Twelve Unintentionally Christian Anime

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 it's 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

Update June 30th 2025: Limiting myself to 12 for the symbolism was a mistake.  There are reasons these got edged out, but they are also relevant to the Conversation.

YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World (2019 Anime)

Future Diary aka Mirai Nikki (mainly for the last Arc)

Daybreak Illusion.

Sailor Moon R episode 24, 70 of the show as whole and 64 of the DiC Dub, Enemies No More aka Battle of the Flames of Love! Mars vs. Koan.

The 12th Detective Conan movie The Full Score of Fear for it's use of Amazing Grace.  Which is perhaps odd to refer as unintentional, but what I mean by that qualifier is that I'm NOT arguing any of these creators are secretly Christians themselves.

Update July 3rd: Another Detective Conan example I could mention is the post credits scene of The Mysterious Passenger part 2, part of what was just Dubbed and added to Netflix with Ai Haibara voiced by Alexis Tipton.  You should of course watch both full episodes for context.  In fact watch all the episodes on Netflix.