CELEBRITY GODS: New Religions, Media, and Authority in Occupied Japan, by Benjamin Dorman. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 296 pp., $42.00 (hardcover)
To those from societies where religion permeates everything from public speeches to private life, the Japanese often appear remarkably free of its influence, becoming Shintoists at weddings, Buddhists at funerals and little of anything in between. But as Benjamin Dorman notes in his fascinating, if occasionally frustrating, study "Celebrity Gods: New Religions, Media and Authority in Occupied Japan," Japan's "new religions" (shinshukyo) have had an impact on the national media and consciousness at times far out of proportion to their numbers of believers.