Reviews for Religion in the Twenty-First Century

The average rating for Religion in the Twenty-First Century based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-09-16 00:00:00 Louise Moir An interesting book but far too erudite for me. Its depth and specialization are better suited for university majors in Japanese Religion. I do have a greater understanding of the film "Ringu" (the pervasive belief in goryo) and its remake for American audiences is likewise understandably more terrifying.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-07-06 00:00:00 Mary Mills A fairly elaborate book detailing various practices and ideas behind the less formalized aspects of Japanese religion. It uses a lot of traditional Japanese terms to detail abstract practices which can get a little confusing, so keep a notebook on hand. Having been living in Japan for a while I found this book to be quite enlightening in terms of understanding the deep reverence for mountains and the elaborate Buddhist systems that are in place across the country. I thought that the book's emphasis on the popularization of shamanism in times of strife was an interesting one to ruminate on. Especially since the sudden surge in fans of the amabie in the modern age of Covid-19 seemed to follow the same lines discussed in the book. The highlight of the book was definitely it's discussion on the rise of the popular Nembutsu sects and the mountain practices that one can still see performed to this day. The age of the book did show in its lack of graphics and limited bibliographical sources. But this didn't really make much of an issue for me.