According to kokugaku interpreters of the Nihongi and Kojiki the nether world and land of the dead, the source of evil and pollution. It is inhabited by magatsuhi no kami, evil spirits and is the place to which Izanami went after her death. It may originally have referred to the tombs or mortuary-huts built by prehistoric Japanese rulers. The notion that yomi is our final destination was canvassed by Norinaga, Motoori but his bleak description of yomi, however scripturally orthodox from a kokugaku point of view, holds little attraction for the deceased or their well-wishers remaining in this world and in practice few Japanese believe that the dead go to yomi. Most funerals (sosai) are conducted according to Buddhist rites and the dead become ancestral spirits, i.e. hotoke ('buddhas').
A Popular Dictionary of Shinto. Brian Bocking.