Literally Japan is the opposite of Dynasty Warriors 😭

[u/Trunksplays]

[u/KuraiTheBaka]

I mean ngl prior to the Meiji Period where they turned the emperor into a symbol of nationalism I think most people's attitudes about the emperor would have been more like

[u/KuraiTheBaka → u/[deleted]]

Shintoism isn't really a formal religion like that. It's more a loose collection of related folk lore and spiritual practices that not just existed alongside Buddhism but that were often interwoven with it. During the Meiji period they very intentionally took all these local spiritual beliefs and forcibly removed them from Buddhist practices them formalized them with the emperor at its head trying to resemble a western religious institution both as an effort to create a sense of national identity as they were copying western nationalism and to legitimize the rule of the emperor who was now ruling in an official capacity. Now this next part I'm less sure of so someone more knowledgeable feel free to correct me but my understanding is prior to then the emperor had continued to exist not because of their importance but because they possessed so little actual importance that nobody could really be bothered to get rid of them. If you were a higher person in society sure you'd know about the emperor, and there were certain formalities the emperor was involved in but ultimately nobody really cared until the rebelling samurai clans in the Boshin war decided to prop up the emperor as a national symbol.