Zestiria and Shinto
I think it’s very understated that Zestiria takes a lot after Shinto (compared to say, how people keep bringing up its Arthurian inspirations, despite those inspirations being superficial relatively), especially when it’s the essence of the game itself, but I suppose it’s easy for it to go over people’s heads if they don’t truly understand Shinto itself, which to be fair is a concept that is not equivalent at all to the religions widely known in the modern West.
As a preface, if I have to be quite honest, I’m not too fond of the localization of the terms in Zestiria. In isolation, “Shepherd” is a fine translation of “導師”, they both more or less mean a person who guides, though I’m not sure how much of that idea the word manages to get across. However, coupled with “天族” being localized as “seraphim”, the game lore becomes connotated with Biblical implications, which is unnecessary and not at all what is intended, though I’d have been hard pressed myself if I were tasked to localize these terms in a way that could convey the original intent in English, but that’s not the point. The point is, I believe this loss in translation contributes to the misunderstanding, and besides, despite what you might think, the seraphim are not angelic beings, especially of the Christian kind.
With that out of the way, I would also like to clear up something else: religions and religiosity, as defined in the Western culture, do not readily apply to Shinto. It has no single founder, no canonical scriptures that are authoritative like the Bible, it has flexible moral code (or rather, it lacks a rigid moral code) due to its nature, and it is not at all a monolithic system; it’s not a unified system where the people who adhere to the faith proclaim themselves as Shintoists, because it doesn’t work that way. It is literally the “way of the kami” (神道) in that the term is used to reference the practice of worship of kami. It is not at all odd for modern Japanese people to practice this kami-worship and the rituals associated with it while also practicing Buddhism or even Christianity, for example.
The two essential, “sacred” texts of Shinto, Kojiki (古事記, literally “Records of Ancient Matters”) and Nihon Shoki (日本書紀, literally “Chronicles of Japan”), are basically history books (and they were commissioned to be compiled by the government), but they do not encompass everything there is to know about Shinto itself, since there are other books chronicling other kami as well, especially local ones. Even between the two books, mostly because of the differences in intended audience and purpose, there are naturally differences in details and interpretation of the ancient Japanese mythology, some even are contradictory (there are even differences in variants of Shoki accounts of the myth, so let alone Kojiki and Shoki). Also, I say history books (and they for the most part are history books indeed), but it is more apt to say that they are written chronicles of Japanese myths, legends, oral traditions, folklores, and such, but I would say Nihon Shoki is the more “objective” of the two. I think this part inspires Celestial Record as well as Lxi himgnowlot uz Yniitruh (or “The description of Glenwood” in English), the travel notes included as one of the special items in the LalaBit Collector’s Edition of the Japanese version of the game.
Already you can see how the historiography of Glenwood is influenced by Japanese historiography, because of the belief that has been there all along since the prehistoric times. The subjective interpretations of the situations or even origins that are not immediately knowable, especially, since both of these books are clearly written by humans (that fact isn’t hidden at all), make them feel more like they act as notes of the world, just like Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, and because of this subjective interpretation method, differences are bound to happen, even before getting to the differences of interpretations in individual readers. (By the way, the Japanese name for Celestial Record, 天遺見聞録, clearly implies this too, if translated a bit more literally, it means “the records of what is seen and heard as left behind in the Celestial.”)
Now, we get to the core of this, namely kami (神). Kami is often translated as simply “gods”, but this is, again, very misleading and not at all a good explanation of their nature. Kami, unlike the god(s) in other religions, do not come before or after the cosmos, they are the phenomena themselves and they are ubiquitous. A popular descriptor for them is “spirits or forces of nature” but even this is a simplification of what they really are. Kami describes the mind (心), an underlying principle (基本的原理), the divine to be worshipped (祭る), to be believed in (信じる), to be respected (崇める), to pray to (祈る), to be served (仕える), to be devoted (捧げる), to be given gratitude (感謝する), but most of all, kami possesses an eminent quality that is out of ordinary, that inspires the feeling of awe (畏怖) inside us all. To be in harmony with these awe-inspiring aspects of nature is to be conscious of the way of kami, and all phenomena are candidates for this designation, e.g., the sun, moon, mountains, or even great persons, heroes or leaders. However, to experience the kami presence of any one of these aspects of nature requires a pure and bright heart (清き明き心), which is an emotional, mental, and volitional condition that is not easily attained.
