(Part 2) Top products from r/Megaten

Okay so

I'll divide this into a few sections, assuming you can only speak English and want books in a somewhat reasonable price range.

Though if you're at uni or have access to a uni library: make the most of it.

Oh yeah before I forget, as a general rule, if you're reading an explanation or exploration of a culture's beliefs or stories, find something written by someone who comes from the actual culture if you can. It's always best as a foreigner to have your first insight being from someone who's grown up with it. Avoid people like Alan Watts like the fucking plague. Though of course actual academics on the mythology and religion generally write quite well about them.

First up, Shintoism.

The perfect primer for Japanese mythology is the oldest book extant in Japan's history: the Kojiki. In English, you really cannot go past the Philippi translation. It is incredibly comprehensive with cross referencing and explaining basically any term you could want to know. Philippi explains the history of the book, the intracies of the language involved, and competing theories regarding contentious points alongside with the translation. The one downside here is that it's rather pricey. The book is out of print due to copyright issues, so you can only really get it for around $100 at the lowest. Still, it's a pretty great resource. A word of warning though, there are a lot of boring chapters in the Kojiki if you're interested in myths. Part of the reason why the Kojiki and the Nihongi were commissioned at the time was to legitimise imperial rule, so you have a lot of chapters that just talk about lineage, connecting the Imperial family back to Amaterasu. "Emperor Steve was born in this year, had six kids with three wives and died. He was succeeded by Emperor Greg." Stuff like that.

If you want something that isn't a primary text and is a little more accessible, The Kami Way is supposed to be quite good. It's very cheap, written by two academics (one from Japan one from the West), and quite short, making it easy to dive into. The one downside is that it's a little old, so its scholarship might not be quite as current as some other books.

Next up, Hinduism.

Hinduism is fucking terrifying to tackle because there is just so much stuff on it. Keep in mind that Hinduism is more a collection of belief systems than one unified belief system, keep in mind that it has an incredibly well preserved written and oral history, keep in mind that it's an offshoot of one of the oldest attested religions on Earth... there's a lot here.

and then you have the five hundred books written by western people about the TRUE way to Awaken Your Chakras

Now two of the most important texts here are the Rig Veda and the Upanishads. The Rig Veda is one of the oldest religious texts in the world, a collection of religious hymns. Until recently, there was no good full translation into English. Sure you can find one on the Sacred Texts website but... it's crap from 19th century England. Scholarship was not the same then as it is now. However, in 2014, an absolutely fantastic resource was completed. It is the full Rig Veda, unabridged, with commentary on every single one of over a thousand hymns. The poetry sings, the commentary is insightful... and it costs 400 american dollars all up. I only got to read these through my university library.

There's a few good Upanishad translations for cheap though. A lot shorter too, normally clocking it at only around 500 pages. I picked one up from Oxford World's Classics. This is pretty essential if you want to understand what the Brahman concept from Digital Devil Saga actually is.

In terms of a general introduction though, probably this book is the best. It's a pretty thorough overview that covers the history of Hinduism from ancient times to today, the mythology of it, etc.

Next, Buddhism.

Buddhism has a similar problem to Hinduism in terms of scope, though somewhat less pronounced, as Buddhism is genuinely just one belief system, separated into sects that are much more comparable to Christianity's variations. You do probably get even more "Namaste Bro" type people with Buddism than you do Hinduism though.

My knowledge here isn't as much up to scratch though, as up til now I've read more about the practice and history of Buddhism as opposed to going in depth about the mythology and cosmology of it all, which I only really know on a very superficial level. I'm trying to change that right now though; it's super interesting to learn what Hindu gods became in the Buddhist belief system, and how they evolved further upon reaching Japan.

If you're looking more into the mythology side of things, don't read something like the Dhammpada, which is a sayings text. Of course it's interconnected, but you'll probably want something a bit more direct.

I'd recommend again going to an academic text rather than straight into the three baskets. And in this case, I'd recommend this book, which I picked up purely because of a certain coincidence and have found very interesting. By framing it around the cosmology of Buddhism, this book naturally leads into talking about Buddhist deities, and other things you're more likely to be interested in, without skimping on explanation about how this connects to the Buddhist belief system.

