Anime Lectio: My Oni Girl

                                                             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 happens to you when you keep your emotions and feelings to yourself?  Expressing your feelings and emotions can be done through forms of expression like writing, which is what I like to do, art (painting, drawing, etc.), or music (playing and/or listening to it), but talking with people about your feelings and emotions is the best way to express them.  Otherwise, your feelings and emotions can come out in harmful ways.  An interesting example of this can be seen in the anime movie My Oni Girl.  

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.

A boy who can't say no to anyone, despite what he really thinks, ends up helping an oni, or demon, girl find her mother.  In the process of doing this, the boy runs away from home with her.  The boy's father goes looking for him since he thinks the boy ran away as a result of an argument they had.  The actual reason that the boy and girl ran away is because they are being chased by snow god creatures that protect the village that the girl is from in order to keep it hidden from humans (humans usually can't see oni, unless they look human, but the boy can).  The boy also learns that when he keeps his feelings and emotions to himself, it can transform him into an oni, which eventually happens when a snow god captures him and they end up in the oni village (sometimes little oni spirits come out of him when he keeps his feelings and emotions to himself).  After a series of events at the oni village, the boy and girl learn more about themselves.  This causes the boy to go back to being human and not keep his feelings and emotions to himself anymore, like with his dad who he goes back home with.  As for the girl, she decides to stay in the oni village with her parents until she leaves to find the boy again for some reason (the movie ends with her finding him again).

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.

People don't literally turn into demons when they keep their emotions and feelings to themselves, or have little demon spirits come out of them when they do this, but they can feel like different people, or figurative demons, when they do that. Expressing your emotions and feelings in ways that don't involve directly talking with people about them is helpful, but not entirely. Only doing this indirectly can mostly help other people instead of yourself, which is seen in the anime movie when the boy helps other people, like the girl he meets, with their problems. It's only by the end of this movie that the boy is able to directly express his emotions and feelings to others after learning more about himself from other people, particularly the girl he spent time helping since in the process of him helping her, she also helps him.

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 learn to directly express ourselves by letting people help us instead of us just helping them.