Here, I want to sidetrack to one of the above descriptors, that is, kami are to be worshipped (祭る). If you notice, it is the basic verb form of the word “festival” in Japanese, “祭り”. This is because one of the most crucial deeds toward kami in Japanese view is 祭る. The Japanese tend to be more religious when it comes to ceremonies than to the daily life. Worshipping kami in Japanese sense is different from other religions; whereas for some faith, the worshipping rite seems solemn and preoccupied, on the contrary, many Japanese worshipping ceremonies are very energetic and festive. Though the sacrament can be broken down into two parts: solemn ceremonial ritual and exuberant celebration, only the second part allows many people to participate more. In Zestiria, one of the biggest examples of this is the Sacred Blade Festival (聖剣祭).
But back to kami as beings. They are noble beings to be venerated, and there is a concept of Yaoyorozu no Kami (八百万の神, literally Eight-Million Kami) because there is an infinite number (eight million represents uncountable, just like how 8 as a number is often used to describe “infinity” in many cultures) and it is impossible to know them all (and it’s not like that uncountable number is static either... since humans can turn into kami and kami can inhabit any kind of object, that number naturally expands). Of course, with that many number, kami can vary from one another—they’ve been described as jinkakushin (人格神), or divine beings that have human-like qualities in that they have personalities and emotions of their own. This means that there are both benevolent kami and evil kami, so to speak. They can both bring blessings or harm to humans, and this duality means that kami are both revered and feared. Again, awe-inspiring aspects of nature. Which means Shinto as a religion isn’t exactly concerned with the afterlife like many religions, but with the nature itself, with the current life, as it is our world that is sacred. This is also true for the seraphim and the world in Zestiria.
Another term that is borrowed from Shinto is kegare (穢れ), which I usually translate to “taint” but in the context of localized Zestiria, it is known as malevolence. This, I feel, is another case of the localization causing even more misunderstanding than necessary; the kegare in Zestiria might not map 1:1 to the same concept in Shinto, but they are both fundamentally not a form of moral judgement, and whether the kegare itself is caused by a deliberate act, as for example in the case of a crime, or by an external event, such as illness or death, is secondary. As such, it is wrong to equate it to, say, Christian idea of sin, which malevolence, as a word that inherently suggests evil, kind of conveys to people. Kegare in Shinto is impermanent, as they can be remedied through purification. The concept of purity in Zestiria upholds the same quality being uphold by Shinto, namely, “真” which can be translated as “sincerity” but more literally, it means “truth.” Being true to yourself. This idea is reflected in the aforementioned “pure and bright heart” (“清き明き心”) since “pure and bright” in this case implies something that is transparent, that which is clean and clear, from the kanji themselves (to easily explain this more: 清 means “clear” and the Japanese word for transparent, for example, is 透明, which contains 明).
The Armatus (神依, kamui), as the highest power a Shepherd could have and described as the divine might (神威, which can also be read as kamui), is then, alikened to kamioroshi (神降ろし) in Shinto. Like the name implies (it literally means “descent of kami”), kamioroshi is a divine invocation held in that deity’s honor, to take possession of the one who invokes them. Since seraphim, who are based on kami, are forces of nature beyond mortal understanding, the Armatus again incites both reverence and fear of its powers.
