Anime Lectio: Devilman Crybaby

                                                             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.

Something that I want to do for myself in order to help others, as well as myself, is to change. Changing yourself involves being different, seeing things differently, and acting differently based on what you see because of your changed being. This change also involves love and how this love and change influences other people, not just yourself. 

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 Devilman Crybaby focuses on the actions of two childhood friends - one being very emotional, or a crybaby, and one being not emotional at all. The one who's not very emotional finds a way to get his emotional friend to become what's known as a creature that's part human and part devil/demon called a Devilman. As a Devilman, the main thing that's different about the emotional friend is that he has the strength of a demon/devil now. He still maintains his other friendships, as well as new ones, while dealing with the situation he's now in, which his childhood friend started and causes people to either be for or against both devilmen and each other. The childhood friend who's not very emotional, who also happens to be Satan, doesn't really care about the problems he started and caused. However, this does lead to the childhood friends fighting each other and the emotional one is killed, which the emotionless one actually cares about.

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.

Influencing people, and not just yourself, with love and change takes time and this time depends on the people that you're influencing or trying to influence. It's difficult to see this in the anime series of Devilman Crybaby, which I decided to watch because I had the time to watch it in my recent quarantine and was curious about it, but positive influence is mostly seen in the end after all the other attempts of influencing others don't end well. In the end, Satan actually cares about what he does, or he at least cares about killing his childhood friend, which is the point of this anime series. It may take a while to get to this point, but doing so takes time, as well as other important experiences and people involved in them.

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 that we can influence others, as well as ourselves, over time with the love, change, and other important things that this influence requires.