Finally, Taoism

all i can recommend you here is the tao te ching and the zhuangzi, get them with a good commentary, i don't know enough about other texts that explain taoism to recommend any

That's about what I'd recommend. If anyone wants to suggest any improvements to this list please do!

You're right, the figurine and DVD look like they're just thrown in with the Deluxe set for the auction I linked.

The Deluxe package contains:

• The game
  
• 5 huh... incense things, Magic Incense, Speed Incense etc. Really cool idea
  
• 1 incense burner (shaped like the Amala drum)
  
• A case shaped like the treasure boxes (treasure cubes?) in the game
  
• Soundtrack CD
  
• Booklet
  
  A better view at the incense and accessories:
  http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/20030110/mega08.jpg
  
  
  70 euros sounds like a great price! :)
  
  And here's the DVD (not included in the DX package):
  
  http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%9C%9F%E3%83%BB%E5%A5%B3%E7%A5%9E%E8%BB%A2%E7%94%9FIII-NOCTURNE-Special-DVD-~%E5%89%B5%E9%80%A0%E3%81%AE%E8%BB%8C%E8%B7%A1~-%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0/dp/B0000A8UZN
  

Playing Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. Almost at the end on Chapter 19, but I'm doing the Great Challenge cases to unlock [spoiler](#s "the royal knights"). Even if some evolution conditions for Megas are a bit annoying to satisfy, I've been enjoying these past few chapters.

I ordered Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman earlier this week so I'll be reading that next week or the week after that.

Aww man, lucky find!


So I bought These Koss headphones, which are fantastic for 15$, except they just broke on me. I was looking to get those that op has because I friggen love my M50s but I've been eyeing these EW9 for quiet some time. I mean just look at the wood hosuing it looks amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/Norse-Mythology-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0393356183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524737733&sr=8-1&keywords=norse+mythology

This one is on norse mythology, haven't read it myself, but i have heard that it's supposed to be pretty good. Otherwise you could read Prose Edda or some of the many Sagas that exist.

If your looking for the ps1 copies, I hope you have some cash, I was looking at amazon as I was curious

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00002SU93/ref=sr_1_1_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1407244383&sr=8-1&keywords=revelations+persona&condition=used

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00004WLZ7/ref=sr_1_3_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1407244383&sr=8-3&keywords=revelations+persona&condition=used

For the two on amazon (probably cheaper on some other website, and I'm not including the Persona 2 Innocent Sin as its japanese only for psx) its around 90$ for both, while I've seen Persona 1 and both 2's 5$ each on PSN sales

Yea, my girlfriend recently got it for me during Christmas. Persona 4 is suppose to get a releases as well.
Persona 4 -http://www.amazon.com/dp/1927925576/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=4BBVMXSFT931&coliid=I2NMOZTB26YV8L

As well Persona Q P3 side - http://www.amazon.com/dp/1632361833/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=4BBVMXSFT931&coliid=I242KK1A7HFQ6S

On Amazon. It happened to arrive same day as Aegis. :)

It is this one

Thanks for the help!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manga-Bible-Genesis-Revelation/dp/0385524315

If they are standard Tarot size, Fantasy Flight Games sells sleeves specifically for that card size.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1616614439?pc_redir=1411899719&robot_redir=1

Easy

the craft of manga or whatever highly recomended

I shit you not.

I found it on Amazon for cheaper
Still have no idea wtf it is

Well if I remember correctly (And this was a long damn time ago so I might be wrong), the original writer for Digital Devil Saga, Yu Godai wrote the script for the first Digital Devil Saga, so that's accurate to the story she had envisioned with Satomi Tadashi, the other writer.

Digital Devil Saga 2 on the otherhand wasn't written by her because she had the ol'Japanese sickness and unfortunately she couldn't do the script for DDS2. I'm not quite sure how big of a change their was in the story because of this, but it did feel very different compared to DDS 1 in my opinion.

The good news though, is that when Yu Godai recovered, she still had a contract with Atlus which gave her the right to continue writing for the series. So she made the Quantum Devil Saga, which was her own version of Digital Devil Saga. I haven't read it myself just yet, but if you'd like to know what the original writer had wanted for the series then I'd recommend buying Volume 1 and Volume 2 on Amazon.