Anime Lectio: Fena: Pirate Princess

                                                             1. Why do Anime Lectio? 

Anime Lectio is a time for us to stop and take a breath. Between work, activities, family life, and social media, our minds are always moving. We rarely take time to contemplate and ask, why am I watching this anime? What’s the point of all this? And, how is this making me feel? 

2. Put away all distractions 

(phones, work, etc.)

We are so enslaved to things that stimulate our minds. Let this be a moment for us to free our minds, look inside of ourselves, and be at peace.

3. Deep Breathing

Take several deep breaths. Let your mind relax. If you’ve had any questions, desires, or struggles that you’ve been hiding or stuffing away, let them rise up to the surface. 

4. Open yourself to God’s Presence

Remember God places all our thoughts and desires inside of us, and He uses them to draw us closer to Himself. God gives us a community to help us understand who we are and what He is calling us to do. The faces of other people you know and don't know are like signs of God’s presence.  

5. Think About What’s on Your Mind in Relation to the Anime

Think about what’s been on your mind in relation to the anime.  The following is an example of such thoughts written by me.

What makes for a good adventure? It definitely needs a good beginning, middle, and end since that's how you know you have an adventure in terms of quantity. In terms of quality, what makes it good is what the adventure is for, what happens during the adventure, and what the adventure ultimately accomplishes. There are more specific ways to define an adventure, like comparing it to thinker Joseph Campbell's monomyth of the Hero's Journey, which I learned about in graduate school (the call, the threshold, the abyss, and the return are the four main parts of it), but what's important is having one.

6. Brief and written explanation of the anime

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the anime seen on this blog, or seeing the anime for yourself since that's better than any explanation, might “speak” to you or shed light on the things that have been on your minds.

The main character of this anime sets off on an adventure with the help of some friends to do something that only she, the main character, can do (there's several moments during the adventure where she does things because she feels like they are right). Other people try to prevent this from happening by getting themselves involved in this adventure since either they also think that they are involved (want to be involved) or actually are part of it without anyone else really knowing it. The main character does complete her adventure of allowing humanity to continue, which is revealed at the end of her adventure, but it causes her to lose her memory.

7. Reflect on the anime

Has this brief and written explanation of the anime, or seeing the anime, shed any light on what's been on your mind? The following is an example of a reflection on the anime from me.

I think what makes Fena: Pirate Princess not only a good adventure anime, but also different from a lot of other ones that I've seen, is how the adventure ends or rather, what happens after the adventure ends. An adventure, according to the Hero's Journey, ends with the return. In this anime, the return is based on the friends that the main character made, and in some cases made better, during the adventure. The main character loses her memories at the end of the adventure of everything that happened before the adventure, including the memories made with the friends during the adventure. The main character may have lost her memories when the adventure ends, but her friends still remember her and what she did. When one adventure ends, others can begin.

8. Final Prayer

Please voice any prayer intentions for friends, family, or people around the world that relate to this anime. The following is an example written by me.

Let us pray for the success of our own adventures, to know what our adventures are so we don't have to just fully understand them when they end, and for others to help us in our own adventures so we can continue having other adventures with them.