Anime Lectio: Lu Over the Wall

                                                            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.  

There are things that we like to do that we either keep as hobbies to do for ourselves or for hobbies to do with other people.  What keeps these things as hobbies is up to you based on the experiences you have on your own, with others, and what you think about what happens as a result of what happens on your own and/or with others.  Meeting new people also influences these hobbies since they can help you with these hobbies in their own ways, but these ways may not be properly understood.  An example of this can be seen in the anime film Lu Over the Wall.

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.

In the anime film Lu Over the Wall, three friends with an interest in music and/or creating a band find a way to do that, despite not being able to do much with music, or anything really, due to where they live, which is a remote/isolated fishing town. This interest really can't be more than a hobby either due to these friends involvement in other things, as well as the fact that some people there don't like music since it attracts the merfolk, or mermen and mermaids, in the region. Whether the merfolk are good or bad also divides the town until they all see that the merfolk do to help them, but in their own ways, like saving some of their loved ones from drowning by turning them into merfolk like them by biting them.

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.

If you have an interest in something, then you'll do what you have to do in order to pursue your interests. This is actually an idea that I talked about in a recent reflection I wrote for the beginning of the chapter about the procedure for receiving brothers in the Rule of St. Benedict when this was the reading for a recent school assembly. The beginning of this chapter also talks about the importance of doing what it takes to do what you want, so I also thought about it here. Anyway, besides doing whatever it takes to do what you want, how you see people based on what you think versus what you see is also important. The people in question in the anime film Lu Over the Wall aren't really people since the people in question are merfolk, but it's still something that can be seen when comparing different groups of people, which is also something that's important to pray about.

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 understand people that are different from us based on what we see and not just on what we think.