The digital brush paints a flourishing world: enacting religion and aesthetic traditions in Ōkami

ABSTRACT The video game Ōkami encourages players to immerse themselves in a digital gamescape that incorporates Japanese aesthetics, stories, and religious philosophies. The designers have gamified Shintō holographic reasoning, Confucian virtues, and Buddhist metaphors of fighting demons of the mind to create a world modeled after a mythological retelling of medieval Japan. A significant portion of the player’s gameplay involves purifying pollutants from the environment, which improves the player character and the Japanesque world’s citizens. The game acts as a playable metaphor that teaches the player about Japanese religion and culture by allowing them to enact an interpretation of it interactively.