Anime Lectio: An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride

                                                            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. 

Many people do crazy/interesting things when they feel like they want to for some reason.  For example, there's a parable, or story, in the Bible that Jesus tells people about a man finding treasure in a field and sells all he has to buy that field (Matthew 13:44). Even in this example, the feeling isn't known, which isn't important in a sense, but what is important is the motivation behind what isn't known. In this example, the motivation for what the man in the given parable does is to acquire the kingdom of heaven, or something important, at all costs. Another example of something like this can be seen in the anime series An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride.

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 two archdemon's end up going to an auction for items that a deceased archdemon owned, one of the archdemon's ends up spending everything that he has, or most of what he has (the point is that it's a lot) to buy the female elf the deceased archdemon kept as a slave.  He doesn't really understand why he did this, but he knows he wants to have her as someone to be with, since he doesn't have that, not to kill or experiment on her, which is what she initially thinks is the reason why he bought her and doesn't know why else he would buy her either.  In the process of understanding each other, they learn a lot about each other, mainly about how they feel about each other, which also involves other characters with some becoming like family to them, these characters understanding their differences, and the difficulties/challenges that result in these differences and not understanding them properly.

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.

It's obvious that love is the motivation in this anime series for why an archdemon would spend all he is, or most/a lot of what he has, to buy a female slave. When he sees her for the first time, it looked like he literally fell in love at first sight, even if he didn't understand why. I guess the same thing can be said of the other example that I used in the reflection before the brief and written explanation of the anime of a man who sells everything he has in order to buy a field with important treasure in it. In this example, the important treasure is the kingdom of heaven, which is a place that requires doing everything that you need to do in order to get it, so it's more like a metaphor for saying how important it is to get into heaven. In the example of the anime series, the important treasure is another person and is actually acquired by money. In both examples, love is, or at least should be, the motivation for what is acquired, whether that be another person or a place. Even if this love isn't really understood, which shouldn't be really understood because if you could really understand it, then it wouldn't be love (real love is a mystery worth thinking about/meditating on), it's a source of motivation.

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 love as a source of motivation and that understanding it completely is something that we cannot do since love is a mystery, which is a mystery worth thinking about/meditating on.