Talk:Shinigami

message: I don't think people who can't tell that Shinigami is integral and original to Japanese folklore should be working on the article. As it stands now, it's one paragraph followed by a bunch of examples with excessive descriptions. On that note, we should really consider taking those extensive explanations out (half of which surpass the actual article's length), as examples are (90% of the time) simply links. 24.126.199.129 09:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So wait, you're making the assumption that "shinigami" IS "integral and original to Japanese folklore"?  Did you not read the rest of the discussion on this page and look at the evidence and links provided?  There seems to be a pretty strong argument that the term "shinigami" is not, in fact, folkloric, and is rather a modern invention that is common to current pop culture.  In which case, the examples described in the article are probably entirely appropriate, as it gives the reader a good understanding of what "shinigami" is, because, well, those media examples basically *are* what "shinigami" is  That is, to understand the term "shinigami", one must understand its use in media and pop culture. --ACDragonMaster 02:19, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The state of this article

message: Is that a joke? They sort of don't exist, don't see how we're supposed to get a photo of one. --tjstrf 02:22, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Not to mention, shinigami tend to be portrayed quite differently across different series.  Though on the other hand, perhaps a few images of different portrayals of shinigami for comparison may be a good idea? --ACDragonMaster 22:01, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably would violate fair use. If we could find someone dressed as a generic shinigami that might work, but then they'd probably be stealing the outfit from some manga/anime/whatever. I'll just remove it. --tjstrf 22:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would it?  I know the article on the Bleach shinigami has several images in it from the series to illustrate things like the different uniforms on such, so would a few images intended for reference and comparison still be violating fair use? --ACDragonMaster 02:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Judging from the extraordinarily lengthy discussions and ultimate resolution of the issue on Talk:Lolicon, it would. On that page, at least, they decided that a specific licensed property could not be used to represent the class that licensed property belongs to. I haven't read the fair use talk pages themselves in depth due to lack of time (My current archive-reading is WT:RFA's huge archive set), but I've seen nothing to oppose the conclusion drawn in that specific instance. I could of course be totally wrong. --tjstrf 02:54, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that a bleach shinigami picture would be faire use to illustrate the Bleach section. I agree that it's virtually impossible to find a picture that would fit in the upper-right corner, but illustrating one or two sections, eg the most well-known, or the first issued, would certainly make the article less dry.--SidiLemine 11:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Requested photo" tag

message: This article barely has anything on the death gods themselves, mainly only the pop. references. there needs to be more on the death gods and less on the pop. references.Angelofdeath275 01:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The popular references define the idea. It's a psuedo-mythological subject of modern origin. --tjstrf 02:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even so, there should be more "factual" text. What is the first appearence of the term? Did it gain notoriety in mainstream (non-pop) media? Is there any consensus on what they generally are? Etc. I agree about most of the discussion (that they are not traditionnal), but this is still not encyclopedic. There is some talk about moving all the pop refs from Death(personification) to their own page, to de-clutter a little. I suggest this be done, and then the examples be moved there. We could then merge what remains of this article with Death(personification) (main objection right now os that the latter is too cluttered already), and everyone would be happy. Opinions?--SidiLemine 15:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Main problem with that is that the term encompasses personifications of death, but has become rather more broad in application.  It's more along the lines of pixies or elves as a type of supernatural being.  The first appearance of the term would be difficult to verify, I think, but as to notoriety, absolutely.  It's a broadly-known, if sometimes ill-defined, term.  Will see about some cleanup a little later on. Shimeru 16:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. If they do anything else than taking souls from the world of the living, they're not personifications of death. Isn't there other modern mythological creatures that we could take example on? --SidiLemine 16:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure.  The most prominent is probably the gremlin.  This is somewhat newer.  Am seeing whether I can track down any English sources. Shimeru 22:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why so much on media references? 

