The Buddhist Virtues of Raging Lust and Crass Materialism in Contemporary Japan

Abstract

The idea that Japanese Buddhism is in a state of inevitable decline is widely accepted by scholars, clerics, and journalists as both demographic fact and doctrinal truth. However, this analysis fails to capture the complicated dynamic between the longstanding narrative of decline and the equally longstanding reality of Buddhist survival. Using animated music videos, plastic figurines, and illustrated merchandise created in collaboration between the for-profit company Hachifuku and the small Tokyo temple Ryōhōji as examples of a broader trend, this article shows that the very things that are taken as evidence of Buddhist decline – crass materialism, raging lust, and blissful ignorance of the finer points of doctrine – are actually the things that allow Buddhism to survive and thrive in contemporary Japan. I conclude with a critical analysis of the political economy of the decline narrative, showing that religious studies scholars, mass media, and Japanese ecclesial institutions all benefit from a story that is only provisionally true.

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