Anime Lectio: One Piece Fan Letter

                                                          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. 

One Piece is an anime that I tried to get into around the time it started, but after about a hundred episodes, I got tired of it.  Several years later, I started teaching anime classes where I work and part of the grade for the classes was to do a presentation on an anime based on what students wanted to present.  One student decided to do his presentation on the anime One Piece and since the presentation included showing videos of the anime being presented, I looked up videos for the student to focus on since at the time there was a lot more to talk about with the anime.  Due to doing this, I got into One Piece again, but this time by just following the story to see where it was, and still is, going instead of watching it.  Whether you like it or not, there's no denying the influence and impact of the series One Piece.  Besides reading more about this in the chapter about One Piece in the book Anime Impact, this can also be seen in the much shorter series One Piece Fan Letter.

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.

Taking place in the One Piece universe during one of the most critical times of the series, One Piece Fan Letter focuses on what one girl, as well as other people, think of the pirate crew known as the Straw Hats due to their leader/captain almost always wearing a certain straw hat.  Determined to find this pirate crew, particularly one of the members that she happens to look like, the one girl will stop at nothing to get her fan letter to one of the members of this pirate crew, despite opposition, like from the Marines, the group that tries to stop pirates, that she unknowingly ruins plans of in one of their attempts to stop the pirate crew that she's also looking for.  However, seeing that this pirate crew is okay is enough for her in the end.

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 only reason I don't watch One Piece is because I think it's too long, which also explains why I think it takes too long to get to the point, even though I also think that the story as a whole is the point since journeys tend to take a long time. I personally prefer anime that aren't very long like One Piece, but I do think it's at least worth knowing about. And not just because of it's influence and impact, both in our universe (Anime Impact chapter about One Piece) and the universe of One Piece, which is what this anime focuses on by giving background characters more of the screen time. What also interests me about the series One Piece is that those who are good and those who are bad isn't exactly easy to determine. The Marines, the group known for trying to get rid of the bad pirates, aren't exactly good themselves. As a whole, what they do is good, or at least try to do what they think is good, but individually, they have their own feelings of what they are doing, as well as why. The pirates don't necessarily do what is good or bad either, but whatever they want to do, which is good or bad depending on other people like the Marines. Anyway, whatever you may think of this series, or any other series (or anything else too), it's impact and influence is important for what it does, which is true of anything since everything has a positive or negative influence and impact.

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 see the negative and positive influence and impact of what we can see, like the series One Piece and the other series One Piece Fan Letter.