Izanagi (イザナギ/伊邪那岐/伊弉諾) or Izanaki (イザナキ), formally referred to with a divine honorific as Izanagi-no-Mikoto (伊邪那岐命/伊弉諾尊, meaning "He-who-invites" or the "Male-who-invites"), is the creator deity (kami) of both creation and life in Japanese mythology.

The names Izanagi (Izanaki) and Izanami are often interpreted as being derived from the verb izanau (historical orthography izanafu) or iⁿzanap- from Western Old Japanese 'to invite', with -ki / -gi and -mi being taken as masculine and feminine suffixes, respectively.

[8] The Kojiki portrays Izanagi and his younger twin sister Izanami as the seventh and final generation of deities that manifested after the emergence of the first group of gods, the Kotoamatsukami, when heaven and Earth came into existence.

[9] Receiving a command from the other gods to solidify and shape the Earth (which then "[resembled] floating oil and [drifted] like a jellyfish"), the couple use a jewelled spear to churn the watery chaos.

Izanagi and Izanami, realizing that they were meant to procreate and have children, then devised a marriage ceremony whereby they would walk in opposite directions around the pillar, greet each other and initiate intercourse.

[20][21] Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu was allotted Takamagahara (高天原, the "Plain of High Heaven"), Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas.

[22] Susanoo did not perform his appointed task and instead kept crying and howling "until his beard eight hands long extended down over his chest," causing the mountains to wither and the rivers to dry up.

After he told his father that he wished to go to his mother's land, Ne-no-Katasu-Kuni (根堅州国, the 'Land of Roots'), a furious Izanagi expelled Susanoo "with a divine expulsion," after which he disappears from the narrative.