This post is about a select group of Anime I uniquely view as being unintentionally Christian, in terms of what The Gospel means to me personally. But I suspect even people who disagree with me on certain controversial doctrines still could see similar Christian meanings in these stories if they gave them a chance so for once I’m not gonna lead with my most controversial disagreements with mainstream Christianity.
I do not brute force such an intense Christian reading onto every Anime I like, in fact my long time absolute favorite isn’t among these, nor is the show with the character I use as my Avatar. There are plenty of other shows where I have more partial and specific Christian readings of specific parts or aspects of them, but these are Anime where The Gospel is there, unintentionally. And also the show as a whole, it's main plot, I could in the future talk about individual episodes of highly episodic shows but I'm not sure I have enough of those yet.
Key emphasis on the “unintentionally” part, this is not me speculating about the religious affiliation of anyone involved in making these shows or the Source Material they were adapted from. I’m the kind of Christian who believes the gist of The Gospel simply has spread all over the world now and so can be stumbled upon by even the most Heathen of Pagans, like the Altar of the Unknown God. The secular Media Analysis precedent for this is Death of The Author, Art can have meaning the Artist didn’t intend.
I’m doing this in part because on YouTube lately Christians talking about Anime and Anime YouTubers hinting at being Christian have become more common. But what shows they lead with as Anime that a Christian can enjoy are not the same ones I would.
I’m not going to elaborate much on most of them here. I'm hoping they will be self explanatory to others who are already Biblically literate Christians and then someone more analytically skilled than me can break them down in a Video Essay or Sermon (Peter Hiett likes referencing movies in his Sermons).
I have talked about aspects of my Christian readings of a number of them before, on this Blog and on others, and maybe will more in the future. For now I simply want to list them.
I will try to lead with the most Normie Accessible and save the most densely Otaku works for the bottom.
Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind. Yeah I'm starting with one who’s creator has openly expressed dislike for the existence of Christian readings. The way Mizayaki went on in the Manga to strongly emphasize the permanence of Death demonstrates the point I often make that how you view Death as a concept is the key difference between Paganism and The Gospel. But it’s not just The Title Character’s resurrection from apparent death at the end that makes her Christlike, it’s her Self Sacrifice and her Pacifist ideology and how unrelentingly Empathetic she is.
Pretear. The Magical Girl Genre as a whole has an extra good chance of having these qualities, but of Classic Shoujo Magical Girl shows I think it’s most potent in Pretear.
Robotics;Notes.
Steins;Gate
Blue Reflection Ray
Yuki Yuna Is A Hero
SSSS.Gridman.
Re:Creators
Chaos;Child
Higurashi When They Cry (The original 2006 Studio Deen Anime and its sequel Kai not anything newer).
Mawaru Penguindrum
Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei Herz
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