Halloween arrived in Japan mainly as a result of American pop culture. As late as 2009, it was celebrated mainly by expats [36]. The wearing of elaborate costumes by young adults at night has since become popular in areas such as Amerikamura in Osaka and Shibuya in Tokyo, where, in October 2012, about 1,700 people dressed in costumes to take part in the Halloween Festival [37].
Blame it on The Simpsons
Celebrations have become popular with (sex and dating obsessed) young adults as a costume party and club event [38]. Trick-or-treating for candy-loving Japanese children has taken hold in some areas.
By the mid-2010s, Yakuza (Japanese mafia members) were giving snacks and sweets to children [39]. However, in recent years, authorities in Tokyo have tried to discourage street drinking on Halloween [40]. More: Halloween in Asia
Due to the worldwide syndication of The Simpsons, American Halloween traditions are spreading everywhere, like Australia that got Halloween-fever ten years ago, but Buddhist Japan is creepy for all its old Shinto kami and yokai-obsessed folk ways
Shintoism is a religion from Japan classified as an East Asian religion by scholars. It is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as a "nature religion." Religious scholars sometimes call its practitioners "Shintoists," although adherents rarely use that term themselves. With no central authority in control of Shintoism, there is much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners. A polytheistic and animistic religion, Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the kami (神), who are believed to inhabit all things, including forces of nature and prominent locations.
These shapeshifting kami are worshipped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines staffed by priests, known as kannushi(those who deal with the kami), who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami [shapeshifting spirits, apparitions, ghosts, genies, poltergeists, elementals, ghouls, monsters, tricksters, fairies, gargoyles, or other invisible beings] and to solicit their blessings. Other common rituals include kagura dances, rites of passage, and kami festivals. Public shrines facilitate forms of divination and supply religious objects, such as amulets, to the Shintoists. The religion places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. The religion has no single creator or specific doctrine and instead exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.
Yōkai are also referred to as ayakashi (あやかし), mononoke (物の怪), or mamono (魔物). Some academics and Shinto practitioners acknowledge similarities within the seeming dichotomy between the natures of yōkaiand most kami, which are generally regarded as relatively beneficent by comparison. Shintoists classify the two as ultimately the same type of spirits of nature or of a mythological realm [3]. Their behavior can range from malevolent harm or mischievous trickster pranksterism to benevolent towards humans. More: yōkai
Mormonism: the theology and religious tradition of the Latter-Day Saint movement of RestorationistChristianitystarted by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, it has been applied to various aspects of the movement, although since 2018 there has been a push from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) to distance itself from this label [1]. A prominent feature of the theology is the Book of Mormon, a 19th-century text that describes itself as a chronicle of early Indigenous peoples of the Americas and their dealings with [the white man's] God [2]. This theology combines mainstream Christian beliefs with modifications stemming from belief in revelations to Smith and other religious leaders.
Atheism: knowing that there are no Gods (theos); in the broadest sense, an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are certainly no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists.
NONTHEISM: The position that whether there is a God(s) or not, that has no bearing on an individual's enlightenment, liberation, deliverance, salvation, emancipation. (Why? The gods/Gods are caught in this samsaric rounds just as other beings are). It is a range of both religious [1] and non-religious [2] attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of a God or gods.
It has generally been used to describe silence towards the subject of gods (deus, theos, dīvus) and differs from atheism, which is an active disbelief in any gods. It has been used as an umbrella term for summarizing distinct and even mutually exclusive positions.
(We apologize in advance if our statements have offended any FSMists; it is never our intention at WQ to offend, diminish, mock, or otherwise find fault with the religion or nonreligion of anyone's choosing. Do carry on believing and never mind our backwards ways. In fact, everyone should convert to this religion and/or make up their own, such as George Costanza Sr.'s Festivusism. We ourselves are nontheists, Buddhists yes, but nontheists.)
FSM Pastafarianism
One day the eternal Creator Deity blessed humankind with starch but cursed it with gluten
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the supreme deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster [of the latter-day tortellinis], an ironic, satirical, and parodic new religious movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion [3]. The parody originated in opposition to the teaching of intelligent design in public schools in the USA. According to adherents ("Pastafaris"), Pastafarianism (a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism 🌬️) is a "real, legitimate religion, as much as any other" [4]. It has received some limited recognition as such [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. More
Uncover the historical truth about Buddhist warrior monks with this informative and enlightening book.
