Japanese Myths

The World's Greatest Myths and Legends

by Jake Jackson (Editor)

Japan's mythology is alive with gods, spirits and monsters. It draws on Buddhist and Shinto traditions to explain the nature of the world of the island of Japan, and the heavenly status of the long line of emperors. The warrior class of the imperial court, and the natural spirits of the countryside represent parallel and interdependent aspects of Japanese society, explored through ancient legend and folklore in this fascinating new book in the Flame Tree Myths and Legend series.

FLAME TREE 451 : From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Japan, Fantasy, Classics

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 25, 2019

About the author

SF and dark fantasy author but also a writer/creator of practical music books - Beginner's Guide to Reading Music, Guitar Chords, Piano Chords, Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary and How to Play Guitar. Other publications include Advanced Guitar Chords, Advanced Piano Chords, Chords for Kids, How to Play the Electric Guitar, Piano & Keyboard Chords, Scales and Modes and Play Flamenco. Also editor of Mythology books 

Released EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, LastFM, etc and on CDBaby. Lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers.

Jake Jackson is the artist name for Nick Wells, Publisher of Flame Tree Press / Flame Tree Publishing.

Reviews

[Andrew Hale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some weird, some morbid, some magical, but all interesting.

"Today the language of mythology lives with us: our mood is jovial, our countenance saturnine, we are narcissistic and our modern life is hermetically sealed from others. The nuances of myth and legends form part of our daily routines and help us navigate the world around us, with its half truths and biased reported facts."

[SJ Rusty · Rating 1 out of 5]

This fascinating subject is unfortunately very badly translated and edited with numerous spelling errors throughout. A great shame really. I'd recommend reading collections by Lafcadio Hearn or F Hadland-Davis instead.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book. I felt even the shortest stories had purpose. I liked the moon princess which is also an anime I've really liked. Never gruesome.

[Bip Grinklebink · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of stories from Japanese mythology that also includes a little bit of historical context.

The book only credits one general editor and one associated editor, but the writing style, translation, and formatting inconsistencies make this feel like a group effort.

This was my first proper venture into Japanese mythology, so while I don't know enough to say how many of the stories are false, I do know that odd decisions were made for some of the translations, particularly the names.

The worst part of this is how stuffy the word choice and writing style could be, and yet there are quite a few typos, errors, and poorly phrased sentences. I'm sure it's not the worst book to get published, but these errors were distracting and made me think the book was rushed to publication.

Overall, I'm glad to finally have a more solid foundation on the subject. I got it on sale, so I don't feel money was wasted; however, I don't recommend picking up this book. I'm sure there are better collections of Japanese myths out there.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

it’s an ok book. has a good foundation for the tales, but at some point the top of my pages started saying “irish fairy tails” and switched stories mid-chapter.

it’s almost as if the editing accidentally spliced another book’s chapters into this one? it goes back to normal about 30 pages later.

honestly the editing makes it a very difficult read. but at least it helped me clear up some nomenclature about japanese spirits/demons.

read another book for these tales, it will be better in the long run.

[Hayley Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phrasing of some of the sentences made it hard to read

[Nami Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always love reading myths and deity/supernatural beings, and this one was interesting of course

[Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Japan’s mythology is alive with gods, spirits and monsters. It draws on Buddhist and Shinto traditions to explain the nature of the world and the island of Japan, and the heavenly status of the long line of emperors. The warrior class of the imperial court, and the natural spirits of the countryside represent parallel and interdependent aspects of Japanese society, explored through ancient legend and folklore in this fascinating book.

This was an impulse by at Booksamillion. It was pretty cheap, so I figured why not. I’m glad I picked up this book. It’s cool to read mythology from other countries. I remember hearing some of these growing up in Japan. I enjoyed reading them. Other than some weird spelling and grammatical errors, I think it was a cool read and a neat addition to my collection.

[John Majerle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice telling of Japanese myths from all categories: gods, ghosts, spirits, and monsters from both the Buddhist and Shinto traditions.

[Jelani Stowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice tales, perhaps a bit brief for some.

[Stephanie Vickery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and loved learning about these myths, but they did get a little repetitive (which is to be expected, but it does make finishing it a little bit exhausting)

[frecklereads · Rating 3 out of 5]

i DNfed it, its educational its not that its bad i´m just not motivated

[Rachel Spivey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for introducing someone new to the mythos of Japanese mythology, but moreso a collection of stories than anything. Some poor editing, with small misspellings here and there.

[Cat45 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the tails were amazing. while some were rather creepy and disgusting. overall an interesting read.

[VS811 · Rating 1 out of 5]

There were several myths that were mentioned twice, with slightly varying details. Additionally, 90% of the pages had typos, and several myths had contradictions. It felt like it was written by a middle-schooler who didn't really know grammar that well. They need to make sure all of they myths are only mentioned once, and it must be clearly said if it is a different version. Additionally, about 10% of the myths had several contradicting details. A lot of the terms were outdated and confusing. All in all, a horrible read.

[Arianna Hernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF only because it wasn't my cup of tea. usually I love myth books but I found myself getting really bored throughout reading this. Plus the wording of some of the stories made no sense and it made my brain hurt. It's no shade to this author I just personally didn't like it. Maybe I'll give it another try in the future but for now it will stay DNF'd

[Izabela Raittila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories offers a good introduction to Japanese mythology. I particularly joined the tales of ghosts, enchanted flowers and malevolent animal spirits. I would have rated it higher had it not been for the poor editing and lack of proof-reading. There's several typos and some of the sentence structure lacks coherence.

[Maggie C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Editing goes to shit about halfway through the collection.
All the stories sound more like a summary than an actual story, but Im not sure if thats a feature of the genre.

It does feature some of the big ones and has some interesting history, so it can serve as a good intro if you dont know where else to start

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

For seemingly no reason pages 129 to 160 are from a completely different book...Irish Fairy Tales...
I also feel that important elements were omitted in some myths, for example in the tale of Izanagi and Izanami.
Otherwise a fine collection of myths.

[Sierra Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh, it was alright. I didn’t really learn many details of any of the myths, it was super general. I wish it had gone into more detail.

[JJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The myths themselves were interesting, but I thought the editor was a little biased in some of his opinions.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and I enjoyed this volume. The only problem I have is from page 97 to page 128 it shifts from the Japanese Myths to Irish Myths. Was this an accident on behalf of the printing or the editor? Very odd!

[Conrad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can definitely see where anime pulls inspiration from. It was cool reading stories that I had some familiarity with due to Naruto and the Power Rangers Movie.

[T SP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very disjointed, and the inclusion of Japanese proper nouns translated into English “equivalents” is very frustrating.

[Amaya Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought it mainly because I’m interested in Japanese culture and mythology.

I really liked all the stories included in this book and some of them I had heard of before. (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and The Story of Urashima Taro)

There were some writing mistakes that I noticed. Also in ‘The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Maiden’s’ story Lord Iso’s part of him trying to get a cowry-shell from the sparrow was let out for some reason.

Other than that I liked the book.

[Jonah Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

fine. I am not sure if you can trust any of these myths because there really isn’t great sourcing, but these are interesting, fun stories. It is interesting to see massive similarities in myths across native cultures from around the world.