Susano-O, the Japanese Shinto god of the Storms, was always whipping up trouble wherever he went. Exiled from the heavens, he was on his way to his mother Izanami-no-mikoto in the netherworld. After ...

Okami was, without doubt, one of the PlayStation 2’s finest hours. A majestic riff on the Zelda archetype, its sprawling adventure was steeped in traditional Japanese culture, folklore and art, making ...

BOTTOM LINE Brush strokes of genius. Okami HD tells the tale of a mystical white wolf that protects the people of Nippon (a fantasy version of Japan) from evil. At its core, the game is a solid ...

The Shintō deities Susanoo and Hachiman are highly revered kami with intriguing—and sometimes violent—backstories. An expert on Japanese mythology looks at the origins of the two gods and their rise ...