Exploring the origins of Buddhism and the ethos of the Japanese samurai, martial arts practitioner Professor Jeffrey Mann traces the close connection between the Buddhist way of compassion (karuna) and the way of the warrior.
This Zen book serves as a basic introduction to the history, philosophy, and current practice of Zen as it relates to the Japanese martial arts.
It examines the elements of Zen that have found a place in budo(bujutsu or bugei)—the "Martial Way"—such as zazen, mushin, zanshin, and fudoshin, then goes on to discuss the ethics and practice of budo as a modern sport.
Offering insights into how qualities integral to the true martial artist are interwoven with this ancient religious philosophy, this book on Buddhism helps practitioners reconnect to an authentic spiritual discipline of martial arts.
Film, television, and popular fiction have long exploited the image of the serene Buddhist monk who is master of the deadly craft of hand-to-hand combat.
While these media overly romanticize the relationship between a philosophy of non-violence and the art of fighting, When Buddhists Attack: The Curious Relationship Between Zen and the Martial Arts shows this link to be nevertheless real, even natural.
ABOUT: The author Jeffrey K. Mann is a professor and the chair of the Religious Studies Department at [the Protestant Evangelical Lutheran] Susquehanna University (susqu.edu) in Pennsylvania. He earned his doctorate in religious studies from Vanderbilt University and has also served as a visiting professor of religion at Senshu University in Ikuta, Japan. A longtime student of Japanese martial arts, he has trained and competed in karate tournaments throughout North America, Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines. He is an instructor of the Susquehanna Goju-ryu Karate-do Club, a school affiliated with the International Okinawan Goju-ryu Karate-do Federation.
The stakes: If the Los Angeles Dodgers win tonight (Day of the Dead, Nov. 1, 2025), they’ll be the first team to win consecutive titles since the New York Yankees did it from 1998 to 2000.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays won back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993 — and they're back in the series for the first time in 32 years.
If Toronto wins, it will be ecstasy for the country of mighty Canada, smearing it in the face of the Orange Dictator in his Demolished House commanding his ICE Gestapo.
Do the LA Dodgers have a supernatural edge tonight thanks to their large Latin/Asian fan base? YES! Today, the Mexican Day of the Dead, is Mexican super-pitcher Fernando Valenzuela's birthday, and the greatest living Dodger pitcher, ShintoistONE MAN SHOhei Ohtani is pitching tonight. Nando willing, tonight is a cinch for the Dodgers!
What makes the Dodgers so good? It's the best team money could buy. And this is a capitalist country with a capitalist game that glorifies competition, rivalry, violent grit (sometimes breaking out in massive gang fights on the field when they lose and a little sports hooliganism on the streets when they win).
How we got here: The Blue Jays on Friday seemed poised to tie the game in the ninth inning until Dodgers infielder Kiké Hernández initiated an incredible double play to end the game and secure a trip to Game 7.
(Comedy Central Africa) Oct. 31, 2025: "The village people must be so proud that their song became America's official presidential anthem" 🤭 when all they did was write a song about getting r*iled at the gym. | The Daily Show on Comedy Central, DStv Ch122
MLB Highlights, 10/31/25; LAist.com; Desi Lydic, The Daily Show; CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
What does Shohei (翔平) mean? Shō (翔) means to "soar or glide," and hei (平) means to be "level, in the sense of being calm or peaceful." Hei is also a common ending for male names. His surname's initial character Oh (大) means "great or large" and tani(谷) means "valley." One who glides peacefully in a grand valley (like a stadium)? Source
He's the G.O.A.T. (the "greatest of all time), we say, which in Japanese is yagi ("goat").
World Series Game 3 HIGHLIGHTS | Blue Jays versus Dodgers - Oct. 27, 2025
The Greatest of All Time: TheYagi
(SPORTSNET) Oct. 28, 2025: DODGER STADIUM, Los Angeles. In one of the most unbelievable games of professional baseball anyone will ever see, featuring every manner of drama, the Los Angeles Dodgers bested the Toronto Blue Jays by way of a Freddie Freeman walk-off homer after 18 grueling innings, taking a 2-1 World Series lead in the process.