Speaking of the seraphim being said to be beyond what humans could possibly understand, I believe this is partly why the true nature of them isn’t fully revealed. Details like how they’re born (or reborn), how they grow, what they actually are... these are meant to be mythical. We will never know, we can never know for sure. Humans tend to try to make sense of their surroundings, but there are just some things out there that will remain as mysteries to us no matter how much we try to uncover it.
(This applies as well to humans not knowing their own true nature... for example, the true nature of malevolence, said to be an irony of the contradictions of humans.)
――天族について詳しく教えてください。 山本 人から転生したという天族がいたり、いくつかの方則側はあきらかになっていますが、明確にこういう種族だよ、ということはできません。どちらかというと、神霊のような存在となっています。だから、天族たちは自分はこうなんですとか転生したんですと言っていますけど、実は何をどうしたらそうなるかという部分は非常にあいまいだったり、ケースバイケースだったりします。そういう、ルールで割り切れない部分を持った種族ですね。
――Please tell us about the seraphim. YAMAMOTO: There are some seraphim who were reincarnated from humans, and some rules about it have been revealed, but it is not possible to say clearly what kind of race they are. If anything, they are more like divine spirits. That’s why, the seraphim are saying that they are like this or that they are reincarnated, but the truth is, the part about what to do to become like that can be very ambiguous or in a case-by-case basis. They are the kind of race that cannot be comprehended by mere rules.
――天族の成長は自身の思いにかかわってくるのですか？ 山本 自分の力の強い時期まで成長するんじゃないかという推測はありますが、ここも実は法則性はないんです。
――Is the growth of seraphim related to their own thoughts? YAMAMOTO: There is a conjecture that they will grow until they reach the peak of their own strength, but again, there are really no strict rules here.
And I understand how and why this would leave some people dissatisfied because they want to fully understand the inner workings of a fictional world to make sense of it, however at the same time, I think it’s not necessary for us to try pin down every detail to understand something holistically. Sometimes it’s fine to just feel it, to leave some things to our imagination even if it might seem hard to make sense of, but part of being humans is to appreciate beauty in these contradictions as well. Not everything has to have [human-knowable] rhyme or reason to it.
(While we’re at this, I would like to express a very subjective, very personal, and admittedly very biased opinion of mine: This is why I wish people would’ve been more appreciative of Zestiria as a standalone separate from Berseria, and not rely on Berseria to fill in the blanks of Zestiria. Berseria, to me, has a very distinct feel from Zestiria in the context of this, as the malakhim of Berseria don’t inspire the awe in me like how the seraphim are depicted in Zestiria. Everything in Zestiria that is supposed to evoke that sense of wonder, like the seraphim, Armatus, etc. is gone in Berseria, which tries to explain everything in a really mechanical, almost scientific way, and that beats the purpose of Zestiria with all its fantastical spirituality and vagueness that a lot of people hate but I personally really adore. And sometimes they can’t even do that right, as a lot of Berseria explanations directly contradict what is shown in Zestiria. This is also why I think intricate, overexplained worldbuilding is overrated; some details are better left hidden, imo. Even hidden is plain sight is better than directly explaining it to us.)
Of course, I can’t adequately explain everything that is inspired by Shinto in Zestiria, and this barely scratches the surface (and that’s not counting inspirations from other myths, religions, and philosophies like Arthurian Legend, Buddhism, Daoism, etc. that are also in the game), but I hope this can give you the rough idea! Zestiria, I feel, is a game that puts a great emphasis on the wonders of its world—it’s not that everything that we know is all there is to the world, and this world has lived for a long time, unimaginably so by humans, so there’s bound to be some things that we just don’t know, we just can’t know, but have been there all along, and you can feel them even if most of the times you can’t put it into definite words. If you think about how vast the world is, and that it keeps evolving in its vast history, some unrecorded... we become more aware and appreciative of how beautiful the world really is. And in the case of Zestiria, this is reflected in the curiosity of Sorey, the protagonist, of the world, along with its history, that opens up before him. The legends have and will always live, and someday they will become “hope.”
