Apocalypse in Japanese Culture

Hello Everyone,

I was curious if Japanese culture really has a "The world's going to end" part of their culture as we do in the US...

I get so frustrated with everyone in the US who talks about this stuff that if I find out Japan doesn't have this in their culture I will jump for joy... that is all really.

I don't remember anything of the sort coming up while I was on exchange in Japan, nor do I hear anything of the sort from Japanese friends, and not only that but talking about it just doesn't seem like something that would fit too well in what I've interpreted as Japanese culture (I am not a master of Japanese culture so I can only guess based upon what I do know)...

Normally, if I want a more detailed answer on the matter I'd ask Japanese people in Japanese, but I don't want to take the chance of the idea becoming a part of Japanese culture so hence why I ask here in English :P... seriously I hate this part of American (possibly elsewhere too) culture with such a great passion that I want to avoid spreading it.

Sorry for the direct writing style,
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Derek

Derek,

You need to give us an example of that "culture" because I certainly don't see it in Justin Bieber or "Glee." Do you mean Kurt Cobain, for example?

If so, that culture certainly exists in Japan. But you know what? These things come and go.

For example, back in the Vietnamese War days, all people ever thought of was about the world ending. When Francis Coppola was making "Apocalypse Now" in Hollywood, Japan was making "Catastrophe 1999: Prophecies of Nostradamus" (Nosutoradamusu No Daiyogen). By the way, despite what Nostradamus said, the world didn't end in 1999.

But 10 years later in the 80s, people in Japan were partying like it was heaven on earth. I remember that "yappies" in the U.S. used to pop champagnes during that period, too, pretty much until Subprime mortgage crisis.

Maybe you do too much internet. In Japan, the people around me who dig into "2ch" internet forum are all depressed and all the other guys are fairly happy. I guess you were fortunate enough to deal with the latter type.

Look around and you might spot a Justin Bieber or two around you.

I think Derek is referring to the rapture that is supposed to be happing today with the world ending completely in October; I guess a lot of people are going to be disappointed that the sun is coming up tomorrow and then slowly start regretting that they sold or gave away all their goods.
I agree with Derek that this one paster got way to much publicity; still I get to go to the after rapture party!

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

"I was curious if Japanese culture really has a "The world's going to end" part of their culture as we do in the US."

This "rapture" is a publicity stunt started by a man in Oakland, California who has a whole network of TV stations and apparently has a large following who are willing to send him so much money that he was able to advertise his "rapture" on billboards all over the US. The man is a religious fanatic.

There are religious cults and fanatics all over the world. In Japan some years ago, members of a cult spread sarin on the Tokyo subway killing some people.

The doomsday people in the US are usually associated with fundamentalist religions. Part of US culture? Only marginally.

I was referring to rapture, the mayan prophecy... the other bazillion dates everyone has stated the world will end on...

Although, I'm not quite sure what uco is referring to exactly by:
"You need to give us an example of that "culture" because I certainly don't see it in Justin Bieber or "Glee." Do you mean Kurt Cobain, for example?

If so, that culture certainly exists in Japan. But you know what? These things come and go."

The matter I speak of has no correlation to the music industry... as far as I'm aware of...

This is nothing to do with the internet either, this is on the news, friends, y'know real people IN THE US... but as you're hinting not as common in Japan. Which is what I was trying to find out. So luckily it seems this "dooms-day" culture isn't found in Japan (is what I am interpreting it to be... please correct me if I am wrong).

If you'll read carefully, I specifically stated I hate this specific part of US (possibly elsewhere too) culture...

Meaning, I don't know about the rest of the world, but I don't like it irregardless of the place...

As you know, the idea of the apocalypse, end of days etc comes from religion, so the idea has been around in western culture (definitely not only the US) for a long time, but there seems to be more Christian extremism in the US than in other countries for some reason.

Traditionally Japanese culture doesn't seem to have the same idea of apocalypse as far as I can tell, but more recently it has appeared, most noticeably with the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo, which you probably know about already. They carried out their sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subways in 1995 partly because they thought the world would end soon- more religious extremism for you there.

Godzilla is their Apocalypse.

Alright then. I've never heard of the Oakland guy.

But from time to time, kids in Japan have rumored about the world coming to an end. 1984 was internationally famous, we survived July 1999, and the next seems to be May 2012. (Is this the one you're talking about?) Oh, I also found April 13, 2036. But to be honest, I think that a lot of people really thought that the world was coming to an end on March 2011, but we're still here.

Hope to see you 40 years from now.

So what I'm getting from everyone is that, the US has a particularly extremist christian influence and that is why it is so prevalent.

Japan, on the other hand, does not... the idea of this exists on a much more subtle level, but generally speaking is nothing like in the US.

So to answer my own question in a more direct manner:

Japan does not (really) have this kind of "end of the world" culture, except maybe on 2ch... but that's a whole other story that isn't worth my time getting into on here. Just because it's 2ch...

I've already decided that I'm going to be living in Japan as an adult (I'll find a way and means to make it happen... don't worry about that), this is just more things to add to my list so I can properly explain to people why I don't like living here... I don't like answering those questions and nor do I bring it up to people, but a lot of people like to ask me so I need to prepare a bit more is all.

I'm not saying the US is a bad place either, just saying it doesn't work for me.

Thank you everyone for your time!

