Shûkyô Asobi and Miyazaki Hayao's Anime

This article attempts to address the lack of terminology concerning the long-standing but often overlooked relationship between religion and entertainment in Japan, arguing that these two seemingly discrete and opposing fields are often conflated. Examining the underlying thought behind the animation films of director Miyazaki Hayao, and investigating audience responses to those works, the article suggests that this conflation—religious entertainment or playful religion—can best be described by the neologism shûkyô asobi. Composed of the words "religion" and "play" in Japanese, shûkyô asobi jettisons the artificial distinction between popular entertainment and religion in favor of describing the common space between them, as well as describing the utilization of that space by various interest groups. This deployment of simultaneously religious and playful media or action can result in the creation of entirely new religious doctrines, interpretations, rituals, and beliefs. We lack terminology for describing intersections between religion and media in Japan where, although 70 percent of the populat ion claims to lack religious belief, there is a t rend to fulfill religious impulses in a variety of ways often only tenuously connected to traditional religious institutions. T h e extant writing on religion and anime (animation) in Japan deals largely with tracing themes from popula r film back to tradit ional religions, while some writers dealing with film and religion outside of Japan have suggested that the act of viewing film might fulfill a religious function. With some rare exceptions, these analyses largely suggest surprise or satisfaction that religion persists in a seemingly secular environment , overlooking the more subde aspects of the forms that religion is taking and the effects Nova Religio: The Journal ofAlternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 10, Issue 3, pages 73-95, ISSN 1092-6690 (print), 1541-8480 (electronic). © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.