Anime Lectio: I Parry Everything

                                                            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. 

Being good at one thing can be helpful if you are only needed for the one thing that you are good at.  While other minor skills you have may be helpful to make your main skill better, these minor skills that people can't see only contribute to the major skill that people do see.  For example, someone whose major skill is writing (don't mean myself here, but I like to think I could be an example of this) is a skill that people can see, but most people don't see the other skills that go into this major skill, like focus, hard work, and thoughtfulness.  Another example of this can be seen in the series I Parry Everything. 

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 young boy decides to learn how to become an adventurer after trying to continue to live a simple life he had with his parents after they died.  Despite failing at every school for adventurers that he tries, even though he works hard at each one, he doesn't give up on wanting to become an adventurer, which his parents told him stories about when they were still alive.  With this in mind, he works on his skill of parrying a sword for twenty years, even though he has managed to learn other skills at the other adventurer schools.  With this perfected skill, sometimes strengthened with the help of his other skills, he can literally parry everything, which the kingdom he lives in takes advantage of after this young boy (now an adult) ends up saving the princess of the kingdom with this skill.  Despite what he can do, this young boy as an adult just likes helping people, which he doesn't just do for the kingdom that he is part, but also the people outside the kingdom who help him and/or he comes across.

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.

I Parry Everything isn't just a series about a guy who literally fights all of his enemies by blocking their attacks, which can lead to attacking, but also about the same guy who parries things like humility and common sense. A big part of what happens in the series is that he doesn't really know or understand what he does, but that he just likes doing it and that he does things without really thinking about them. What helps him do all of this is his major skill of parrying everything with the support of his other skills when needed. Doing that with whatever our major and minor skills are can help us with whatever we want to do too.

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 use our major and minor skills, whatever they are, to help others with what we want and/or need to do (pray to know and understand what our skills are too).