Anime Lectio: 'Tis Time for Torture Princess

                                                           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. 

Torture is subjective.  What may work as a form of torture on one person may not work on another.  It depends on many things, like who does the torturing, why they do it, and what happens as a result of it.  It can also change and/or increase over time due to what happens, like getting more out of the torture victim because more is needed.  An interesting example of this can be seen in the anime series 'Tis Time for Torture Princess. 

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.

When a princess's army that she leads is attacked during a fight, she fights to save her army.  Despite her impressive combat skills, she's captured by the enemy and put in their dungeon/jail to undergo torture in order to get secrets of how to defeat her forces.  The first torture session seems to be something severe, like the usual kind of torture that involves physical pain, but the torture actually ends up being able to resist doing something enjoyable.  Not only can the princess not beat this torture, despite help to resist it from her sentient sword, and keep a secret to herself, but she can't resist any of the other tortures that are like the first one when they need more secrets from her due to each one not being good enough for the Demon King for various reasons.  Through this process, the princess actually befriends her torturers and they do things together besides torturing the princess.

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.

Most people expect torture to involve some sort of physical pain. However, the anime series 'Tis Time for Torture Princess not only shows that torture doesn't have to involve some sort of physical pain, but that it really is subjective in the eyes of the torturers, meaning torture is really up to the torturers. Only one person, for the most part, is tortured throughout the series and even when it isn't just the one person being tortured, the choice of torture is something psychological, like not being able to do and enjoy something while watching someone else do it. Even if you say you don't want to do it, watching someone else do what you say you don't want to do can influence you to actually do it. Even though this series is a comedy, and does a lot of other things besides show interesting examples of torture, torture is still something that should be taken seriously, no matter what it is.

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 what tortures us and be able to resist this torture, as well as others, or learn from it if we can't resist it.