History of Research on Japanese Mythology in Foreign Countries and Reevaluation of Japanese Mythology in the Contemporary World

在太平洋战争之前，学校里教授日本神话是出于意识形态的目的。由于这种错误的用法，战争结束后，日本神话的学习和教育不仅在学校，而且在大学都被回避。然而，其他国家的神话研究进展相当显著：与考古学、遗传学和系统地理学等其他科学分支合作，比较神话现在是重建人类历史的一个重要领域。我们与其他国家的神话学者合作，通过出版介绍了日本学术界的最新研究成果，同时强调了日本神话对世界文化的文化重要性。日本神话很好地保留了古代的共同神话结构。日本也应该进行更认真的合作研究。我们希望我们的研究能成为迈向更大项目的第一步。

Before the Pacific War, Japanese mythology was taught in schools for ideological purpose. Due to such wrong usage, after the war, study and education of Japanese mythology has been avoided not only in schools but also in universities. The advancement of mythological studies in other countries however has been quite remarkable: collaborating with other branches of sciences such as archaeology, genetics and phylogeography, comparative mythology is now an important field for the reconstruction of human history. Working together with mythologists of other countries, we introduced the latest stage of research in Japanese academia through publication and at the same time emphasized the cultural importance of Japanese mythology for world culture. Japanese mythology preserves the ancient common mythological structure remarkably well. It deserves more serious collaborated research in Japan, too. Our researchm we hope, could be the first step toward a such larger project.