In the Land of the Rising Sun, she is the Sun itself.
Every pantheon has one: a sun god shining down upon us all. Many are benevolent, personifications that grant humanity warmth and gifts of knowledge. Some are cruel, imperious and uncaring as their heat terrorizes the lands below. Many are uncaring, a mixed bag of good and bad. Some don’t even have a personification at all, humans instead focusing on the object of the sun rather than creating anthropomorphized versions like Apollo or Ra.
Japan is a little different in that regard.
Empress of the Heavens and the Universe, Amaterasu
She is the first-born of Japan’s three primary kami, a word that doesn’t quite translate to spirit or to god, and is somewhere in between. But don’t let that fool you: Amaterasu-no-Omikami reigns over the Earth, granting warmth in summer, allowing the distant moon to reflect her radiance in night, and fading in winter. She is gracious, but she was not always so. Once upon a time she was an overwhelmed monarch whose family drama threatened to destroy the universe, including her own reckless choices.
She is the mother of the Japanese Imperial Family, whose descendants founded the Yamato Clan, and are today the longest-reigning royal family in any country on Earth. Through modernization and mechanization, her importance has not waned, and Amaterasu reigns supreme even today.
So, who is Amaterasu? Find out in Season 3
