Anime Lectio: Platinum End

                                                          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.

Happiness is something that's subjective, meaning happiness for each person depends on the person and other things like their experiences with and without others. Your own happiness can be based off an objective, or universal, definition of happiness, but happiness should be personal, or subjective, in order for it to be meaningful to you. What makes a personal, or subjective, understanding of happiness complicated is how it influences others, especially if the personal, or subjective, understanding of it is based on the happiness of others, meaning what makes you happy is seeing other people happy.

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 anime series Platinum End starts off when the main character decides to kill himself by jumping off a building after being raised by abusive relatives when his family is killed in a car accident. While he's jumping off a building to kill himself, he's saved by his guardian angel, who saves him in order to make him a candidate to be the next God since the current God is dying. God candidates are chosen from people who try to kill themselves and they all have their own ideas of what they would do as God. One of these God candidates is someone who attempts to kill the other God candidates so he can become the next God for his own reasons, but he's stopped by the main character, as well as other God candidates who help him. After this incident, the remaining God candidates, including the main character and his girlfriend, decide to talk about who'll be the next God. After eventually deciding on one of them, this God candidate becomes the next God. However, this God candidate is suicidal and after seeing all of the world's problems, decides to kill himself, which leads to the death of all life on Earth.

7.  Reflect on the anime

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

All of the actions in the anime series are motivated by the search for happiness. All of the characters try to find their own happiness, which can be selfish if you're only thinking about your own happiness at the cost of the happiness of others. Making everyone happy as well as yourself is complicated and is one of the reasons this anime is so thought provoking. This is also the reason that's relatable. Happiness is something that we all need to work on in order to prevent our own happiness from somehow ending all life, which is seen in other reasons why this anime is so thought provoking. Other reasons that aren't relatable include how the anime ends and the ideas of God and angels in this anime. Anime that's thought provoking is anime I like the most. There are various ways for anime to be thought provoking and Platinum End does it in interesting ways.

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 our own happiness, as well as for the happiness of others and an understanding of what all of this happiness means and how it can be achieved.