Anime Lectio: My Clueless First Friend

                                                           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. 

They say that ignorance is bliss, but what about cluelessness?  Ignorance isn't real bliss since with ignorance you're just ignoring, or not paying attention to/being aware of, problems that you shouldn't be ignoring and focusing on what makes you happy instead.  It's one thing to know about problems and not do anything about them besides not dealing with them by ignoring them.  It's quite another to not know about these problems, or even think of the problems as good things, by being clueless about them.  An interesting example of such cluelessness can be seen in the anime series My Clueless First Friend.  

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 My Clueless First Friend starts off with a girl who is teased by her classmates for looking like the grim reaper, which is why all her classmates avoid her and even think she's cursed, except for a new transfer student. This new transfer student isn't just clueless about the girl because he's new to the class, but also because he likes her because of her supposed grim reaper status. This is due to his clueless nature, which irritates some of his other classmates when they try to tease him for being friends with the grim reaper. This teasing usually backfires because of his clueless nature, which also leads to him not only getting to know the girl, but also to liking her a lot and helping her get more friends who also get to know what she's really like by also spending time with her.

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.

Whenever you have a clueless main character in anime, which is actually quite common, their cluelessness is usually aggravating. I think this cluelessness is more like ignorance since these main characters tend to mainly be interested in what they want and ignore whatever they aren't interested in in order to focus on what they want. The main character in the anime series My Clueless First Friend is definitely clueless in a good way. Not only does he think being the grim reaper is awesome and that he'll get some of the grim reaper's powers by hanging out with her, but he also likes hanging out with her and liking her a lot because of it, which he lets everyone know about a lot, even to the point of embarrassing her a lot since she's not used to such treatment. This cluelessness leads to a relationship between them (most likely the romantic kind, not just the friendship kind) and also improves her relationships with others, like her dad, some of her classmates, and the clueless first friend's family. Anime that focuses on romance shouldn't just be about seeing two characters getting in a romantic relationship, but also seeing what the romantic relationship does for other characters (I've seen several other such anime this season - I plan to write about each one separately since I like to emphasize the differences between them). Anyway, cluelessness can be a good thing depending on how it's seen. Is it cluelessness? Or is it ignorance?

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 see the differences in cluelessness and ignorance in not only others, but also ourselves.