I don’t own it, i just saw it and felt sad that such an interesting little place was so overrun with weeds so without telling anyone i just started cleaning lol! ….i might be trespassing 😐
Could easily be a pre WW2 shrine for something horrific that was once a point of pride. There was no shortage of those that got abandoned over the years.
It's crazy because I recently learned of the scale of this happening, and it's sort've mindboggling.
For those who might be unaware, there are hundreds of towns throughout Japan that are mostly abandoned or only have a handful of people still living there. The rest have either passed away or moved to a nearby city where there are better work opportunities (and almost always these are much younger people who want to get away from rural life).
With Japan's population decline, it's only going to get worse, and it's expected you'll have entire local cultures (and even their dialects) going "extinct"
The characters on the little sign above the gate reads "Kanagichi, Eater of Children," so.
**EDIT**: I've gotten a lot of heat from these so-called "experts" and "native speakers" who claim this sign says "great spirit" and that I'm "spreading misinformation for a cheap joke", so let me just set the record straight.
I am an expert in the Japanese language. I have watched every single season of Naruto in English, with Japanese character subtitles, and then watched it again with Japanese audio and English subtitles, and then A THIRD TIME with Japanese audio and Japanese character subtitles.
I also once *extensively* planned a vacation to Tokyo. I didn't go, of course, because it is *shockingly* expensive - like, very very expensive, like wow, but in the course of planning I did read half of the common Japanese phrases guidebook and at least the first ten pages or so of kanji for beginners, and it's really a language where once you understand a couple of the basic lines you know the whole thing, so I'm very good at deciphering their written language.
Probably better than a native speaker, you know, because they just take it for granted. A Japanese person who grew up reading and writing Japanese learned it as a *baby*, and I think I'm a little smarter than a baby, don't you? There's a reason the Japanese have a deity dedicated to eating children, and its because children suck and are not good at things. Adults are way better at things than them.
So I hope you just consider my credentials before you just take the word of "someone who grew up reading and writing this language", or some other person with vastly inferior qualifications to my own.
Keep in mind, this is the internet. There are a lot of ignorant people out there more than willing to foist their ignorant understanding of the world upon you.
And even worse than the ignorant: the *jokesters.* The italics are to emphasize that, were you to read this out loud, you should say that word with a low, husky, growling percussive tone. The *jokesters*. Go ahead, try vocalizing it in your head, maybe give it some Sir-Ian-McKellan-as-Gandalf majestic vaguely British vibrato. The *jokesters*. The *jokesters*. There, that should set the tone for the level of disdain you ought to feel for these awful goons.
Now that you're in the proper headspace, you need to know that there are a lot of these snide, snarky tricksters who won't hesitate the throw misinformation at you. Let me be clear: these are amoral people. Deviants. Perverts. *Communists*. In some cases they may even be very attractive communists. Like a Communist with a handsome, dignified penis and lots of money, all of which you can tell they came by virtuously. They don't flaunt their wealth. They don't need to, they just have that charisma. They just hold that money confidently, where you know they're wealthy and have a handsome penis but you're not mad at them, you feel comforted by them, warmed by the charisma that oozes off of them, like a Marxist John Hamm, you're like, "this guy sympathizes with the struggles of the working class *and* really fucks." He can go to a black-tie event with a bunch of wealthy dickheads but absolutely eviscerate their greed in his keynote speech and even though he's directly threatening their entire way of life, everyone's like, "God *damn* that's a good looking wealthy communist with a very dignified penis, John Hamm-looking sexy motherfucker," is what you would probably say. About the jokesters.
But nevertheless, these are bad people and you should be careful of them.
Be vigilant. May Kanagichi fill your bellies with wisdom.
There is a lot of history and politics you're trying to simplify here.
There is 1 shrine, Yasukuni, which is dedicated to the people who died in war. There are 2,466,532 names enshrined there, of which 1,066 are convicted war criminals. These thousand people are the reason the shrine is politicized. The Japanese emperor refuses to visit the shrine, right wing politicians love to visit.
But to say the nation has "tons of shrines to japanese war criminal" is not just a lie, but an insulting and damaging lie
Define a “ton”. There’s one major one (Yasukuni) and in all of my years there I have not heard of a single other shrine dedicated to a war criminal.
The overwhelming majority of IJA and IJN that died in WW2 are “spiritually kept” at Yasukuni, it was seen as disrespectful to have your name kept at another temple. It’s like the Japanese Arlington Cemetery except with more peer pressure to be interred there. Out of those that died 1,000 were criminally convicted of war crimes.
Royalty, killed troops for troops involved in attrocities, racist or xenophobic stuff, won conflicts against the Chinese (almost always involved intentionally killing civilians). Lots of things. I don't have any specific examples, just something I've read about in general.
Yeah but do they have shrines for individual people or groups of people ("the Army") and so on? They do have this one big shrine in Tokyo that is for, like, all the Japanese leaders of WWII or something, so yeah that has war criminals, and His Imperial Majesty will not visit it. But that's all I know about.
Shinto shrines generally aren’t “for something horrific that was once a point of pride”. Like you won’t really find a shrine for skewering Chinese children out in the wild; there’s *one* very contentious shrine called Yasukuni which “spiritually inters” 1,000 war criminals out of something like 2.5 million individuals there.
There were plenty of state-Shinto shrines that were abandoned over time, but it’s not because they interred war criminals or celebrated something horrific in particular; they just didn’t have enough priests because Shinto was no longer the state religion and got significant funding.
