Manga Lectio: Girl May Kill

                                                              1. Why do Manga Lectio? 

Manga 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 reading this manga? 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 Manga

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

Things are not always what they seem to be.  This is especially true in situations where you remember something as one thing, but other people remember that same something as something else.  Seeing things differently also has to do with age and experience, which can be seen in the manga Girl May Kill.

6. Brief and written explanation of the manga

Pay attention to how the brief and written explanation of the manga seen on this blog, or reading the manga 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 manga Girl May Kill starts off with a man who moves back to his hometown to make a new life for himself there. He ends up working at a store owned by someone who used to be involved in one of the mafia gangs in town, which the man who moves back to his hometown didn't know about when growing up since his parents prevented him from knowing about and seeing this activity. Two people involved in one of the gangs end up living with the man who moves back to his hometown in the apartment above the store since the storeowner was involved in their gang. One of these people is a girl that ends up falling in love with the man, which is the reason he gets involved in the mafia gangs this time around that results in a life of moving around in town a lot. The man wants to save the girl from a life of killing people and her boss agrees to let them both leave town together eventually after seeing that the girl would rather continue her life with the man she loves than her life of killing people. However, this ends up happening in a different way (I think she ends up killing the man she loves and leaves without him - the ending is kind of confusing).

7.  Reflect on the manga

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

I think the main thing to get out of this manga is the metaphor of the scorpion and the frog used to explain the relationship between the girl and everyone she kills, including the man she loves (I guess this is how I can make sense of the ending). When this metaphor is first used in the manga, it tells the story of a scorpion who needs the help of a frog to get somewhere by water since it can't swim. The frog doesn't want to help the scorpion at first since the frog thinks the scorpion will sting him, but the scorpion assures the frog he wouldn't do that since he would die too if he stung the frog. However, the scorpion does end up stinging the frog while they are on the water since it's in the scorpion's nature to sting others. Things aren't what they always seem to be because of what two different people, represented by what the scorpion, or girl, and the frog, or the man the girl loves, think based on their age and experience.

8. Final Prayer

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

Let us pray for the frogs and scorpions in our lives as a way to understand others and what they do.