The G.O.A.T. Shohei "Yagi" Ohtani was spectacular. But the game lasted seven hours, ending about midnight. Even diehard fans, many of them Proles outside the luxuries of the Inner Party, had to get home and get to work the next day, possibly nursing hangovers from a day at Distraction Ball.
The grind continues, and the Dodgers are down, maybe making this the closest World Series in a long while. What started off with rumors of a sweep, the Dodgers taking the series in four straight wins, diverted and has made them really work for it.
It is possibly all scripted to milk billions in bets with bookies and offshore gambling agents. The fix is in. So don't gamble based on statistics and math. That's how they get a bettor. The best laid plans of mice and men do not pan out or else everyone would bet by the numbers. It's bound to be a counterintuitive ending to make the house the most money. Here, seven hours are condensed into about seven exciting minutes of play without all the milling about and nail-biting.
Best baseball player is Buddhist?
Sorry Ladies and Gents, he's taken.
Wisdom Quarterly has yet to conclusively demonstrate that the Yagi (Japanese for "goat") is a Japanese Buddhist from Orange County, where he played for the Angels. But what is the circumstantial evidence? Let's see.
The all is empty, devoid of self.
Nearly everyone in Japan is Buddhist, at least by tradition as are a great number of Asian Orange County residents, with only San Francisco and Los Angeles serving as home for expat Buddhist communities from Japan (where many were brought more than a century ago to work in building the railroads then unceremoniously locked up in gulags to sit out WW II, where the humiliation of forced internment has not been forgotten. But Japan has more than Zen Buddhism.
Shinto priest bows, placates kami
The older tradition is Shinto or kami (spirit) worship/tending. And the newer tradition is Pure Land faith-based Buddhism usually called Nichiren Shōshū. There are of course colonial remnants of Christianity and modernist agnosticism and atheism, but deep down most every Japanese person adheres to ancient Buddhist tradition along with observance of other spiritual legacies. While it might be wise for Ohtani to keep it a mystery and rake in nearly a billion dollars in his stint with the Dodgers, we bet that just beneath the surface he bows, prays, meditates, focuses Zen-like, and welcomes the help of the unseen world of kamis and blessings wherever he can get them from the Old Country and his new home. After all, he did not succumb to a Hollywood manager-arranged public relationship for the press. He traveled back to Nippon (Japan) and found a traditional wife to accompany him on his rise to stardom and his life as a living legend. Can Babe Ruth or Fernando Venezuela compare?
If we were world-famous bonsai tree growers in Japan, we'd put it out that we were pro-business NinjaSamurai capitalists, so everyone would know we were proud Americans but very open to Japanese traditions like the lore of Bushi warriors. No cents in offending the locals with our brash Americans...and very few dollars.
It might be orchestrated to maximize gambling and drunkenness: Toronto bounces back in Game 4
The Fix Is Still In (B. Tuohy)
What will Halloween in Canada be like? The Dodgers will soon find out. Why? Whoever is writing this sports script would want to stretch out the suspense, sell more tickets, raise more money betting, and making the win more of a surprise with cries of "next year" in case of an upset. It's rudimentary in a corrupt capitalist system of American sport.
How dare anyone question the honesty, integrity, and above-board directness of the MLB and all its players, who would never do anything just for the money. Balderdash! Who could think such a thing or say it out loud?
(Oriental Pearl) Premiered Oct. 9, 2025: TOKYO. Is Japan cooked? I (Oriental Pearl) have seen a lot of changes here in the last few years. And things seem to be getting worse.
(Broke But Rich) Feb. 22, 2025: Dive into the dark side of Japan with us as we explore the world of "standing girls" ("sign girls")—infantilized females who wait in public streets to sell themselves. This isn't the typical nightlife scene. Buddhist Japan’s unique culture -- and attitude towards sex (as with the ancient geisha courtesans) -- has created an unexpected environment where this underground trade operates in plain sight. But why does it happen? And what’s the real story behind these women?
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
%20dodgers'%20pitcher%20great.jpg)
.svg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