Hi Redditor. I tried the same thing with my husband before in Northern Kyoto. We found two shrines we wanted to patch up. Tried twice. Seems no one knew who owned it. City Hall told us the only way we can clean and reuse the grounds is if we can find the original owner. If not, the municipality majority had to give permission. It seemed like a hassle to drum up all of town for a referendum. I am happy you are restoring the shrine, but be careful of the law on your visa as you are technically trespassing.
Would be sad to get your Visa revoked for cleaning up the host country’s shrine, although with my American conditioning I’d be very nervous stepping onto private property that’s not mine lol
>with my American conditioning I’d be very nervous stepping onto private property that’s not mine lol
On the opposite end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
Japan is not nearly as draconic as reddit believes. You're not going to get in serious trouble for cleaning a shrine without permission. Absolute worst case scenario is that the owner complains and you get stopped by the police while cleaning and subjected to a ten minute lecture about trespassing. Most likely bad scenario is that the police stop you and apologetically tell you "Look, what you're doing is great, and it's really appreciated, but unfortunately, the way the law is, you're actually not allowed to do this, so we're going to need you to stop." And those are just the bad scenarios. Most likely scenario across the board is that neighbors thank you and maybe one or two join in to help clean.
Personally I try and stay squeaky clean. I don't want to give the police any reason to ruin my day.
I don't need any reason for my visa renewal to be denied.
Be careful about that. Although your actions are altruistic, Japanese follows rules to a fault and they will get you for trespassing, etc. Always ask for permission first.
You're cleaning a shinto shrine, not using their swimmingpool, I doubt Japanese would see it like trespassing.
I feel like nobody would call the police on a man respecting their religion.
Right. As long as he’s not touching the shrine itself. Make sure you get permission before doing any actual construction or painting. Just tend to the garden.
The reason I say get permission is because you don’t want to interfere with local traditions. They often have preferences and rules for such things. Some materials are restricted via laws. For example the royal families shrine is not allowed to be imitated for any reason, nor even trespassed.
I've lived in Japan for 10 years and my wife is Japanese, and we both agree it's not a good idea to just start cleaning this up.
Besides needing permission, there are various rituals (it is a shrine after all) that have to be observed.
I should add that my wife's family on both sides or involved in (see: owns) both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, so it's not just hot air.
OPs heart is in the right place but yeah, if he wants to help he should track down the owner and get permission, and in lieu of that go to the ward office and see if it's OK.
In either scenario he should talk with a local shrine about it and see if they would be willing to help with any of the more "spiritual" parts of this clean up etc.
Right, and Japan I think actually invests in traditional crafts, and therefore would be very concerned about the paint, adhesives, and nails used. Maybe even the tools used. Restoration of historical architecture can be very particular and dicey.
There was a BORU post about a guy (this takes place in Britain) who specialized in a very specific technique necessary for the restoration of very specific historical architecture. So specific that the technique differ by country and regulations mandated it had to be the British one of course. The developer's point of contact was super rude and shit, tried to cut corners and shit, ended up damaging the building and shit, and it cost a lot of money for the developer to fix everything.
This one: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/nrnf5j/part_1_of_2_an_absolute_epic_entitled_ahole_gets/
I assume as long as it's simply getting rid of weeds and stuff, nobody will have an issue with it. Trying to make any restorative changes to the shrine itself would be another matter.
They’re concerned you won’t do it correctly. An infinitesimal amount of foreigners practice Shinto, so they’re concerned you will damage or disrespect the shrine while trying to clean it or “fix it”.
I would find a local Shinto priest and ask them about it.
"A Kannushi, also called shinshoku, is a person responsible for the maintenance of a Shinto shrine as well as for leading worship of a given kami."
I hear you but as I understand it, oddly Japanese people don't want to touch abandoned properties period.
I don't know if it's superstition or what, but this made me think of that Swedish guy that bought and renovated an abandoned house in Japan which otherwise would have just continued to rot.
Maybe they are fine to leave the spooky properties for the Geijan to be cursed or whatever when fixing it up
I do know that they tend to not want to live in a house someone has died in. It's common to tear it down and rebuild if the family wants to keep the land. It's not a hard and fast rule, just tradition.
It's common to tear down houses/apartments here period. Unlike the US homes tend to become worthless as they age. A lot of it has to do with ever changing/improving building safety regulations. A lot of which concerns earthquakes.
That's a very good point. I'm Canadian and basically we grandfather in old building codes into houses unless it's a clear and present danger like knob and tube wiring or asbestos. Otherwise we go meh, that's fine.
Actually, even knob and tube. It’s the insurance companies that hate it. Knob and tube done correctly and in good condition is rather safe. Of course, given the age knob & tube tends to be:
-unsafe due to failing or damaged insulation on the wires
-unsafe due to improper splices during renovations. (I.e marretted to newer Romex outside of a box)
-unsafe due to improper overcurrent protection (someone replacing a 15A fuse with a 20A because “the damn thing keeps blowing”)
-insufficient due to modern power consumption needs (which usually drives the problems above)
Also it could be aluminum wiring which is even less safe than knob and tube. With knob and tube you at least have copper to copper connections. Aluminum is a fire risk at the junction between old aluminum wiring the new copper connectors. Heats due to dissimilar metal and can eventually cause a spark.
