Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - Anime Sunday School
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rothswings
Posts: 2 |
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What I mean is, like the whole religious freedom thing. In public schools, you could get kicked out if you simply say grace before a meal 'cause that's considered forcing a religion on you. It's the government I'm really talking about. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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Technically that's how all beliefs, philosophies, etc.start out. But I know you're being unnecessarily angry at what was up to this point more a reflection on how a foreign culture views something they're unfamiliar with (Hellsing for instance, is too insane to have any significant subtext). So perhaps you should calm down. It's just the internet.
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OldCharlieStoletheHandle
 Posts: 1288 Location: Mastic Beach, NY |
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Go Nagai. I don't recall the details, but I recall that the anime version of Devil Lady had some weird ideas about Christianity towards the end. Also, in Demon Lord Dante it is revealed at the climax that spoiler[God is an evil virus which infects peaceful worlds and destroys them by making the inhabitants fight each other, while Satan and Beelzebub (two separate characters here) are the good guys trying to stop God from destroying humanity on Earth].
I have never watched Saint Tail but I recall reading somewhere that the title character sometimes gets info from Seira which Seira has heard in confession. As a former Catholic I can assure you that only priests hear confessions (unless something has changed since I stopped believing); and, of course, violating the sanctity of the confessional is a huge no-no. |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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Seira hearing confessions is only in the manga. In the anime people just talk to Seira in the chapel rather than confessing. "Nun hearing confession" also happens in One-Pound Gospel and School Rumble. I'm not sure where anime/manga creators got the idea from. |
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AtariBaby
Posts: 5 |
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But I had to say it is quite possibly the best show title and tag line ever in the history of anything.
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Beatdigga
Posts: 4366 Location: New York |
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And the last page shows why I always cringe whenever religion is bought up on the internet. Every single time a pointless argument ensues without fail.
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MetalUpa1014
 Posts: 283 Location: USA |
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I'm pretty sure that's going to be anywhere and everywhere. Anime News Network posted this story, probably knowing ahead of time what would happen. It's free speech, and people can talk about whatever they want. |
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Senna
 Posts: 99 Location: Somewhere, USA |
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Ahh, Super Book and Flying House! Just two of the many anime I watched before I had any idea of what anime was.
I have rarely been offended by the goofiness of Christianity/Christians/Christian themes in anime/manga. Sometimes I find other reasons to dislike them, but ... religious symbolism that doesn't make sense? Gun-wielding nuns? 19-year-old priests? A girl pretending to be Catholic so she has an excuse for not sleeping with her boyfriend? (Yes, that was really in a manga.) I might roll my eyes, but whatever, it's fine! I was somewhat bothered by a storyline at the end of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. To be brief: spoiler[ Main character Maron is the reincarnation of not only Jeanne (Joan of Arc), but of the biblical first woman Eve herself -- that's not the part that bothered me, though. In KKJ, the source of evil, the devil (I guess?), came to be because God was jealous of Adam over Eve (the main character).] Yeah, it's just a fantasy story, but my enjoyment of the manga did take a hit with that plot point (along with spoiler[the main characters having sex in heaven], which scandalized my at-the-time innocent sensibilities lol), and it's hard to say if that's because I'm from a religious background, or that the storyline simply wasn't to my taste. (I wasn't bothered by any of the other religious things in KKJ.) As for the positive side, I enjoyed Kids on the Slope for a number of reasons, with the "normal" depiction of Catholic teenagers in Japan being just one tiny point. Also, I just want to mention ... the most hilarious depiction of Christianity in manga/anime for me was a shoujo oneshot about a girl falling in love with a hot young clergyman on Christmas. It was a pretty typical shoujo romance, but at the end the girl worried he would never return her love because dun dun dun priests can't marry~ But then of course she told him her worries and he revealed that he was not a priest, but a protestant minister! (Perhaps you would have to read it yourself, but I found it amusingly silly.) |
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Petrea Mitchell
Posts: 438 Location: Near Portland, OR |
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Martian Successor Nadesico has the captain dressing as a nun to officiate at a funeral.
Probably the same mixture of minimal knowledge and laziness that leads to Western TV and movie makers getting religions other than Christianity wrong all the time. If you include the iconography your local audience is familiar with, very few of them will care if you mess up the occasional detail, like the fact that women don't get to act as priests in that particular sect of the weird foreign religion. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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Let's just ignore the people engaged in it, eh? I was actually pleasantly surprised that we managed to get about two full pages before the nastiness began. As a religious person whose also completely against school-mandated prayer, I can't say I like either side myself. (Not being able to force other people to practice your religion is not the same as being persecuted.) I will say that regardless of the image anime has of Christianity, most Japanese people I met (at least in Hokkaido) were pretty cool with people believing whatever so long as they didn't try to force it on them (Jehovah's Witnesses weren't very popular, for example). I think most Japanese anime viewers are at least partly aware that the Christianity in anime and manga has little relation to how it's practiced in its various forms around the world, they just don't care because Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny. And again, watch how Buddhist and Shinto priests get portrayed in anime. It's very equal-opportunity. I quit partway through it, but one of the few anime I've seen where characters just happened to be Christian without a big deal being made out of it was Kids on the Slope. I really should finish that, I just wasn't in the mood to be shipping against canon at the time... [Edit: I see Senna mentioned it first.] |
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ajr
Posts: 465 |
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Knowing that Japanese writers and artists mostly lift Christian motifs based on style rather than substance, and are largely ignorant of actual Christain beliefs, I'm not really bothered about it. The absurdity of it in Hellsing and Blue Exorcist adds some color to the series. Do I wish more anime (or any media) looked at Christianity more seriously? Sure. By and large though, I'm not offended by ignorant creators who just drew something because it looked cool.
I am getting really sick of the clichéd secretly-evil priest/organized religion though. It needs to stop; it's gotten so bad it's more surprising when the kindly old man actually really is a kindly old man. |
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yu3lora
 Posts: 288 |
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Ah.. My childhood. Like others, I really thought that superbook was made by Americans. But I was wrong. Personally, since I'm a christian, I do choose what I watch. But I don't mind watching other animes. As long as it entertain me. You just have to control yourself and have more understanding while watching. Anime is also my escapade in the real world specially when I'm stress. But then, I go back and fight those things that stress me.
Well, if you ask me, I love to see more Christian anime. Its kinda rare thing cause anime is from Japan and everyone knows that Japan is a Buddhist country. |
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vashfanatic
Posts: 3489 Location: Back stateside |
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I think it's partly a reflection of Aum Shinrikyo and other, less violent but still sketchy new religions that have sprung up in Japan. There was a time a new religion could be portrayed as heroic and having the secrets of the universe, as in Akira (manga), but those days ended on March 20th, 1995. It's become the default. I personally don't mind religion-as-evil tropes (ideologies of all stripes have worked a lot of evil throughout history), but when shows try to play it as a Big Twist, it no longer works. |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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@vashfanatic and whoever else is interested: You know, I've always been interested in the Japanese new religion phenomenon. We've had various cults spring up here in the US, but there's never been as many or they've never been as successful as they are in Japan; at least, as far as I can tell. It seems like it has a lot to do with the crumbling of state Shinto at the end of WWII. Have there been many academic writings on the subject that are available in English?
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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(A few lingering parent issues, there, Sparky?  )
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