Anime Lectio: The Boy and the Heron

                                                             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 does it mean to accept yourself?  It usually involves saying one thing, but doing another, which isn't always hypocrisy, but more like the idea of 'easier said than done.'  Accepting yourself also involves liking yourself for who you are, not comparing yourself to others, and getting used to what's happening around you, even if you don't like it.  An example of accepting yourself can be seen in the anime movie The Boy and the Heron.

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.

After a tragic accident due to war leads to the death of his mother, a young boy ends up living in the house of his new mother. On his way to this new house, the young boy has strange encounters with a nearby heron, which only increase when he settles in. In addition to having older women help out at this new house, there's also a strange tower near it that the boy is warned to not go into, even though he tries to anyway. Despite the fact that he's not exactly crazy about his new mother, as well as about the situation he's in now due to where he currently lives, he decides to go into the forest where the strange tower is in order to find her. This leads to crazy adventures with a heron who claims he can get his mother back, but after enough crazy adventures, he decides to accept his new life.

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.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting what I actually got out of this movie before seeing it. Before getting a chance to see it for myself recently in theaters (this was my first time seeing an anime movie in theaters), which is still difficult to do despite the awards this film received recently, I read several things about it that seem to be different from what I was expecting. I never read the book How do you Live? that this movie is supposedly based on, and is even brought up in the movie, but I don't think I need to read it to understand what I got out of it.

There are two moments from the movie that really stood out to me. The first involves the boy giving himself a bad injury for seemingly no reason and lying about how it happened. He reveals later in the movie that the reason he gave himself a scar that resulted in that injury was to remind him of his own sinfulness. Accepting your own sinfulness is difficult and is part of accepting yourself since it's a part of you that you don't want. Reminding yourself of this with a physical scar on your body is a reminder of this difficulty, but acceptance is still important for everybody, even if you don't think it's important for yourself.

As I mentioned earlier, it's also difficult to accept a new situation, especially one you don't like, which is seen in an earlier moment in the movie when the boy thanks his new mother for something by referring to her as ma'am. Interestingly enough, this moment happens before the boy gives himself the scar that reminds him of his own sinfulness. Is not being able to accept new things part of his sinfulness? Is this why, or at least part of the reason, why he hurt himself and lied about it? All of this may seem like an unusual interpretation of this movie and there could be more to it than what I say here, but acceptance (accepting yourself, what's happening, etc.) is definitely part of it.

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 accept ourselves for who we are, as well as accept what happens around us, especially what we can't control, what we can control, and knowing the difference.