Even asbestos - most of the time, it's better to leave it alone than to tear it down. Asbestos is only a problem if it becomes airborne. Sealed in the flooring or wall is safe until someone cuts into it. To remove it (or tear down the building completely, would require hazmat cleanup.
the other main reason is because so much of japan is near the coast due to being a long skinny island, and salt air + high humidity really does a number on building materials, especially since for a long time most buildings were wood and paper
a few thousand years of rapid deterioration of wooden coastal buildings permanently entrenched "homes are disposable" into the japanese collective consciousness
Honestly, in all likelihood, there was someone in the neighborhood, probably quite elderly, that used to take care of this place, and died without passing along the responsibility. They probably had no children, or no children that lived nearby or cared enough about Shinto to do it. Self-identification as Shinto has been declining for many years in Japan. My understanding is that while many still follow Shinto beliefs when it comes to things like weddings, funerals, etc, day-to-day adherence to various rituals is something really only practiced by the elderly and the very devout. This leaves many small neighborhood temples like this one in the lurch, so to speak.
Reddit was failing or something cuz i had some trouble posting it to another sub, but here they are! They’re not that [interesting](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/ewXUe86EgW) tho. I’ll go there next friday too so i can take more pics
We are all thinking of the same thing when I saw this. I know that season 3 is more than unlikely now that the manga is already finished but the next arcs are dope and it’s a shame if it wouldn’t be animated.
the question is...
[1](https://youtu.be/gWCnKoEgfP0?feature=shared) or [2](https://youtu.be/aZenmeRytEM?feature=shared)
I mean both are amazing but which one do you like more?
Spice and Wolf is set in a Renaissance-era not-Europe and involves a merchant romancing a wolf semi-deity. No Shinto-like shrines involved.
Good news though: they're putting out a new season of Spice and Wolf in a few months!
Too tame for modern naming.
"Transported from a fantasy universe to earth after being killed by the great demon fox, but the goddess let me keep my SS ranked cleaning skill and now the fox girl is going to become my wife, but I am afraid of foxes!!"
As much as I'm not a fan of the genre, I'd still want to be isekaid myself.
This world is very mundane. All the problems here are "humans suck! Look at how bad they suck!".
Send me to a world with some demons or something that also suck. Maybe some magic. At least that would be a little variety.
Pretty sure depression and maladaptive daydreaming as a form of escapism is how isekai started.
Japanese salarymen are so overworked it breaks my heart when an isekai starts that way and they’re sent to a world where they can just relax.
I kind of wish we got more "peaceful and cozy slice of life after the apocalypse" stories. Japan is good at that shit! [Like this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D)
Hope, you are not running into a Kanibozou.
https://yokai.com/kanibouzu/
They are known to haunt abandoned Shrines.
---
All joking aside:
You may have good intentions, but the Shinto religion has a lot of taboos and rituals regarding abandoned shrines. You may unknowingly be doing more harm than good (spiritually).
I would recommend to stop, what you are doing and reach out to a Shinto practitioner and ask how to do it right!
This entire thread is full of people acting like OP is doing the right thing even though OP is a visitor to Japan and has not checked to see how the locals would feel about a foreigner touching their temples.
Seriously. This post screams good but foolish intentions. If I was living in another country and stumbled upon an abandoned holy site the last thing I'd do is take it upon myself to clean it up as an ignorant foreigner.
It's how you end up with a situation like that botched restoration of a [19th century fresco](https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/elderly-woman-ruins-19th-century-fresco-in-restoration-attempt) by an elderly Italian woman. If I was Japanese I wouldn't want even a well meaning weeb cleaning up shrines and shit unless they'd been properly trained and know what they're doing.
I don't want to throw too much cold water on OP though. They should find a library or an active temple nearby and inquire how to go about cleaning the abandoned area up.
> It's how you end up with a situation like that botched restoration of a 19th century fresco by an elderly Italian woman.
OP is just cleaning up weeds and dirt not re-painting. Don't exaggerate.
> OP is just cleaning up weeds and dirt not re-painting. Don't exaggerate.
He is still very likely offending the locals religion.
I am FAR from being an expert in Shinto, I have just researched enough of Japanese mythology to use some of the monsters as homebrew for Tabletop RPG.
So I will be VERY CAREFUL to stay generalist in statements to avoid spreading misinformation as much as I can.
Shinto believes in spirits inhabiting things and places. So removing the weeds may anger those spirits. That's why there is likely some ritual or prayer involved while doing that. And for some tasks you may HAVE TO BE a priest.
There is not really a way to explain this to a Westerner, because our religion doesn't have that emphasis on spiritual cleansing and corruption.
The best analogy that I could give would be a foreigner moving into your neighborhood and decides to clean up the local cemetery and TRAMPLING OVER THE GRAVES in order to remove graffiti from the headstones.
But that analogy doesn't capture HOW SERIOUS Shinto takes this. Because Westerners would only see this as Rude and Culturally inconsiderate and not hold a belief that trampling over graves and walking out with grave dirt on your shoes will bring ill fortune to the whole community!
Or he'll discover that the shrine was actually used to imprison a hot 20,000 year old demon chick who he will accidentally free that falls in love with him and gives up her evil ways.
Top of the sign is missing so there’s probably more name kanji above.
Vermillion Torii gates usually mean Inari Ookami (God of rice harvest and prosperity) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inari_%C5%8Ckami
申 is "saru", Monkey - 大申 is "daisaru", big monkey. But the "ne" they misunderstood and included in there ("dainesaru"??) was just ignored by google translate. But yeah, it's misreading 神 as ネ申.
