Shinigami

[5][6] Some forms of Buddhism do not involve believing in any deities, so it is sometimes thought that the concept of a death god does not exist to begin with.

[5] Even though the kijin and onryō of Japanese Buddhist faith have taken humans' lives, there is the opinion that there is no "death god" that merely leads people into the world of the dead.

[7][14][clarification needed] Similar to this, according to the essay of the Bakumatsu period titled "Hogo no Uragaki", there were the itsuki that made people want to commit suicide through various means, namely hanging, as well as things told through folk religion such as gaki-tsuki and shichinin misaki.

[5] In the later Edo Period, the essay "Shōzan Chomon Kishū" in Kaei 3 (1850) by the essayist Miyoshi Shōzan, the one titled "upon possession by a shinigami, it becomes difficult to speak, or easier to tell lies" was a story where a prostitute possessed by a shinigami invites a man to commit double suicide,[15][16] and in the kabuki Mekuranagaya Umega Kagatobi by Kawatake Mokuami in Meiji 19 (1886), a shinigami enters into people's thoughts, making them think about bad things they have done and want to die.

[1] In the San-yūtei Enchō of classical rakugo, there was a programme titled "Shinigami", but this was something that was not thought of independently in Japan, but rather from adaptions of the Italian opera the Crispino e la comare[19] and the Grimm Fairy Tale "Godfather Death".

According to the mores of Miyajima, Kumamoto Prefecture, those who go out and return to attend to someone through the night must drink tea or eat a bowl of rice before sleeping, and it is said that a shinigami would visit if this was ignored.