"Shinigami" from the Ehon Hyaku Monogatari by Shunsensai Takehara Since the character was seller of paper, the character who confronted death wrote "paper" ( 紙, kami ) as "god" ( 神, kami ), but there are also interpretations that Chikamatsu himself did not think about the existence of a shinigami. Other than that, in Kyōhō 5 (1720), in a performance of The Love Suicides at Amijima, there was the expression, "of one possessed by a god of death". It never became clear whether the man and woman came to commit double suicide due to the existence of a shinigami, or if a shinigami was given as an example for their situation of double suicide, and there are also interpretations that the word "shinigami" is an expression for the fleetingness of life.
In Hōei 3 (1706), in a performance of "Shinchuu Nimai Soushi", concerning men and women who were invited towards death, it was written "the road the god of death leads towards", and in Hōei 6 (1709), in "Shinchuuha ha Koori no Sakujitsu", a woman who was about to commit double suicide with a man said, "the fleetingness of a life lured by a god of death". Generally, the word "shinigami" does not appear to be used in Japanese classical literature, and there are not many writings about them however, going into the Edo period, the word 'shinigami' can be seen in Chikamatsu Monzaemon's works of ningyō jōruri and classical literature that had themes on double suicides. After the war, however, the Western notion of a death god entered Japan, and shinigami started to become mentioned as an existence with a human nature. Even though the kijin and onryō of Japanese Buddhist faith have taken humans' lives, there is the opinion that there is no "death god" that merely leads people into the world of the dead. Some forms of Buddhism do not involve believing in any deities, so it is sometimes thought that the concept of a death god does not exist to begin with. However, Izanami and Yama are also thought to be different from the death gods in Western mythology. In Shinto and Japanese mythology, Izanami gave humans death, so Izanami is sometimes seen as a shinigami. "Izanami and Izanagi Creating the Japanese Islands" ( 天瓊を以て滄海を探るの図) by Eitaku Kobayashi.
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