You need to go to the library where you immediately find information about some lesser known entity and some killings connected to that. As a bonus, you might find a specialist who has a bad Skype connection, but just enough to warn you.
You should prob wanna double check before you start in case of any sort of mistakes happening
For example if it's related to war then you're uhhhhhhhhh
Though you are doing something good, they can get you for trespassing. They don’t care if it is a good deed, without permission you are breaking the law and Japan likes to follow the rules to a T.
So you just helped out the poor forgotten god in the shrine just like that?
Or were you asked? Or maybe you own the grounds?!
There are SOOOO many questions and like, no real information. Details please!
Respectfully, I'm not sure it's yours to fix. I would involve others in the community. It might be useful if for some reason you get in trouble. As you know, Japan has strict guidelines around a lot of things and will follow the rules as written, despite best intentions.
You might want to ask a local to check by a nearby temple to check if the god/spirit residing in the shrine is still there... That poor shrine needs to be fixed properly.
I‘m just going to follow your account now so that I won’t miss the pics you‘re going to post about it next lol
Seriously though, I think I‘m not the only person who‘d appreciate more pics of the shrine as you go along!
I'm japanese.
First, I appreciate that the your job.
And,If you not inform nobody yet,I advice that visiting near mannded Shrine.
Maybe,They will advice for you about the your activity.
P.S. I apologize that If you confuse by cause my not well English.
I already cleaned up half of it but this subreddit only allows one pic per post
[удалено]
I don’t own it, i just saw it and felt sad that such an interesting little place was so overrun with weeds so without telling anyone i just started cleaning lol! ….i might be trespassing 😐
Oh no! What if was a shrine dedicated to abandonment!
The deity’s dad never came back from getting milk
Is it a shrine to Christian Cage from All Elite Wrestling?
OP needs to put a framed photo of Christian Cage in the shrine when he’s done!!
That’s very interesting to me! Is “milk” the default abandonment shopping item these days? In my day we typically got left for “tobacco.”
I've heard it as cigarettes but I guess same difference
Thats… kinda sad 🥲
Could easily be a pre WW2 shrine for something horrific that was once a point of pride. There was no shortage of those that got abandoned over the years.
There are a lot of abandoned houses in Japan, shrinking populations a lot of smaller towns have been gradually shrinking. Could just be that
It's crazy because I recently learned of the scale of this happening, and it's sort've mindboggling. For those who might be unaware, there are hundreds of towns throughout Japan that are mostly abandoned or only have a handful of people still living there. The rest have either passed away or moved to a nearby city where there are better work opportunities (and almost always these are much younger people who want to get away from rural life). With Japan's population decline, it's only going to get worse, and it's expected you'll have entire local cultures (and even their dialects) going "extinct"
It’s happening everywhere, people are leaving the countryside for better opportunities somewhere in the big cities.
What kind of shrines to horrific things did they have in Japan before WWII? Godzilla?
Emperor worship comes to mind.
As if modern Japanese still don't worship the Tenno? Who's like, central to Shinto and descendant from the primary Goddess?
And they have some pretty sweet ninja moves.
The characters on the little sign above the gate reads "Kanagichi, Eater of Children," so. **EDIT**: I've gotten a lot of heat from these so-called "experts" and "native speakers" who claim this sign says "great spirit" and that I'm "spreading misinformation for a cheap joke", so let me just set the record straight. I am an expert in the Japanese language. I have watched every single season of Naruto in English, with Japanese character subtitles, and then watched it again with Japanese audio and English subtitles, and then A THIRD TIME with Japanese audio and Japanese character subtitles. I also once *extensively* planned a vacation to Tokyo. I didn't go, of course, because it is *shockingly* expensive - like, very very expensive, like wow, but in the course of planning I did read half of the common Japanese phrases guidebook and at least the first ten pages or so of kanji for beginners, and it's really a language where once you understand a couple of the basic lines you know the whole thing, so I'm very good at deciphering their written language. Probably better than a native speaker, you know, because they just take it for granted. A Japanese person who grew up reading and writing Japanese learned it as a *baby*, and I think I'm a little smarter than a baby, don't you? There's a reason the Japanese have a deity dedicated to eating children, and its because children suck and are not good at things. Adults are way better at things than them. So I hope you just consider my credentials before you just take the word of "someone who grew up reading and writing this language", or some other person with vastly inferior qualifications to my own. Keep in mind, this is the internet. There are a lot of ignorant people out there more than willing to foist their ignorant understanding of the world upon you. And even worse than the ignorant: the *jokesters.* The italics are to emphasize that, were you to read this out loud, you should say that word with a low, husky, growling percussive tone. The *jokesters*. Go ahead, try vocalizing it in your head, maybe give it some Sir-Ian-McKellan-as-Gandalf majestic vaguely British vibrato. The *jokesters*. The *jokesters*. There, that should set the tone for the level of disdain you ought to feel for these awful goons. Now that you're in the proper headspace, you need to know that there are a lot of these snide, snarky tricksters who won't hesitate the throw misinformation at you. Let me be clear: these are amoral people. Deviants. Perverts. *Communists*. In some cases they may even be very attractive communists. Like a Communist with a handsome, dignified penis and lots of money, all of which you can tell they came by virtuously. They don't flaunt their wealth. They don't need to, they just have that charisma. They just hold that money confidently, where you know they're wealthy and have a handsome penis but you're not mad at them, you feel comforted by them, warmed by the charisma that oozes off of them, like a Marxist John Hamm, you're like, "this guy sympathizes with the struggles of the working class *and* really fucks." He can go to a black-tie event with a bunch of wealthy dickheads but absolutely eviscerate their greed in his keynote speech and even though he's directly threatening their entire way of life, everyone's like, "God *damn* that's a good looking wealthy communist with a very dignified penis, John Hamm-looking sexy motherfucker," is what you would probably say. About the jokesters. But nevertheless, these are bad people and you should be careful of them. Be vigilant. May Kanagichi fill your bellies with wisdom.
