is “Kyō ni Inoru, Ashita ni Negau”, which means something like “Pray for Today, Ask for Tomorrow”, and “Jinja Honchō” appears on the screen at the end. Because these commercials are targeted at a Japanese audience, I had nothing to do… Read More »Pray for Today, Ask for Tomorrow

Tamao Live

Tamao is now available for purchase on Amazon, Gumroad, and DriveThruFiction. (Affiliate links to Amazon and DriveThruFiction. I only get the royalties from Gumroad.) Here is the blurb again, in case you missed it last time. Akiko Tanahata liked her normal life in Japan, with a clerical job and a serious boyfriend. Shinto shrines were just places to visit at New Year. But that all changed when she sought shelter from a sudden downpour, and found herself in an impossible space, confronted by a great serpent. Now the serpent will not leave her alone,… Read More »Tamao Live

Shinto Fiction

As my urban fantasy Shinto novel, Tamao, will be released tomorrow, it should be obvious that I do not think that there is anything wrong, in principle, with Shinto-based fiction. That said, I do have some thoughts. First, and most importantly, I have already said that no-one has the authority to regulate others’ Shinto practice in general, and that goes double for fiction. Fiction is not even claiming to be real, so an attempt to regulate fiction is to say that you cannot mention certain things even if you are… Read More »Shinto Fiction

Special Reverence

The project with Himeji Jinja is continuing. I still can’t link to their web page, but we are moving forward on creating it, and the hope is that the Japanese version, at least, will go live before the end of this year. We are planning to have the English material ready for March, so that it will be available when the tourist season starts. As part of this, the jinja wants to offer “tokubetsu sanpai”, which I am currently translating as “special reverence”. This is, basically, a kigansai, where the… Read More »Special Reverence

Tales of Sacred Forests: Gosho Jinja

Jinja Honchō has released the second “Tales of Sacred Forests” video on its YouTube channel. The matsuri introduced in this video is an example of the way in which traditions are being adapted to changing circumstances. My impression is that this is a fairly typical example — which is probably one reason why it was chosen for the video. As before, comments are turned off on the video, but not here. My revisions to the description text to make it easy to reuse also seem to have worked. I have… Read More »Tales of Sacred Forests: Gosho Jinja

Tamao Pre-Orders

I have written a work of Shinto-based fiction: Tamao. It’s an urban fantasy, and the blurb is as follows: Akiko Tanahata liked her normal life in Japan, with a clerical job and a serious boyfriend. Shinto shrines were just places to visit at New Year. But that all changed when she sought shelter from a sudden downpour, and found herself in an impossible space, confronted by a great serpent. Now the serpent will not leave her alone, and she can see the pollution that is slowly corrupting Kawasaki. As her… Read More »Tamao Pre-Orders

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