(Warning: Though this show is pretty light on the perv stuff, it's still there. Also, violence. A LOT of violence. Not a whole lot of gore and blood though. I'd say it's appropriate for everyone save young children. You're mileage may vary. As always, use discernment, and don't pirate.)
Laetare Sunday, the half-way mark of Lent is upon us, and Mother Church's calls to rejoice may seem a little hollow this year. Amidst pandemic and societal uncertainty, it would be understandable if we feel afraid rather than joyful. Yet, for that reason alone, we should be ever more heedful of the liturgy's call to rejoice. For our priest still ascended the altars to offer the Mass in rose vestments, even if we could not be present to see them. And as we mourn the temporary loss of access to the sacraments, let us be mindful of our brothers and sisters in remote regions (such as the Amazon) and those in nations hostile to the faith (such as China and North Korea) for whom such deprivation is a normal fact of life. We are in a desert, far from the holy fountains we are accustomed to drink from, but it is in the desert that we find Christ.
This was where the 5,000 men found him in this Sunday's Gospel (John 6:1-15). Drawn to Him "because they saw the miracles which He did on them that were diseased," these men followed Our Lord and his Apostles into the wilderness, forsaking creature comforts for the Jerusalem above (referenced frequently in today's Mass, especially in the Epistle (Gal. 4,22-31)). To these who sought first the Kingdom of God, Our Lord provided for needs, multiplying five loves and two fishes into enough food to feed them all, with twelve baskets of fragments left over. And when the men, astounded by the miracle, sought to make Him King, he fled into the mountain alone.
From the reaction of the crowd, we can perhaps infer that none of them expected this miracle (though Our Lord may have already performed it multiple times throughout His ministry). As of yet, they hungered not after bread, but for Jesus Himself. In the words of our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI,
"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction" (Deus Caritas Est).
It is this encounter and relationship with Christ that forms the heart of our religion. Indeed, it seems impossible to be neutral about Jesus Christ. Every worldview, from Islamic to Hindu to Jewish to Atheist, and yes, even Christian, must reckon with him and give some explanation: to ignore Him is impossible. Some denounce Him, some try to co-opt Him, some kneel before Him (or at least try to), but none who read of Him or encounter Him (in person or via His Saints) can imagine a world without accounting for Him. In Jesus Christ we find the most perfect example of a personal encounter having a truly transformative effect on one's life.
Which brings us to our anime show for the week, a classic that almost needs no introduction: Dragonball.
(And for my fellow 90's kids, some sweet nostalgia:)
For those new to anime, or for those living under a rock during the 90's, Dragonball is how most of my generation first got into anime (the others mostly came in through Sailor Moon or Gundam Wing). It's not just fan nostalgia that's kept it afloat long after the original series ended. What Tolkien and his The Lord of the Rings did for the Fantasy genre, Akira Toriyama and his Dragonball did for the shonen genre. Every single shonen series since Dragonball, from Naruto to My Hero Academia has been influenced by Dragonball, either by copying it's tropes or trying to subvert them.
I won't try to summarize the entirety of the series here (it's one of the longest running series, beaten only, to my knowledge, by One Piece). In brief, it follows the adventures of Son Goku (pictured right) and his friends as they battle monsters, aliens, and other powerful beings, often while searching for the Dragon Balls, a set of orbs that, when brought together, can grant any wish. What started as an adventure series loosely based on the Chinese classic Journey to the West (with Son Goku standing in for the Monkey King Sun Wukong), the series quickly become all about martial arts. It's fight scenes are the stuff of legend and of memes ("Just one punch, AND OVER 9,000 SCREAMS!"). The focus of the series may have settled on martial arts action, but the genre of the series shifted overtime. What started as East Asian Fantasy eventually turned to Sci-Fi before shifting back towards Fantasy and resting somewhere in the middle.
It was right at the shift into sci-fi (when the series changed its title to Dragonball Z) that the series became known to non-Japanese audiences. This was when Son Goku learned that he was an alien: a Saiyan (Saiya-jin in the original Japanese) from the planet Vegeta, sent to Earth as a baby (Toriyama-san was really into Superman at the time). Saiyans are, to put it plainly, space orcs: blood knights who invade planets, kill all sentient life, and sell the planet to the highest bidder.
While Goku and his friends may have shifted into fighting aliens and androids instead of fighting crime lords and demons, overall the tone and major themes of the story remained the same, and still remain the same in the sequel series, Dragonball Super. Two in particular are relevant to our discussion here.
The first, and to my mind the most important, of these themes might be described as what happens when evil people encounter a truly good person and survive. Son Goku, raised in the woods, lacks book smarts, but he has always been kind and pure of heart. To see what kind of effect this has on the people he encounters, take a look at the group shot below, showing the major characters of one of the later arcs of the series:
Out of every character in that picture aside from Son Goku, only Son Gohan, Goku's son, and Trunks, who came from the future to warn Goku about an impending attack of killer robots (Toriyama-san was really into The Terminator at the time), start out as Goku's allies. Every one else was, at one time, Goku's enemy. Yamcha was a bandit. Krillin was a shifty jerk who relied on cheating and trickery to get ahead. Tien and Chiaotzu were training to be assassins. And Piccolo and Vegeta were murderers set on ruling the universe.
Yet all of them, after encountering and being defeated by Son Goku, became his allies and friends, gradually becoming self-sacrificing heroes like Goku. Whether by having a common goal or enemy, or simply being obsessed with avenging their earlier loss, (or both), encountering and teaming up with the pure-hearted Son Goku effects a profound change in their lives and character.