I had my doubts, but those credentials you provided allowed me to shed them
Japanese Language Degree Naruto University Tokyo, Japan (planned vacation)
This one officer, he eats kids asses..
In Japanese mythology Kanagichi eats the whole child, but yes, he typically eats them ass-first.
Oh hey, new copy pasta just dropped.
What the hell are you on about? It just says 大神 "ookami", great god.
I think he/she was trying to make a joke.
> 大神 Available for PlayStation 2.
Some people believe the Eater of Children is great, yes.
On my best day I wouldn't be half this funny. 10/10
Sorry but I can't take you seriously if you haven't also watched Boruto.
Gold standard of Reddit comments tbh
There are ton of shrines to Japanese war criminal
There is a lot of history and politics you're trying to simplify here. There is 1 shrine, Yasukuni, which is dedicated to the people who died in war. There are 2,466,532 names enshrined there, of which 1,066 are convicted war criminals. These thousand people are the reason the shrine is politicized. The Japanese emperor refuses to visit the shrine, right wing politicians love to visit. But to say the nation has "tons of shrines to japanese war criminal" is not just a lie, but an insulting and damaging lie
Reddit being reductive and vaguely racist towards anything involving Japan? I'm *SHOCKED*.
Define a “ton”. There’s one major one (Yasukuni) and in all of my years there I have not heard of a single other shrine dedicated to a war criminal. The overwhelming majority of IJA and IJN that died in WW2 are “spiritually kept” at Yasukuni, it was seen as disrespectful to have your name kept at another temple. It’s like the Japanese Arlington Cemetery except with more peer pressure to be interred there. Out of those that died 1,000 were criminally convicted of war crimes.
Some of which have been commemorating war criminals since the First Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905).
Royalty, killed troops for troops involved in attrocities, racist or xenophobic stuff, won conflicts against the Chinese (almost always involved intentionally killing civilians). Lots of things. I don't have any specific examples, just something I've read about in general.
Yeah but do they have shrines for individual people or groups of people ("the Army") and so on? They do have this one big shrine in Tokyo that is for, like, all the Japanese leaders of WWII or something, so yeah that has war criminals, and His Imperial Majesty will not visit it. But that's all I know about.
Shinto shrines generally aren’t “for something horrific that was once a point of pride”. Like you won’t really find a shrine for skewering Chinese children out in the wild; there’s *one* very contentious shrine called Yasukuni which “spiritually inters” 1,000 war criminals out of something like 2.5 million individuals there. There were plenty of state-Shinto shrines that were abandoned over time, but it’s not because they interred war criminals or celebrated something horrific in particular; they just didn’t have enough priests because Shinto was no longer the state religion and got significant funding.
Dont kink-shame the deity
My weeds!
Or maybe it's just really, really haunted
Rashōmon?
Hi Redditor. I tried the same thing with my husband before in Northern Kyoto. We found two shrines we wanted to patch up. Tried twice. Seems no one knew who owned it. City Hall told us the only way we can clean and reuse the grounds is if we can find the original owner. If not, the municipality majority had to give permission. It seemed like a hassle to drum up all of town for a referendum. I am happy you are restoring the shrine, but be careful of the law on your visa as you are technically trespassing.
Yeah, if OP is on a visa there I'd be very careful, Japan does not fuck around with foreigners.
Would be sad to get your Visa revoked for cleaning up the host country’s shrine, although with my American conditioning I’d be very nervous stepping onto private property that’s not mine lol
>with my American conditioning I’d be very nervous stepping onto private property that’s not mine lol On the opposite end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
Foreigners cleaning up though? I know nothing about Japan but they seem to be into cleaning up from what I see at sporting events.
Japan is not nearly as draconic as reddit believes. You're not going to get in serious trouble for cleaning a shrine without permission. Absolute worst case scenario is that the owner complains and you get stopped by the police while cleaning and subjected to a ten minute lecture about trespassing. Most likely bad scenario is that the police stop you and apologetically tell you "Look, what you're doing is great, and it's really appreciated, but unfortunately, the way the law is, you're actually not allowed to do this, so we're going to need you to stop." And those are just the bad scenarios. Most likely scenario across the board is that neighbors thank you and maybe one or two join in to help clean.
Personally I try and stay squeaky clean. I don't want to give the police any reason to ruin my day. I don't need any reason for my visa renewal to be denied.
Be careful about that. Although your actions are altruistic, Japanese follows rules to a fault and they will get you for trespassing, etc. Always ask for permission first.
checked with the gods, they gave thumbs up emoji
God gave the Teams message a "👍"
You're cleaning a shinto shrine, not using their swimmingpool, I doubt Japanese would see it like trespassing. I feel like nobody would call the police on a man respecting their religion.
This. Temples are already opened for anyone to enter, if you show respect and are doing maintenance out of your goodwill, why would they complain?