message: http://www.manganews.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-1328.html
Not much, but better than nothing. In particular:
According to literary critic Masao Azuma, Japanese peoples' perspectives on Death originate from those of the Chinese. "There was originally no Death worship in Japan. In China, there are characters similar to the Grim Reaper, called "Somujo" or "Koshinin," whose job was to take spirits to "Meifu (The Land of Death)." Death is like a government official. In the Konjaku Monogatarishu (a collection of folk stories dating back to the Heian period), the oni (demon) plays a similar role.
On the other hand, in "Ehon Hyakumonogatari (A Hundred Stories Picture Book" (author: Shunsen Takehara, publisher: Kokusho Kankoukai), written in the latter part of the Edo period, Death is portrayed in a different light than today. Here, Death is an evil spirit who haunts passersby and convinces them to die. "During the Meiji period, the European image of Death with a black hood concealing a skull and holding a scythe was imported into Japan, and was later characterized as the Grim Reaper," says Azuma. Even the Japanese rakugo (comical monologue) "Shinigami (Death)," widely accepted to be the first definitive portrayal of the Japanese Grim Reaper, is thought to be an interpretation of Italian operas and Grimm's Fairy Tales. The Japanese Grim Reaper is a mix of East and West.
Kotengu 06:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A reference of sorts 

message: I noticed this article barely referenced any sources at all. Can we cite some decent material?
Piercetp 03:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Define decent. WP:RS-worthy? WP:N-worthy? WP:V-worthy? Most manga-related "scholarship" that is not analysis of its cultural impact consists of curious people looking stuff up and then writing about it on their blogs/forums. Neither of which are citeable. If you want pagerefs to the manga that show they use the term, that would certainly be possible, but it would just be referencing for referencing's sake. --tjstrf talk 03:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO any article posted in Wikipedia should meet all the criteria. Maybe nothing too rigerous but I think that if an article is to be taken seriously than some source material should be required. Piercetp 00:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some source material is needed 

message: Would Yuki Jourou ("Snow Harlot"), a snow spirit that kills for pleasure and sex, fall into this category? Chris 07:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other death deities section

message: Um...two points.
One, if Shinigami were imported from the West "during the Meiji era", how the hell did Edo-period playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon mention them (the word shows up twice in "Lovers' Suicide at Amijima")?
More likely, it was imported during the Warring States era--when, remember, Europe was ony a century past the plague and Death and his Dances were still a comparatively common artistic motif.
Two, are we absolutely certain it's not Shinto?  Lots and lots of Shinto gods never show up in the Kojiki and similar works.  And Korean Shamanism, which is probably a related religion, has a god called Saja or the Death Messenger that, like Shinigami, functions as a psychopomps and usually has the personality of a bullying minor official attached to the criminal courts.
Unfortunately, though all of the above is based on sources, the conclusions I'm drawing from them are based on my God-given reason, not merely parroting someone else, so it counts as "Original Research."  I hate that rule sometimes.  Nagakura shin8 (talk) 20:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not meiji, maybe not western at all. 

message: This article is redundant. Shinigami is just the Japanese name given to a personification of death. If you look at the Japanese page for Shinigami you can see that it's simply death incarnate. Clicking on the English link takes you to Death (personification) and not here. This page should be deleted. I think this page is just for fans of cartoons like "Death Note" and "Bleach" to have something to link to when some idiot uses "Shinigami" improperly in the fansub.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.97.124.140 (talk) 03:05, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Your IP address is in Wisconsin, and you are ignorant of Japanese culture if you think mature anime is the same as an American cartoon for young children. You're not valid to be contributing to Japanese culture pages, and are not a valid source to listen to about Japanese language pages.--174.17.236.32 (talk) 17:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shinigami is what we call a Grim Reaper in Japanese 

message: This comment makes no sense at all. "In Princess Mononoke the Shishigami (The Forest Spirit which resembles a great stag during day) turned into a Shinigami when his head was cut off. It resembled a humanoid made of tar-like liquid that towered over the forest and trees, killing anything that touched it." is incorrect. I don't recall there ever being anything stating that it's a Shinigami. Moocowsrule (talk) 01:35, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Because it's not. --174.17.236.32 (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  This comment is incorrect. 

