Anime Lectio: Mashle: Muscles and Magic Seasons One and Two

                                                           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. 

What makes us different isn't a bad thing, but it can be treated as if it were a bad thing.  If everyone was able to do the same thing based on having the same abilities, then the world would be a boring/not as interesting place.  However, it would be easier to control in the sense of knowing what everyone could do and doing something about what is different.  An interesting example of this can be seen in the first two seasons of the anime series Mashle: Muscles and Magic.

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 Mashle: Muscles and Magic starts off with an older man living out in the woods with his adopted son, the main character. While the older man has some magic, but not enough to be really powerful, his adopted son doesn't have magic at all, but he more than makes up for it by working out a lot, which results in his crazy strength. Even though the older man warns his adopted son to not go into town since this world rejects people without magic, the adopted son goes into town anyway to buy cream puffs because he's obsessed with them. He gets caught by the police who track down where he lives with his adopted dad and they threaten him to get to his adopted son, who shows up and easily defeats them because his strength is more powerful than their magic. The adopted son is then told if he can become the best student at the nearby magic academy, then he won't get in trouble for not having magic and his adopted dad will be safe for caring for him, which he accepts and manages to do so far, despite not having magic in order to protect his adopted dad.

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.

What interests me about the beginning of the anime series Mashle: Muscles and Magic is that even though the main character without magic is stronger than most characters with magic, including the evil characters he fights with his friends, he is still treated differently when everyone at the magic academy discovers he has no magic by the end of the 1st season/cour. It's as if the main character's strength is a bad thing if he has no magic, even though he mostly used his strength to help people. There are some moments where he uses his strength to do bad things, but these bad things aren't evil and are usually due to his personality and the fact that this is a comedy series. It's not supposed to make sense, but there are moments in the series that make you think about what this world is like based on treating people differently. In the case of this anime series, treating people differently has to do with having magic or not. How do we treat people differently?

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 how we treat people differently in order to understand why we are doing that.