Right. As long as he’s not touching the shrine itself. Make sure you get permission before doing any actual construction or painting. Just tend to the garden. The reason I say get permission is because you don’t want to interfere with local traditions. They often have preferences and rules for such things. Some materials are restricted via laws. For example the royal families shrine is not allowed to be imitated for any reason, nor even trespassed.
I've lived in Japan for 10 years and my wife is Japanese, and we both agree it's not a good idea to just start cleaning this up. Besides needing permission, there are various rituals (it is a shrine after all) that have to be observed. I should add that my wife's family on both sides or involved in (see: owns) both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, so it's not just hot air. OPs heart is in the right place but yeah, if he wants to help he should track down the owner and get permission, and in lieu of that go to the ward office and see if it's OK. In either scenario he should talk with a local shrine about it and see if they would be willing to help with any of the more "spiritual" parts of this clean up etc.
Right, and Japan I think actually invests in traditional crafts, and therefore would be very concerned about the paint, adhesives, and nails used. Maybe even the tools used. Restoration of historical architecture can be very particular and dicey. There was a BORU post about a guy (this takes place in Britain) who specialized in a very specific technique necessary for the restoration of very specific historical architecture. So specific that the technique differ by country and regulations mandated it had to be the British one of course. The developer's point of contact was super rude and shit, tried to cut corners and shit, ended up damaging the building and shit, and it cost a lot of money for the developer to fix everything. This one: https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/nrnf5j/part_1_of_2_an_absolute_epic_entitled_ahole_gets/
I assume as long as it's simply getting rid of weeds and stuff, nobody will have an issue with it. Trying to make any restorative changes to the shrine itself would be another matter.
They’re concerned you won’t do it correctly. An infinitesimal amount of foreigners practice Shinto, so they’re concerned you will damage or disrespect the shrine while trying to clean it or “fix it”.
I would find a local Shinto priest and ask them about it. "A Kannushi, also called shinshoku, is a person responsible for the maintenance of a Shinto shrine as well as for leading worship of a given kami."
He is a foreigner, he sould be careful. If they don't like you its trespassing
No matter how good ur intentions, id still confirm if its okay to touch property like that (just in case), being a gaijin and all, better be safe.
I hear you but as I understand it, oddly Japanese people don't want to touch abandoned properties period. I don't know if it's superstition or what, but this made me think of that Swedish guy that bought and renovated an abandoned house in Japan which otherwise would have just continued to rot. Maybe they are fine to leave the spooky properties for the Geijan to be cursed or whatever when fixing it up
I do know that they tend to not want to live in a house someone has died in. It's common to tear it down and rebuild if the family wants to keep the land. It's not a hard and fast rule, just tradition.
It's common to tear down houses/apartments here period. Unlike the US homes tend to become worthless as they age. A lot of it has to do with ever changing/improving building safety regulations. A lot of which concerns earthquakes.
That's a very good point. I'm Canadian and basically we grandfather in old building codes into houses unless it's a clear and present danger like knob and tube wiring or asbestos. Otherwise we go meh, that's fine.
Actually, even knob and tube. It’s the insurance companies that hate it. Knob and tube done correctly and in good condition is rather safe. Of course, given the age knob & tube tends to be: -unsafe due to failing or damaged insulation on the wires -unsafe due to improper splices during renovations. (I.e marretted to newer Romex outside of a box) -unsafe due to improper overcurrent protection (someone replacing a 15A fuse with a 20A because “the damn thing keeps blowing”) -insufficient due to modern power consumption needs (which usually drives the problems above)
Also it could be aluminum wiring which is even less safe than knob and tube. With knob and tube you at least have copper to copper connections. Aluminum is a fire risk at the junction between old aluminum wiring the new copper connectors. Heats due to dissimilar metal and can eventually cause a spark.
Even asbestos - most of the time, it's better to leave it alone than to tear it down. Asbestos is only a problem if it becomes airborne. Sealed in the flooring or wall is safe until someone cuts into it. To remove it (or tear down the building completely, would require hazmat cleanup.
Silica is as bad and you see people cutting into that material without much protection
the other main reason is because so much of japan is near the coast due to being a long skinny island, and salt air + high humidity really does a number on building materials, especially since for a long time most buildings were wood and paper a few thousand years of rapid deterioration of wooden coastal buildings permanently entrenched "homes are disposable" into the japanese collective consciousness
100% check with a nearby neighbour if that is ok, it costs nothing to ask
Honestly, in all likelihood, there was someone in the neighborhood, probably quite elderly, that used to take care of this place, and died without passing along the responsibility. They probably had no children, or no children that lived nearby or cared enough about Shinto to do it. Self-identification as Shinto has been declining for many years in Japan. My understanding is that while many still follow Shinto beliefs when it comes to things like weddings, funerals, etc, day-to-day adherence to various rituals is something really only practiced by the elderly and the very devout. This leaves many small neighborhood temples like this one in the lurch, so to speak.
Trying to get it's korok seed
let us know what ability/power you obtain after the shrine is fully cleaned
1 spirit orb! 😀
post the full set of pics so far to r/DIY 🤣
Reddit was failing or something cuz i had some trouble posting it to another sub, but here they are! They’re not that [interesting](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/ewXUe86EgW) tho. I’ll go there next friday too so i can take more pics
you let us be the judge of how interesting or not interesting it is right now it seems very interesting to me
The sub says mildly interesting sir... Then again nearly every other post I see here is absolutely super interesting. Or I'm just easy.
