Anime Lectio: The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

                                                             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 change?  Usually, the change meant with the question refers to adapting to what you are doing or letting what you are doing and experiencing while you are doing what you are doing, whether that be by choice or not, change you internally.  Externally, change usually happens over time in terms of your body growing and changing in usual ways.  For animals, including humans, this external change is sometimes referred to as evolution, but what happens when a human changes externally in unexcepted ways?  The answer to this question can be seen in the anime series The Unwanted Undead Adventurer.  

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 an adventurer is killed by a dragon in a new secret area of dungeon that he usually explores, he discovers that he wasn't killed by the dragon, but left as a living skeleton.  As a living skeleton, he discovers that not only can he still fight, but as a result of this, he can evolve in a way that changes his physical appearance, which also influences his abilities.  With the help of a friend who's interested in what's happening to this adventurer, as well as other kinds of magic-related research, he learns more about what is happening with him now, including the fact that his evolution is known as existential evolution.  The adventurer, despite eventually gaining the form of an undead, still wants to be an adventurer, even though he has to start over as a new adventurer, which isn't really a problem for him since he really wants to be an adventurer anyway.  After several adventures in his new form, with the help of new and old friends, he decides to start an adventure to look for the adventurer who influenced him to be an adventurer himself.  

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 most about the anime series The Unwanted Undead Adventurer is the concept of existential evolution. The word 'existential' is usually not seen in front of the word 'evolution,' so what makes existential evolution different from regular evolution? In the anime series The Unwanted Undead Adventurer, the only experience of existential evolution can be seen in the one character who was a human before he starts life again as a living skeleton as a result of an encounter with a dragon. He does evolve like how other animals evolve in terms of changing their form, but I'm guessing that what makes this evolution existential, and different from the evolution of other animals, is that the changing in existential evolution involves changes that only humans can experience and changes in what you become in terms of evolving into something completely different. An example of existential evolution is going from a living skeleton to an undead. Hopefully, we can see more examples of such evolution in a second season (and maybe others too), but for now, in addition to the examples of existential evolution in the first season, we also have examples of other kinds of evolution in our own lives that we can think about and pray for.

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 think about and pray for everyone going through evolutions of any kind.