Anime Christi - Part 2 of 2

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

In anime there are also characters who are not Christians themselves but who represent Christ in the story. Most heroes can be considered Christ-like characters because of the way in which they redeem the story and defeat evil through their actions. However, there are a few characters, who represent the person of Christ and their actions in the story reflect Christ's actions in salvation history. For instance, many heroes sacrifice their lives to save the lives of their friends; only to experience a 'resurrection' moment.

 In my opinion, the most explicit Christ figure in anime is from the 1998 series Trigun. Trigun is primarily a western; as such it seeks out to explore the themes and archetypes of the great cowboy movies of the past few decades. As such, the exploration of a western gunslinger as a Christ-figure is very deliberate. The hero's name is Vash the Stampede. It is revealed that while he is an extremely dangerous gunslinger, he has taken a vow never to kill. In a world where outlaws threaten innocent lives, Vash struggles to save the lives not only of the innocents but of thieves and murderers. Vash works to redeem and change the minds of criminals and “sinners”.

At one point in the series, Vash is depicted as a young man watching a spider catch a butterfly, and he wants to set the butterfly free. An older character kills the spider, explaining that without food, a spider cannot survive. The older character states that the human mission is to save that which is beautiful from that which is evil … but the young Vash weeps and pleads that there must be a way to save both. His character rejects the logic of death and survival and seeks another way.

Anime Christi - Part 1 of 2

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

I have learned that one can find God in all things, even anime. In this entry, I would like to explore the relation between Christology and anime. After WWII, Japanese culture was highly influenced by American culture. In the 1960s, Japanese artists adapted and simplified the “Disney” style animations they saw at the movies and used them to tell Japanese stories.

In the 1980s, the popularity of manga, the comic-book form, skyrocketed and the process of animating manga series as TV shows became big business; making titles like Dragon Ball Z familiar to westerners. Anime is known for its distinctive artistic style, its use of cartoons to convey serious literary themes, and frequent appeals to the zany, the magical, or the metaphysical.

For Westerners, Japan was the final frontier. Traveling from Europe to Japan in the 16th century was the equivalent of traveling from the earth to the moon today; except space travel is a bit safer. Travel by ship carried enough risk of disease, malnutrition, pirate attack, and shipwreck that missionaries had about a 50/50 chance of making it alive to Japan. What religious order would be foolish enough to take on odds like that? You guessed it: the Jesuits. St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary, arrived in Japan in 1549. Christianity enjoyed great reception in Japan, especially among peasants, until it was outlawed decades later by the shoguns, who rejected all things foreign. A few underground churches survived but Christian culture didn't gain much traction in Japan until after WWII. The lasting contributions of American Christianity to Japanese culture are Christmas and weddings.