message: I just did quite a bit of editing. I fixed up and added a more elaborate first paragraph WITH a reference and fixed up the culture Anime stuff for it talked about Death Note in a way that was irrelevant as all hell to the concept of a shinigami. I put "Use in Japanese culture" for lack of a better phrase. Man this article was bugging the s*** out of me. Ssjgoku75x (talk) 09:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: First off, anime & manga are already stated by some to be the probable origin of the entire shinigami concept, with the other contender being the Grim Reaper... Thus, dismissing, or removing information of manga, and anime should not be happening. Second off, you don't exactly sound like you know anything about shinigami, so much as like you simply don't like manga, and anime, despite those are Japanese culture works (with at least one based off actual Japanese, and Asian beliefs (BLEACH), as opposed to European loans), and this is a page about Japanese culture. Third off, are you the one who made the page about things that might not be correct at all? Whomever turned the page into being about demons that possess people, and make them commit the common-today suicides didn't touch the talk page (unless it was you, whom gave no details about what you did, and only a reason of disliking anime & manga for why you did your edit) despite they completely changed the page, and want to rewrite the concept of a shinigami from a psychopomp death god to demons that murder people (which after I put it that way, sounds like a Christian did the edit to demonize it for being Pagan, like how Christians demonize elves).--174.17.236.32 (talk) 17:11, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  A s*** load of editing 

message: I think there's something wrong with the only source one this page. I tried it and it brought me to a "page not found" page or something like that. I think I found a rather good source though, maybe the original source, here, can somebody please do something about this.zeroro(talk)(edits) 00:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  source problems 

message: Not only is it out of synch with past concepts, but it's references, plus their page version itself sound like the person just took death-related yōkai, and decided to claim that's what "shinigami" means without it being a fact, using crummy "monster" books like we have in English as the sources, ignoring anything actually about "shinigami," and then using a language barrier to protect the edit job from correction, or verification. (BLEACH might be a manga, and anime, but it is actually based off Japanese, and Asian traditional beliefs, raising question why the true psychpomp stuff was altogether removed from this page. And, I've only ever personally seen it used to mean Grim Reapers, both in fiction, and on pages online about actual Japanese beliefs (such as one about a tunnel believed to frequently have shinigami (Grim Reapers specifically) pass through it while they go about their job). So, it doesn't make sense. In modern Japan, it clearly means Grim Reapers, not those yōkai, or gods the person is calling shinigami.) --174.17.236.32 (talk) 17:20, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The editor who originally created this page on the Japanese Wikipedia (on which this is based off of) is the user Tobosha (逃亡者), who has been editing the Japanese Wikipedia for several years creating many well-sourced articles about yōkai. Before that, there was no such page on the Japanese Wikipedia. Those "crummy" books you talk about come from the likes Tada Katsumi (多田克己), a councilor of the World Yōkai Association (世界妖怪協会). Statements like "I've only ever personally seen it" etc. are not valid arguments for what reliable sources say. True, there is a lack of reliable sources in English about shinigami, but that is no substitute to using the more unreliable sources you have referred to (for example, fiction alone can never be a reliable source, and blogs are mostly unreliable unless by a scholar, or someone like that). In truth, this page should have been better titled "Death god (Japan)" since that is what this is about. The use of the word "shinigami" to refer to something specially Japanese is something recently invented in the west, whereas it would have always been the same concept as "Death god" (Japan). In fact, I'll move this right now.--Tosiaki! (talk) 09:59, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

text: Of course, if you want to create an article titled "Japanese death gods in fiction" or "Shinigami in fiction," that's always an option, although it'd be best to have reliable sources. There's always the article Japanese mythology in popular culture to start with, even if you have no reliable sources.--Tosiaki! (talk) 10:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Verification Needed Of The Current Version Of "Shinigami" 

message: What is the "western notion of a death god"?  --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 20:34, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Death (personification) --erachima talk 09:55, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

text: Also, Psychopomp. Shiroi Hane (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: the western notion of a death god

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This article needs some tidying up by someone who knows about the topic - eg (at random) 'After the war' - which? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing 

message: — Assignment last updated by Berserkz (talk) 16:45, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: HUM 202 - Introduction to Mythology