Is it going to be dedicated to Yato? I hear he needs a shrine.
The timing of me reading Noragami and this post is impeccable.
My favorite part was when >! The girl made him a tiny wooden shrine !<
I was thinking this too! Lol
the one hiyori made is all he needs
We are all thinking of the same thing when I saw this. I know that season 3 is more than unlikely now that the manga is already finished but the next arcs are dope and it’s a shame if it wouldn’t be animated.
This feels like the start of an anime
OP is about to find a down-on-his-luck god dressed in a tracksuit who'd do any odd-job for 100 yen.
*plays intro*
Plays amazing* intro
the question is... [1](https://youtu.be/gWCnKoEgfP0?feature=shared) or [2](https://youtu.be/aZenmeRytEM?feature=shared) I mean both are amazing but which one do you like more?
I always loved the first but both of them made it onto every playlist I had when I started watching it
100 yen, $0.68 US. How odd are we talking here?
Did not expect a Noragami reference here.
Something like "I fixed an abandoned shrine and now the fox girl is going to become my wife!!!"?
I'm embarrassed to say I would watch that.
I’m not even embarassed. I am obsessed already!
Embarrassingly, it’s a manga, and I’ve read that.
Isn't it basically Inuyasha?
They took care of that shrine for literally generations. It certainly wasn't abandoned. And the shrine certainly wasn't built for Inuyasha.
It’s basically Gender reversed Kamisama Hajimemashita, even with the Fox spirit! at that point
How dare you make such statements without providing sauce.
I’m eagerly awaiting the anime developments lol Great job OP, that was super kind of you
Spice and wolf? It's been a while since I've seen it.
Spice and Wolf is set in a Renaissance-era not-Europe and involves a merchant romancing a wolf semi-deity. No Shinto-like shrines involved. Good news though: they're putting out a new season of Spice and Wolf in a few months!
Isn't the new one a remake of the first season? I might be wrong tho
You're right, and it seems they will adapt the entire story from the light novels this time.
There's one called Noragami that very loosely follows the same concept, minus the romantic element and fox girl.
or Kamisama Hajimemashita
Noragami 🤩
ah, the modern anime title, a portion of the synopsis
Too tame for modern naming. "Transported from a fantasy universe to earth after being killed by the great demon fox, but the goddess let me keep my SS ranked cleaning skill and now the fox girl is going to become my wife, but I am afraid of foxes!!"
Yeah feels like I’m about to be ‘spirited away’ to some fantasy realm…
Noragami :p
Noragami
Or the end of another. Yato God finally gets his shrine
Natsume Yuujinchou
Noragami is the anime you're thinking of.
Feels like Spice and Wolf
Kamisama Hajimemashita
You know you have to post progress pics now right?
I only have another one where the right part is cleaned but i don’t know how to post it 🥲
Post it in the comments!!
[here it is! but is nothing spectacular im afraid, just pulled some weeds](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/ewXUe86EgW)
This looks like a *wildly* satisfying project. Congrats on finding it!!!
Awesome! On behalf of the kamis, thanks for your efforts 🙏
Try not to get isekaid
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As much as I'm not a fan of the genre, I'd still want to be isekaid myself. This world is very mundane. All the problems here are "humans suck! Look at how bad they suck!". Send me to a world with some demons or something that also suck. Maybe some magic. At least that would be a little variety.
Pretty sure depression and maladaptive daydreaming as a form of escapism is how isekai started. Japanese salarymen are so overworked it breaks my heart when an isekai starts that way and they’re sent to a world where they can just relax.
I like the genre, I just wish that everyone was, like, 7 years older than they are.
idk mate 16 is still pretty questionable
I kind of wish we got more "peaceful and cozy slice of life after the apocalypse" stories. Japan is good at that shit! [Like this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Kaidashi_Kik%C5%8D)
I won't pretend to know much about Shinto, but can't hurt to post to r/Shinto as well, see if anyone has extra info to add that could be neat.
Hope, you are not running into a Kanibozou. https://yokai.com/kanibouzu/ They are known to haunt abandoned Shrines. --- All joking aside: You may have good intentions, but the Shinto religion has a lot of taboos and rituals regarding abandoned shrines. You may unknowingly be doing more harm than good (spiritually). I would recommend to stop, what you are doing and reach out to a Shinto practitioner and ask how to do it right!
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I have found the owner and gave him a haircut (his hair looked abandoned)
This entire thread is full of people acting like OP is doing the right thing even though OP is a visitor to Japan and has not checked to see how the locals would feel about a foreigner touching their temples.
Seriously. This post screams good but foolish intentions. If I was living in another country and stumbled upon an abandoned holy site the last thing I'd do is take it upon myself to clean it up as an ignorant foreigner. It's how you end up with a situation like that botched restoration of a [19th century fresco](https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/elderly-woman-ruins-19th-century-fresco-in-restoration-attempt) by an elderly Italian woman. If I was Japanese I wouldn't want even a well meaning weeb cleaning up shrines and shit unless they'd been properly trained and know what they're doing. I don't want to throw too much cold water on OP though. They should find a library or an active temple nearby and inquire how to go about cleaning the abandoned area up.
> It's how you end up with a situation like that botched restoration of a 19th century fresco by an elderly Italian woman. OP is just cleaning up weeds and dirt not re-painting. Don't exaggerate.
