A Book List from the East

Question: Hey guys, do you happen to have a list of book on the Japanese and/or Chinese gods? Because as written in the Scion books, they're kind of a mess.

Sure, let me hit you with some delicious source material!

Japan:

The best sources here are of course the original ones; the Kojiki, Nihongi and Engishiki are some of the primary texts that we get a lot of our Japanese myth from, so they're definitely worth a look for any Japanese mythology enthusiast (plus, bonus - they're free online since they're in the public domain!).

Other sourcebooks we've used include:

Handbook of Japanese Mythology by Michael Ashkenazi, a great general overview with a thorough background in the symbolism of the primary sources above
Japanese Mythology: Hermeneutics on Scripture by Junichi Isomae, definitely scholarly and not for the faint of heart, but a really interesting book on the way Japanese mythology is perceived by the Japanese themselves and where the lines blur between it and history
Myths and Legends of Japan by Frederick Hadland Davis, an oldie but goodie from the turn of the century that can be dry to get through but is worth it
Old-World Japan: Legends of the Land of the Gods by Frank Rinder, old and not very thorough but a good resource for quickly reading the stories of various deities and folkloric figures

There's actually a lot more out there on the folkloric elements of the Japanese world - yokai, ghosts, folk heroes and so on - than on the gods, which belong to a court religion that was kept around more in form than in function for a long time. You can't go to a library's folklore section without tripping over at least two or three books on creepy-crawlies and folktales from Japan.

China, on the other hand... is a complete beast to research. "Chinese mythology" is basically at least four different religions that have been smashed and melded together over a process spanning centuries, and it's very difficult to get a broad overview of something that's by nature so complex and prone to change. You almost need to really know which part of Chinese mythology you want to know about, which is daunting all on its own. But the two famous mythological novels, Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, are a great place to start, and in addition to having many of the myths about such miscreants as Sun Wukong and Guan Yu, they're also pretty rocking awesome adventure stories. And again - free!

Other stuff to give a shot:

Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons by Keith Stevens, worth the price of admission for the lavish photos of Chinese artifacts and cult statues alone
Chinese Mythology: An Introduction by Anne Birrell, probably the definitive one-stop source for people who don't actually speak Chinese, and one of my favorites
Chinese Myths & Legends by Chen Lianshan, a quick but informative look from a Chinese scholar who includes some stories not often translated into English
Essential Chinese Mythology by Martin Palmer and Zhao Xiaomin, not a scholarly work but a collection of stories that are fun reads
Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Lihui Yang and Deming An, another pretty great basic overview with the salient points and cultural relevance angles covered

Also, I'm mentioning Jonathan Chamberlain's Chinese Gods: An Introduction to Chinese Folk Religion for completeness' sake, but mostly in order to tell you guys that I hate it. From the refusal to use a standard (any standard) romanization of Chinese names to its meandering anecdotal style to the fact that the author learned most of his material by asking around about some paintings of gods he bought in Hong Kong, it gave me research rage in the worst way. I'm all about some study of modern folklore and beliefs from oral retellings, but this thing is a hot mess.

So hopefully you'll find some things in there that'll give you some good background in the far eastern Scion pantheons and their particularly regimented strains of insanity. If other people have recommendations of their own, please feel free to serve them up in the comments!