Shinigami

deity intermediate Japanese folklore single tradition · 6

Shinigami are Japanese mythological creatures. They were described and illustrated in the Picture Book of One Hundred Stories.

↻ synthesized from 6 sources

When

First attested
1800 CE
Attested period
700 – 2020
Historical notes
Described in Picture Book of One Hundred Stories in 1841.

Relationships

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Sources

Source passages

“In addition to Basan, this work also described and illustrated Japanese mythological creatures such as Shinigami (Japanese: 死神, Shinigami), Isonade (Japanese: 磯撫で Isonade), Adzuki-arai (Japanese: 小豆洗沙 Azuki-arai) and others (Takehara, 2006).”

#8282 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“a shinigami would possess people and lead them to mountains, seas, and railroads where people have died...it was said that people who were alive would be invited by the dead to come next”

#13765 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“There are also death gods called shinigami (死神), which are closer to the Western tradition of the Grim Reaper; while common in modern Japanese arts and fiction, they were essentially absent in traditional mythology.”

#14497 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5

“Shinigami, god or spirit of death in Japanese mythology”

#14616 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001