I mentioned in my last entry that one of the challenges of being unemployed is fighting the temptation to watch anime all day. To clarify, the temptation is to waste time, not to avoid watching anime all together. I’m sure most people got this, but there are some in Christian and Catholic circles who view anime as a gateway to worshiping Satan.
I find this to be utter hogwash, and wonder how anyone with an internet connection and a functional brain could think this way. Then again, these are probably the same people who think that playing Dungeons and Dragons involves doing actual dark magic, or that the Harry Potter books are a gateway to the occult. These are the sort of people who believe that if something is not explicitly Christian, it must be Satanic. (Lest I seem to be singling out my fellow Christians, other people do this too with their own creeds, from atheists with no social skills to the “woke” and “red pilled” political fanatics.)
If such a view seems narrow minded, it is. Evangelicals and “Bible Alone” Christians may have an excuse, albeit a poor one, since they tend to view everything outside the Sacred Scriptures with suspicion. But it baffles me that Catholics could believe such things. Are we to believe that the same Church whose members wrote Beowulf and freely quoted Plato and Aristotle, that converted the Greeks, Romans, Vikings, and Aztecs is powerless against the diabolical forces of cute Japanese schoolgirls with comically over-sized eyes?
Let’s clear some things up. Anime is not a genre, like action, romance, or fantasy. It is a medium, like live-action or Claymation. No one I know has argued against watching live-action movies because porn is made in the same medium.
So with that out of the way, here’s some of the things I like about anime, in no particular order.
1. The exaggerated art style. Anime is recognized by the characters over-sized eyes, but almost everything about this style is over the top and exaggerated. Pompous declarations are made when simple sentences will suffice, heavy objects are thrown in place of playful slaps, and major freak outs happen by the hour. (Granted, this may be because the Japanese people are disproportionately introverts. My fellow I’s will know what I’m talking about). But these over-sized proportions and reactions give room for a lot of emotional depth. The huge eyes, for example, can show a lot of emotions with very little movement.
2. The thoughtfulness. As mentioned above, the vast majority of Japanese are introverted, or at least see being introverted as a virtue. This is possibly reinforced by the fact that most Japanese are at least culturally Buddhist, a religion that places self-examination and insight as the key to salvation. You will have characters going on long internal monologues analyzing the situation they are in, reflecting their past or on the nature of reality, or just generally absorbing and savoring the present moment. In an age where American entertainment increasingly consists of non-stop mindless action, this ability to let the story breath is refreshing.
3. Strong Group Perspective. Though the Japanese are commonly seen as the most bizarre country on Earth, from a historical perspective they are actually quite normal. We Americans are the weird ones. For example, Japan is a strong-group society, which means that they care more about the group (family, town, nation) then they do about the individual. America, by contrast, is an extremely weak-group society: for Americans, the individual matters far more than the group. The vast majority of human societies have been strong group, and it is only with the heavy influence of American culture that societies worldwide have become more individual focused. To see the contrast, consider the show My Hero Academia. Heavily influenced by American superhero comics, My Hero Academia takes place in a world where 80% of the population has some sort of superpower. Like in American superhero works, there are a ton of unique superheroes and supervillains running around. Unlike American superhero stories, however, much of the plot is devoted to analyzing how the presence of so many super powered people has affected society, how the hero industry is regulated, and how the 20% without powers (and many of the ones with powers) have been left behind by the system that’s supposed to be helping them.
4. The Creativity. For all the importance the Japanese place on the group over the individual, they have a high respect and admiration for individual creativity. Writers in Japan are allowed much more creative freedom in Japan than in the U.S, where most of the stuff that makes it to the screen has more of an assembly line feel (how many sitcoms about clueless dads, day-drinking moms, and sexually promiscuous twenty-somethings can you make?). Granted, you get plenty of racy trash in both markets, but in Anime you also get new groundbreaking stories that go in directions most American writers don’t have the stones to take. Would any American company have done Rising of the Shield Hero in the era of #metoo? (Look it up or watch it; I will not spoil).
5. The Stories Actually End (and Therefore Matter). Part of the Japanese respect for individual creativity is that the creator has almost total control of their story (as long as it is doing well). Which means that the story ends when the creator wants it to end, not when the corporate suits have milked it dry. Because of this, there is far less pressure to maintain the status quo. Consider one of the most popular anime shows of all time, Dragonball Z, and its protagonist Son Goku and one of his greatest foes, the alien dictator Frieza. Both of these are iconic characters, known to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the series. But how many times have Son Goku and Frieza fought each other? Twice. In a franchise of several hundred episodes, these two characters have only fought twice, and there was over a decade, and several power-ups and new abilities learned by each character, between the two confrontations. Compare this to a similar American pair: Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus. Spidey and Doc Ock fight every couple of weeks, and their powers don’t change all that much. And can anyone imagine the story of Spider-Man ending? On the contrary: when one creator tires of doing the character, the corporate suits will pick another to continue the story (or reboot the whole damn thing). Japanese characters die with dignity. American characters live forever as zombies.
6. It’s Foreign. Finally, the biggest draw for me to anime is that its foreign. While learning about a different culture is fun, the main appeal of a non-western show is that it provides an actual escape. In an age where every show on tv and every movie at the theater is trying to preach to its audience about politics, it’s refreshing to watch something that comes from a culture that could not care less about our hang-ups. I’ll gladly read subtitles if it means I won’t have to hear anything about Trump. And if my entertainment must be made by pagans who do not understand my worldview, I’d rather have it made by pagans who do not hate my guts.
In short, my fellow aspiring saints, when it comes to anime, follow the rules you set for watching any other form of media. There’s a lot of good stuff in the land of the Rising Sun.
Thanks for reading! If you are looking for a new story, check out my novel Cain: Son of Adam, a mythological retelling of the story of Cain and Abel. Buy it on Amazon here.