What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?

What's Japanese in Japanese Animation? Anime not only utilizes religious symbols, but also uses Shinto and Buddhist parables as the basis for some story lines. Some anime are animated versions of old stories, perhaps from the Nihongi or Kojiki, (Levi 35). Other anime, although not completely based on a Japanese legend, use references to ancient texts that give different meanings to a story. "The Sailor Moon S movie features a wicked queen Kaguya as its villain. The name is not a coincidence- there is a reference here to a specific Japanese legend, even though this Kaguya isn’t really that Kaguya." (Decker 9). Kaguya comes from the story of "The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Maiden." The evil queen of the Sailor Moon movie began as a beautiful maiden found by an old wood cutter in the legend. Although Lady Kaguya did come from the moon, Queen Kaguya of the anime movie bears little other resemblance to her. The reference would probably be overlooked by most American viewers.
On top of the vague references to ancient Japanese mythology, anime’s portrayal of deities seems strange to American viewers, since Shinto has a different view of gods and demons than Western religions do. "Distinguishing the gods from the demon in Shinto and in anime is often difficult. One reason for this is that the gods are often so far from perfect. Another reason is that the demons are often less than purely demonic." (Levi 48). In the dark series Vampire Princess Miyu, the main character, Miyu, hunts down and kills shinma. "Shinma is a new word created by combining the character for ‘god’ with the character for ‘demon.’ To the Japanese, that speaks for itself." (Levi 46). A theme that reoccurs in this series deals with the question of whether the shinma are demons who became gods, or gods who became demons. In the subbed version of Vampire Princess Miyu, there a note appears during the title screen that explains the meaning of the word shinma; however, no such clue is given in the dub.