Shinto is a religion from Japan. Scholars classify it as an East Asian religion and is often considered as the aboriginal religion and natural religion of Japan. It is also an incredibly diverse religion with differing beliefs and practices among Shintoists.

Shinto beliefs revolves around supernatural beings called the kami. The kami are believed to inhabit all things in nature. Therefore it is a polytheistic animistic religion. The place of worship vary a lot from household shrines, family shrines, and public shrines, which are staffed by priests who watches over the offerings to a specific kami enshrined. The offerings are usually food or drinks. Others worship through dancing and festivals. It also revolves around the concept of purity, mostly by washing and bathing before worship. Shinto also doesn't have a central authority, and is instead localized and regionalized

Historians however, do debate when it is applicable to refer to Shinto as a separate and distinct religion, since when Buddhism entered Japan in the 6th century, Shinto and Buddhism merged, or syncretized, into what is referred to as Zen Buddhism, and had the kami be part of Buddhist cosmology and were anthropomorphized in Zen Buddhist depictions.