Episode 2He Went Into Death to Bring His Wife HomeIzanagi and Izanami: Yomi, the Land of the Dead

The myth behind this episode

Izanagi and Izanami in Yomi: The Kojiki Land of the Dead Story Explained

In short: Izanagi and Izanami in Yomi is a myth from the Kojiki (712 CE), Japan's oldest surviving chronicle. Izanami, the creator goddess, dies after giving birth to the fire god, and her husband Izanagi goes down to Yomi, the land of the dead, to bring her back. He breaks his promise not to look at her, flees from her rotting body, and seals the way between them with a huge boulder. Across that rock they speak the words that make death and birth part of every human life.

The original myth: a summary

Izanagi and Izanami are the divine couple who, in the Kojiki, give birth to the islands of Japan and to many gods. Their story turns tragic when Izanami gives birth to Kagutsuchi, the god of fire. The birth burns her badly, and she dies. Izanagi weeps over her body, buries her, and in his grief and anger cuts down the fire god with his sword. Even more gods are born from the blood.

Unable to let her go, Izanagi travels to Yomi, the land of the dead. Izanami meets him at the entrance of a hall there, and he begs her to come home because their work of making the land is not finished. She answers that he came too late: she has already eaten food cooked in Yomi, which binds her to that world. Still, she agrees to ask the gods of Yomi for permission, and she asks him for one thing: do not look at me while I am gone.

She is gone a long time. Izanagi grows impatient, breaks a tooth off the comb in his hair, lights it as a torch, and goes inside. He finds Izanami's body rotting, crawling with maggots, with eight thunder gods sitting on it. Terrified, he runs.

The chase and the boulder

Izanami cries that he has shamed her and sends the hags of Yomi after him. Izanagi escapes by throwing his headdress, which turns into grapes, and his comb, which turns into bamboo shoots. The hags stop to eat them. Next come the eight thunder gods with a great army of Yomi's warriors. At the bottom of the slope that leads out of Yomi, Izanagi throws three peaches at them, and they turn back. He thanks the peach and gives it a divine name.

Last of all, Izanami chases him herself. Izanagi blocks the slope with a boulder so heavy that it would take a thousand people to move it. Standing on opposite sides of the rock, the couple say their final words. Izanami vows to kill a thousand people of his land every day. Izanagi answers that he will then build fifteen hundred birthing huts every day. The Kojiki says this is why a thousand people die each day and fifteen hundred are born. From then on, Izanami is called the great goddess of Yomi.

What this myth tells us

In the Kojiki, this is the moment death enters the world for good. A creator goddess cannot come back from death, and her husband cannot undo it. Yet the story does not end in despair: Izanagi's answer means life will always outnumber death.

Yomi is not a place of judgment like a heaven or hell. It is dark and unclean, and anyone who eats its food belongs there. Right after this episode, Izanagi washes himself in a river to clean off the pollution of Yomi, and the sun goddess Amaterasu, the moon god Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo, the storm god, are born from that washing. Many scholars connect this to the importance of purity and ritual cleansing in Shinto, though how far the myth reflects actual ancient practice is debated.

Readers often compare the story to Orpheus and Eurydice from Greek myth, since both involve a husband who goes to the underworld and fails because of a forbidden look. The details and the meaning are different, though. Izanami is not lost by accident; she turns into a powerful and angry goddess of death.

The same rule echoes at the end of Book I

The "don't look at me" rule comes back later in the same book. Toyotama-hime, daughter of the sea god, is about to give birth on the shore and asks her husband Hoori not to watch, because she must take her true form. He peeks and sees a giant sea creature called a wani. Ashamed, she leaves the baby behind, closes the border between sea and land, and returns to the ocean. Later she sends him a poem through her sister, still longing for him.

In both stories, a husband breaks a promise, sees what he was not meant to see, and a boundary closes forever: between the living and the dead, and between land and sea.

How the manga tells it

The Kojiki gives very few details about what the characters feel. It does not describe Izanagi's thoughts as he waits outside the hall or Izanami's face when she sees him run. The manga keeps the main events of the original: the death after the fire god's birth, the journey to Yomi, the one request, the broken promise, and the final words across the boulder. Character designs, facial expressions, the look of Yomi, and the emotional beats between scenes are the artists' interpretation, not details stated in the original text.

If you want to know exactly what the Kojiki says, use the summary above as your guide. The manga shows how one couple's loss could have felt.

Where to read it

Episode 2 of KOJIKI Book I: Chronicle of the Gods, "He Went Into Death to Bring His Wife Home," tells this story in manga form. Like every episode on Manga Portal, it is free to read with no sign-up. If you want to see what comes next, including Amaterasu, Susanoo, and the rest of Japan's oldest myths, you can keep reading from here.

Characters in this episode

Izanagi

The male creator god who goes down to the land of the dead to bring his wife back, then breaks his promise not to look at her.

Izanami

The female creator goddess who dies giving birth to the fire god and becomes the great goddess of Yomi.

Kagutsuchi, the fire god

The fire god whose birth burns his mother Izanami and leads to her death.

The hags of Yomi (Yomotsu-shikome)

Fearsome women of the underworld whom Izanami sends to chase Izanagi.

The eight thunder gods

Gods of thunder that Izanagi sees on Izanami's body and that lead Yomi's army after him.

FAQ

Why did Izanami go to the underworld?

Izanami died from burns after giving birth to Kagutsuchi, the god of fire. After her death, she went to Yomi, the land of the dead, as the Kojiki describes.

Why couldn't Izanami come back from Yomi?

She had already eaten food cooked in Yomi, which bound her to the land of the dead. She agreed to ask Yomi's gods for permission, but Izanagi looked at her before she returned, breaking his promise.

What did Izanagi see in Yomi?

Using his comb as a torch, he saw Izanami's body rotting and covered with maggots, with eight thunder gods on it. He was terrified and ran away.

What did Izanagi and Izanami say at the boulder?

Izanami vowed to kill a thousand people of his land every day, and Izanagi replied that he would make fifteen hundred people be born every day. The Kojiki uses this to explain why more people are born than die.

Is Izanagi and Izanami like Orpheus and Eurydice?

Both stories involve a husband who goes to the underworld and fails because of a forbidden look, so they are often compared. However, in the Kojiki, Izanami becomes an angry goddess of death, and the story ends with a vow about life and death for all people.

Read the manga from the start (free)