Oh yes and the Chinese model tends to be heavily bureaucratic. Offices and departments and titles for processing the dead.
I think part of the whole thing is ... are you talking about the world, or are you talking about the state of afterlife? Because the spirit can linger on this earth, or there can be a process of going Outside of this Realm.
Again it depends on what system you're looking at. It would probably be Buddhist, if you're talking about those shows. Some site boiled it down to the Japanese tend to use Shinto for daily life and Buddhism for the afterlife. Buddhism itself is an incredible tradition that has its basis in Indian Vedic traditions. It's partly a philosophical system, so there is a lot of question of what a soul is, what a self is, and so forth. Buddha himself attained Enlightenment and escaped the wheel of karma (being reborn is a bad thing, because then you're reborn into suffering -- basically pointless) so you could be reborn into any number of heavens or hells depending on what kind of Buddhism you're talking about.
Since it filtered out of India, into Tibet and China, and finally into Japan, you might as well be comparing dragons and dragons. More or less different schools answered questions in different ways and their legacies are scattered in different places. Also there's the Japanese habit of borrowing, which tends to layer a lot of beliefs from different historical periods.
Anime can afford to be vague. For instance it's never explicitly stated that the Youjakai is a level of heaven or hell, yet Touma and Ryo end up in a heaven-like area with many lotus flowers. Shaman King is more concerned with spirits that linger, who yet have Things to Do, as with the belief that those with business will inevitably find a way to stay until that duty is carried out; and also kami, spirits that are inherently powerful and/or gods. Shaman King is necessarily more detailed as it is a series and it does touch on various spirit/medium traditions from all over the world.
A short, dense article on Buddhism and the philosophy of dying. (http://www.mythicarts.com/writing/Buddhist_Awareness.htm) Summary of Japanese beliefs of the afterlife. (http://web.archive.org/web/20010602200417/www.japanecho.co.jp/docs/html/160316.html) Comprehensive Buddhism links for anime-philes. (http://www.storyanime.com/Links/Buddhism.htm)
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I think part of the whole thing is ... are you talking about the world, or are you talking about the state of afterlife? Because the spirit can linger on this earth, or there can be a process of going Outside of this Realm.
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Since it filtered out of India, into Tibet and China, and finally into Japan, you might as well be comparing dragons and dragons. More or less different schools answered questions in different ways and their legacies are scattered in different places. Also there's the Japanese habit of borrowing, which tends to layer a lot of beliefs from different historical periods.
Anime can afford to be vague. For instance it's never explicitly stated that the Youjakai is a level of heaven or hell, yet Touma and Ryo end up in a heaven-like area with many lotus flowers. Shaman King is more concerned with spirits that linger, who yet have Things to Do, as with the belief that those with business will inevitably find a way to stay until that duty is carried out; and also kami, spirits that are inherently powerful and/or gods. Shaman King is necessarily more detailed as it is a series and it does touch on various spirit/medium traditions from all over the world.
A short, dense article on Buddhism and the philosophy of dying. (http://www.mythicarts.com/writing/Buddhist_Awareness.htm)
Summary of Japanese beliefs of the afterlife. (http://web.archive.org/web/20010602200417/www.japanecho.co.jp/docs/html/160316.html)
Comprehensive Buddhism links for anime-philes. (http://www.storyanime.com/Links/Buddhism.htm)
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