Derek

In Europe at the turn of the 1st to 2nd millennium (years A.D. 999-1000) there was great turmoil over the notion that a second coming of Christ would lead to the end of the world.

In some Asian and some "New World" cultures there are traditions that time goes through great cycles, leading to the destruction of what is and a restart from the beginning.

The phoenix bird, that is burned and then rises from its own ashes, is part of the mythology of the ancient Persians, Greeks, and others. (It may represent society going through repeating cycles, depending on the particular setting.)

The end of time (and its possible renewal) is not specifically "American" or even "Christian." In my opinion, changing your location will not exempt you from being where people are uneasy about what they see around them with a feeling that some things that are in fact coincidences must "mean" something.

Bear in mind that for every one person who was worried by the recent "rapture" foofaraw, there were a thousand people who were making fun of it, which is why it got so much publicity.

I wasn't expecting it to be completely non-existent in any part of the world or Japan for that matter, I was just curious as to how popular it may be in Japan. As we already determined, not so much...

Although a change of location won't do much, a change of culture definitely can and usually does affect how much one is exposed to it. Really this facet of cultures has no direct impact on my desire to live in Japan, but it does just give me all the more reason to get out of the US is all...

Is it really that big of a problem? Apart from the silly "rapture" that was supposed to happen a few days ago, and the Mayan 2011 thing? I can't imagine it's a topic that comes up enough on a constant basis that you'd want to move away from the country to get away from it?

I hardly come across anybody talking about the Apocalypse.The news talked about the rapture a few days ago, and most of my friends and collegues laughed about it, but apart from that it isn't really a topic that comes up all that often? Is it really that big a deal?

can't compare Mayas with that sect, Mayas knew much more about things and lived in pure forests, not in a sick modern city environment.

Please read my posts in their entirety:

"Really this facet of cultures has no direct impact on my desire to live in Japan, but it does just give me all the more reason to get out of the US is all... "

More simply:

"If my interest in living in the US and my interest in living in Japan were symbolized as a scale. There would already be this giant jar of quarters weighing me towards Japan, this is just an extra penny."

To answer your first question:

Briefly, Japanese culture has not so much of a "the world's going to end" part as you do in the US.

The notion of eschatology is not only peculiar to the western culture as the other poster said.
In the history of Japan, there was a time when the idea of "the world's going to end" was remarkably prevalent. From the end of Heian to early Kamakura period, great uneasiness among people arisen from consecutive disasters, famines, wars at that time connected with the misunderstood Buddhist teaching "mappo," translated as "the latter day of the law," led people to believe that the world was coming to an end soon, and some of those to aspire the advent of Maitreya that is considered as a sort of messianism.

The idea of rapture or enthusiasm for revealing a doomsday by decoding Christian apocalyptic literatures have been, of course, unpopular at all here. In modern Japan, however, a post-apocalyptic world setting has not been uncommon in art, literature, manga and anime works as you can see in, for example, "Akira" and "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind," presumably stemmed not only from an imported conception of cyberpunk but also from the impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Aside from Nostradamus' prophecies, the Mayan one (the doomsday was not actually foretold in the Mayan calendar, though) seems to be rather well known even in Japan (over 620,000 Google hits), fed by a few TV programs. So it's not only the 2ch thing. In fact, I found it's not so much being discussed there and only a few taking it seriously. But it's no wonder, considering that the Japanese are now facing an ongoing threat of radioactivity in reality that we have to care about farther more. Consequently, there are quite a few people very pessimistic about the future of Japan, rather than that of the world.

I don't know when you're planning to move to Japan, but I wish peace would return to all those people until you come here.

Module, the Mayans had-for their times-- big cities--- ruled by a complex political system..they didn't lived like Adam and Eve, or some small tribes, in a garden or a forest.....
They had a mathematical system, a written language etc.

not a Maya expert, but I'm pretty sure they where a lot closer to the natural world and its signs than must of us are (let alone that sick sect of money makers).

The poster mm has given you the best answer so far. When you think about the apocalypse, there are a few ways of going about it.

1. the actual end of the world
2. an act that resembles the apocalypse in that an entire society ceases to exist.

When you look at the apocalypse in the latter fashion, Japan is actually the only country in the world that has already experienced the apocalypse in the form of the hiroshima and nagasaki nuclear bombings. Thus we can say that Japan is the only country living in a somewhat post-apocalyptic situation. That would also explain Godzilla, Akira and tons of other movies, manga and anime that situate themselves in the post-apocalyps. Japanese, consciously or not, place themselves beyond the apocalypse.

Although in recent years there have also been a lot of Western productions that locate themselves during or after the apocalypse. I think this is not a beast of the same origin as the Japanese situation. In the Western countries it seems to resemble mostly a fear for the future. We live in uncertain times, politically and economically. We all have the global warming thing (whether you believe it or not) on our minds. This leads us to fear what the future will bring.

"Non-ecological theories of Maya decline are divided into several subcategories, such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and climate change. There is evidence that the Maya population exceeded carrying capacity of the environment including exhaustion of agricultural potential and overhunting of megafauna.."
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization

I am not a Mayan specialist obviously, but was born and raised in a European town that has been populated continuously since 700 B.C.
A fishing village at first, it was already a town, with paved streets and stone buildings by 100 B.C.
By 50 AD it had sewers...and there were paved roads (paved with stone slabs) linking it to other cities in the region.
Not sure they were that close to nature in such an urban environment..