Students of Rene Girard will find familiar pasterns in these character arcs. In the first case, having a common, mutually threatening enemy is the easiest proven way to turn enemies into friends, particularly after the common enemy has been destroyed. In the second, an obsession with a human obstacle to a goal can turn into a kind of perverse imitation game, in which seeker imitates the rival and, slowly and unconsciously, becomes more like him. And yet, Goku never becomes more like his enemies: he remains consistently saintly, and inspires others to embrace his heroism.
Two of the character arcs from Dragonball Z stand out as prominent examples of this villain redemption theme.
First, the case of Piccolo. Like Goku, Piccolo is an alien, of a normally peaceful, plantlike species called Nameks. A single Namek, whose name is long forgotten, came to Earth as a child ages ago. Seeking to become the Kami (god) of Earth, he was rejected because of the evil in his heart. The Namek purged the evil from his heart and thus became Kami. But the evil he purged came to life and became the Demon King Piccolo, who went on to terrorize the Earth. Goku defeated him, but before he died the Demon King gave birth to a child/reincarnation. That child (pictured right) took on the name Piccolo from his father, and swore to devote his life to killing Goku and conquering the world. The arrival of the Saiyans, however, forced Piccolo to ally with Goku and his friends. In particular, Piccolo trains Son Gohan while Goku is away training in the afterlife (death is dramatic and sad, but really just an inconvenience in this series; magic orbs that can bring people back to life will do that.) Originally, Piccolo plans to go back to conquering the world after the Saiyans are defeated, even planning to use his bond with Gohan to turn him against his father.
But Gohan has inherited his father's purity of heart, and Piccolo begins to care for the boy less as an asset and more for his own sake. At a critical moment, Piccolo even sacrifices his life to save Gohan during the battle with the Saiyans. Later wished back to life, Piccolo befriends Goku and grows into more of a hero as time goes on, eventually even re-fusing with Kami.
The second villain-turned-hero character, and the one with the longest redemption arc, is Vegeta (the smug ass hat on the right). Like Goku, Vegeta is a Saiyan (he is, in fact, the Prince of all Saiyans, as he repeatedly tells anyone within earshot). Unlike Goku, Vegeta loves being a space orc, so much that he tries to start each day with a well-balanced genocide. He's the General Zod to Goku's Superman, essentially, and defeat at Goku's hands only hardens his commitment to murder and mayhem. It is only when he and Goku's team find themselves both fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy (the alien Emperor Frieza) that he agrees to a temporary truce. After Frieza's (apparent) demise, the truce is extended to fight the Androids. It is while preparing for the Androids arrival that Vegeta hooks up with Goku's friend Bulma, and they conceive a child (Trunks, the same man who traveled from the future to warn them of the Androids). Through all this, Vegeta's one motivation defeat and kill Goku. But that becomes impossible when Goku sacrifices himself (at the time, permanently) to save the Earth.
Without his rival, Vegeta loses his main motivation, and gradually settles into domestic life with his wife and son.
Years later, Goku temporarily returns to Earth for a martial arts tournament, and Vegeta jumps at the chance for his long awaited rematch. Their fight is interrupted by the arrival of Majin Buu, an magical monster created by the Space Wizard Bibidi and revived by his son Babadi (Toriyama-san was really into... Disney puns, I guess? Or maybe he was finally getting burned out.)
Vegeta, realizing that he's gone soft (as he puts it "I realized that I had a family, and that I was actually fond of them, and that Earth was a nice place to live,") gives himself over to Babadi to gain more power and rediscover the thrill of being evil, but it doesn't stick. Giving up his fight against Goku, Vegeta charges into battle against Majin Buu, and ends up sacrificing himself to save Earth. Buu survives, however, and Vegeta is later brought back to life to help Goku finish Buu off for good. It is during that final battle that Vegeta finally admits to himself that he will never be as strong as Goku, and defeat finally equals friendship.
Both of these redemption stories started with an encounter with a person: Son Goku, a person so good and yet so powerful that those who encountered him were never the same again. A far greater encounter with a far greater person, Jesus Christ, marks the beginning of every redemption story in the history of the Church, from St. Paul down to each and every one of us today. Like Son Goku, Christ is powerful enough to beat our prideful egos into submission, but merciful enough to give us a chance to become heroes at his side, even if the process takes a while. And like with Son Goku in Dragonball, an encounter with Christ in the real world leaves one with only two real options: to join Him and become more like Him, or to cling to pride and suffer everlasting defeat. Evil and pride are sterile. Love multiplies like loaves and fishes in the desert.
There is one final theme of Dragon Ball I wish to elaborate on, one that is relevant to this week's liturgy and to our present situation: the necessity of hard work. Goku and his team did not start out powerful, but became that way through rigorous training. Time and again in Dragonball, we see that hard work beats raw talent, and that those who rest confident in their strength are always unseated by upstarts who tirelessly train to grow stronger.
This, in fact, is what Goku and company do every time they find themselves about to face an overwhelming obstacle: they retreat into the wilderness and train.
We who follow Christ, in order to fight the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, are likewise called into the wilderness to train our souls and bodies for battle. Would that we would pray and practice mortification as Goku and his friends train their bodies for battle. Would that we would desire to save our world and our souls from sin and injustice as they desire to save theirs from aliens and androids.
Yet, like them, we are forewarned. Liturgically, Calvary arrives in two weeks. In our own lives, it may come at any moment. And so, with the courage of the Saiyans and the Saints, let us embrace the trials of the present. As the Lord provided for the 5,000 in the desert, so will he provide for us whatever we need for our sanctification.
Happy Lent, dear readers. Please stay safe and healthy during this time of crisis. Remember that my novel Cain: Son of Adam is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. Check it out and enjoy a mythological retelling of world's first murderer.
Stay tuned for next week's Anime Lent feature:
Rejected of Men: The Scapegoat, Passion Sunday, and The Rising of the Shield Hero