Anime Lectio: The Dangers in My Heart Season 1

                                                             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. 

Getting to know what someone is really like requires taking the time to talk with them and spend time with them.  You may feel a certain way about this someone based on what you see them doing from a distance, judge them based on their appearance and what they do from a distance, and how you react to what you see.  However, seeing like this isn't really knowing.  An example of this can be seen in the anime series The Dangers in My Heart.

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 The Dangers in My Heart starts off with a boy who doesn't have any friends since he isolates himself by reading books about murder, which causes him to think about it a lot. There's a female classmate of his that he thinks about killing because what he sees with her annoys him. However, after stalking the girl for a while, which backfires because she eventually catches on to what he's doing, they become friends and spend more time together with her friends, other classmates, and/or on their own, either with or without each other. After spending time doing this, which involves the two thinking about what's going on, a friendship between the boy and girl is established.

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.

The anime series The Dangers in My Heart is getting a second season next year. This second season will most likely continue the friendship between the boy and the girl and develop it into more than just a friendship with a romantic relationship between them (most likely more about that in a future post after the second season is done since I think about this anime, specifically the second season, a lot). I really think having a friendship with the girl is enough for the boy since the last episode of the first season reveals that the boy used to have friends, but the friends went to a different school and the boy didn't want to make new friends, at least not right away. For a while, the boy was content with isolating himself and thinking things based on what he saw around him and thought about it. When he tries to see more of what one of his female classmates does in order to think more about her in terms of getting rid of her, he instead ends up starting a friendship with her. He may not have consciously wanted this, but unconsciously, he may have wanted to have a new friend again, which leads to him having other friends too, like her friends. Friendship is something that we all need, even if we don't need it as much as others, meaning we all need it, but in different ways. We don't need romantic relationships, but we do need friendships.

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 the friendships that we do have, as well as the ones we did have, and for those who don't have friends.