黄泉
よみ
yomi
= the underworld / the land of the dead / Yomi (Shinto afterlife realm)
黄泉 (yomi) is Japan’s ancient underworld — the subterranean realm of the dead in Shinto mythology, a dark land of pollution and decay described in the Kojiki (Japan’s oldest chronicle) as the place Izanami was imprisoned after death and where Izanagi ventured to retrieve her. Unlike Western heavens and hells, Yomi is not a place of reward or punishment but simply the dwelling of the dead, and it is deeply tied to Japanese ideas about death, pollution, and the boundary between life and death.
Yomi (written 黄泉 — yellow springs, the Chinese concept of the underworld) is the Japanese land of the dead in Shinto cosmology. It appears in the creation myth of Izanagi (イザナギ) and Izanami (イザナミ): after Izanami died giving birth to the fire god, Izanagi descended to Yomi to retrieve her. When he lit a torch and saw her decomposed form, she chased him in fury; he escaped by rolling a boulder across the entrance to Yomi, and the two deities of death and life were forever separated. Common compound: 黄泉の国 (yomi no kuni — the land of Yomi).
Yomi should not be confused with 地獄 (jigoku — Buddhist hell/hellfire) or 天国 (tengoku — heaven). These Buddhist concepts of an afterlife with moral consequences are different from Yomi, which predates Buddhism in Japan. In Shinto thought, death is primarily associated with 穢れ (kegare — ritual pollution/impurity) rather than moral judgment — the dead must be purified and separated from the living, and Yomi is the place of that separation.
黄 (ki/kou) means ‘yellow.’ 泉 (izumi/sen) means ‘spring’ (of water). Together: ‘yellow springs’ — borrowed from Chinese mythology (黃泉, huáng quán), the subterranean water that flows under the earth where the dead dwell.
Everyday use
古事記に描かれた黄泉の国は、死者が集まる暗く穢れた地下の世界だ。
Kojiki ni egaka reta Yomi no kuni wa, shisha ga atsumaru kuraku kegare ta chika no sekai da.
The land of Yomi depicted in the Kojiki is a dark, polluted subterranean world where the dead gather.
Casual / Social Media
黄泉という概念、生と死の境界線があってファンタジー作品でよく使われるよね
Yomi to iu gainen, sei to shi no kyoukaisen ga atte fantajii sakuhin de yoku tsukawareru yo ne
The concept of Yomi, with its boundary between life and death, gets used a lot in fantasy works, doesn’t it
Formal / Cultural context
日本神話における黄泉の概念は、死を穢れとして生の世界から隔離するという神道的死生観を体現しており、現代日本における葬送儀礼や忌避観念の源流を形成している。
Nihon shinwa ni okeru Yomi no gainen wa, shi wo kegare toshite sei no sekai kara kakuri suru to iu shintou-teki shiseikan wo taigenshi te ori, gendai Nihon ni okeru sousou girei ya kihi kannen no genryuu wo keisei shite iru.
The concept of Yomi in Japanese mythology embodies the Shinto view of life and death that separates death as a form of pollution from the world of the living, and forms the source of modern Japanese funerary rituals and concepts of avoidance.
The Yomi myth from the Kojiki is one of Japan’s foundational narratives about death, separation, and the necessary boundary between the living and the dead. Izanagi’s traumatic journey — venturing to Yomi out of love, being confronted with the horror of death-as-corruption, and escaping — establishes a Shinto understanding of death as primarily about pollution (穢れ, kegare) rather than sin or moral failure. This shapes real Japanese practices: attending a funeral requires purification (salt is often given at funerals to purify attendees), and strict rules about funerary timing reflect the need to manage the spiritual pollution of proximity to death.
Yomi appears throughout Japanese literature, manga, and games as a setting and metaphor. The concept of retrieving a loved one from the underworld echoes across Japanese folklore and contemporary fantasy — it appears in video games (several major JRPG narratives involve descending to an underworld to rescue a dead companion), anime, and manga as a template for stories about the boundary between life and death. The specificity of Yomi — not a place of judgment but a place of decay and separation — gives Japanese underworld narratives a distinct texture from Western hell-and-heaven frameworks.
Disclosure: This site may contain affiliate links. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.