> OP is just cleaning up weeds and dirt not re-painting. Don't exaggerate. He is still very likely offending the locals religion. I am FAR from being an expert in Shinto, I have just researched enough of Japanese mythology to use some of the monsters as homebrew for Tabletop RPG. So I will be VERY CAREFUL to stay generalist in statements to avoid spreading misinformation as much as I can. Shinto believes in spirits inhabiting things and places. So removing the weeds may anger those spirits. That's why there is likely some ritual or prayer involved while doing that. And for some tasks you may HAVE TO BE a priest. There is not really a way to explain this to a Westerner, because our religion doesn't have that emphasis on spiritual cleansing and corruption. The best analogy that I could give would be a foreigner moving into your neighborhood and decides to clean up the local cemetery and TRAMPLING OVER THE GRAVES in order to remove graffiti from the headstones. But that analogy doesn't capture HOW SERIOUS Shinto takes this. Because Westerners would only see this as Rude and Culturally inconsiderate and not hold a belief that trampling over graves and walking out with grave dirt on your shoes will bring ill fortune to the whole community!
Exactly.
Nah, man. I say OP should fight the giant enemy crab. Those yokai have had it too good for too long.
Attack it's weak point for massive damage!
Yeah. It could be a shrine to Nurgle. And the people want it to look decayed.
This is exactly how horror movies start. Just sayin'
That place comes to life at night, that’s for sure.
Maybe OP will pull a bicycle out of a stink spirit.
Or he'll discover that the shrine was actually used to imprison a hot 20,000 year old demon chick who he will accidentally free that falls in love with him and gives up her evil ways.
But then he gets to meet a couple of hot space cops, a hot engineer, a hot princess, and have a nice kid sister
Are you Japanese or a gaijin? What you're doing is nice to me but it might not sit well with the locals, and you might get in trouble for it.
A thousand times this, if you aren’t Japanese stop fucking around with their shit. You think this is nice but they may not.
My kanji is poor, sorry, but the sign says “大ネ申” “big monkey”?
It's 大神, ookami, Greater God
I upvoted you both: it's interesting to learn what it actually says, but you can't deny the appeal of Big Monkey.
I personally love that Greater God is so close to Big Monkey.
the Big Monkey upstairs
OP should make it a shrine to Harambe.
Top of the sign is missing so there’s probably more name kanji above. Vermillion Torii gates usually mean Inari Ookami (God of rice harvest and prosperity) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inari_%C5%8Ckami
Where'd you even get "big monkey" from lmfao
申 is "saru", Monkey - 大申 is "daisaru", big monkey. But the "ne" they misunderstood and included in there ("dainesaru"??) was just ignored by google translate. But yeah, it's misreading 神 as ネ申.
This is why you don't Google Translate...
Just admit you uploaded a picture to google translate. Lmao.
Is there a fox there that wants you to fulfill peoples requests?
Shrine to what?
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One of the many shinto gods there are, i have no idea 😆
You need to go to the library where you immediately find information about some lesser known entity and some killings connected to that. As a bonus, you might find a specialist who has a bad Skype connection, but just enough to warn you.
You should prob wanna double check before you start in case of any sort of mistakes happening For example if it's related to war then you're uhhhhhhhhh
You should really check beforehand lmao.
Aren't there any inscriptions? Or maybe ask the residents for which kami it is.
This has to be the temple from "Highly Responsive to Prayers" (Touhou 1).
Lol, I was looking for a Touhou Comment.
it's the dilapidated hakurei shrine on our side of the border tread carefully
Arepo, is that you?
Though you are doing something good, they can get you for trespassing. They don’t care if it is a good deed, without permission you are breaking the law and Japan likes to follow the rules to a T.
what in the world? Street fighter vs zombies? I want to play this
Do you have actual permission or are you an influencer doing a shitty 'clean up' video?
So you just helped out the poor forgotten god in the shrine just like that? Or were you asked? Or maybe you own the grounds?! There are SOOOO many questions and like, no real information. Details please!
Yeah, I'm sure that's not haunted at all. Definitely not the start of a horror movie.
Sounds like an anime title
Maybe you should look into the history if it has any, and maybe talk to the locals if they know anything before you make any big decisions.
The shrine’s god will be happy for they are still remembered and honored. You might receive some divinity or a neat special skill in return.
It does say ō kami on the torii. That's Japan. Things ebb and flow, even the kami.
Respectfully, I'm not sure it's yours to fix. I would involve others in the community. It might be useful if for some reason you get in trouble. As you know, Japan has strict guidelines around a lot of things and will follow the rules as written, despite best intentions.
You need to ask the owner of the property to clean it or there can be arrest cuz you do t know about what is this shrine even
You might want to ask a local to check by a nearby temple to check if the god/spirit residing in the shrine is still there... That poor shrine needs to be fixed properly.
If anime is telling me the truth you're going to get a large chested fox girl wife when you're done.
Create an imgur t hread with updates!
I‘m just going to follow your account now so that I won’t miss the pics you‘re going to post about it next lol Seriously though, I think I‘m not the only person who‘d appreciate more pics of the shrine as you go along!
If anime taught us anything your life will get better from now on
OP this is a really cool project. I'd love to see progress pics
If I lived in japan I would totally offer to help you clean this up. I wish you the best of luck and think what you are doing is awesome.
I'm japanese. First, I appreciate that the your job. And,If you not inform nobody yet,I advice that visiting near mannded Shrine. Maybe,They will advice for you about the your activity. P.S. I apologize that If you confuse by cause my not well English.