Anime Lectio: Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf

                                                            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. 

There's a Native American (Cherokee) story/legend about an inner battle between two wolves that symbolizes inner conflict.  The story/legend starts with a grandfather or elder telling a young person that there's a good wolf, representing things like love, compassion, and understanding, and an evil one, representing things like selfishness, cruelty, and fear, fighting within each person.  When the young person asks the elder which wolf wins the internal fight, the elder responds by saying that the one who wins is the one you feed.  An example of how this internal fight can be seen externally can be seen in the series Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf.  

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 martial artist training under a master to learn a certain style of martial arts kills the intruder who physically assaulted his master's daughter, he runs away, thinking the daughter was scared by what he did and that he would get in trouble for what he did.  When he's not on the run from a certain cop who's looking for him, he lives with a monk who trains him to control himself while fighting.  After this combination of being on the run and training to control himself while fighting, which involves situations where he has to rely on his fighting, he ends up involving himself in a fighting tournament to win back his master's respect.  This ultimately doesn't happen (at least not in the way he expected to do it by winning the tournament/beating a certain opponent - it's not clear what ultimately does happen actually). 

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.

The Native American story/legend about the inner battle between two wolves is a good way to symbolize inner conflict. There are many ways of martial arts in terms of fighting styles, but the way that all martial artists should learn is the way to control the conflict within them. Using your martial art(s) for evil lets your negative/evil emotions get the better of you, leading you to use your martial art(s) for the wrong reasons, while using your martial art(s) for good lets your positive/good emotions get the better of you, leading you to use your martial art(s) for the right reasons. How you use your martial art(s), or anything you have for that matter, depends on how you want to influence the inner conflict inside of you and how this is seen is by what you want to do.

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 control the two wolves inside of us, or our inner conflict, in order to help us deal with our outer conflicts.