Religion and Anime.... Never the two shall meet.

   This goes from Weird to weirder folks. I was searching the web for something specific one day,  Card Captor Sakura children's Costumes, and I came across this site. The site had nothing to do with what I was actually searching for but because of the topics I read I thought I'd have a look-see. Well the site is heavily toned for the religious Christians. I am Christian myself so don't get me wrong but sometimes there is a such thing as taking your religion a little too far.

   Below is an excerpt from a mother worried about her children in reference to watching various anime and posting a letter to the site creator about it and his response is listed below that.. I would like to touch on this subject and I will e-mail this to him but seeing as he is behind by 2 months of e-mail. It's hard to know when my response will show up. O_0 I thought it would be nice to post it here instead.

From a concerned mother: I have been concerned about Pokemon and especially Dragonball Z that my children have watched and collected. I was given an article that had your web site. Tonight I asked my 3 oldest children to pray about what to do. One child said that they had also thought it was evil, and would quit. I encouraged him to pray tonight. My oldest son said that since he knows that it is just fantasy he should be able to still watch and look up on the web about it. I asked him to pray, he wanted to keep on at me about it.

My daughter likes Sailor Moon, and I even encouraged her, it didn't seem as bad as the Dragonball. But my boys told me that on the web they had found out that in Japan, Sailor Moon is a cartoon with naked women, (porn) I was upset. Tonight when I asked them to pray and discussed it, they told me that Dragonball was also naked in Japan. I am going to check on this tonight. I feel convicted to find something to replace this ungodly aspect of my childrens lives. I am only saddened because my oldest said that he would just ask his Dad to tape it for him. (We are divorced.) His Dad has also just informed me that Grandma would be buying the entire Harry Potter series for this son. Thank you for the site and the comments that helped me be strong and stand up for what I know is right.

Berit's response: What a hard place your are in -- but I'm also confident that our God will all the more demonstrate His love and faithfulness to you. He has promised it to all who follow Him! "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness," He tells us in 2 Cor. 12:9-10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next letter from the same mother: I asked the children this morning about their prayers. My oldest said he forgot to pray but he thought about it. We discussed that. He finally confessed that he knew what God wanted but he didn't want to do it. He said that he would loose all his friends if he didn't watch Dragon Ball. It was a good conversation and the other children joined in. Because their Dad does not see a problem with these things they all told me that when they are at Dad's he would let them watch, and even play murder games on the Nintendo. I am praying all the time about this.

I know that God loves my children and will help them with this. I was encouraged by the childrens responses and we are on a road to more Godly living. I even used your list of questions and scriptures that were in your article. Thank you. It was very helpful to read Eph. 5 and Phil. 4 and ask the children what that means when it comes to Pokemon or Dragon Ball. My oldest really wants to deny what God has shown him, he is so very angry about the divorce and blames God right now. But he does know what is right and when it is so plain in the Bible, then he listens. Thanks again.

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From: Roberta Cira (Re: pokemon and anime): Thank you for your research. I searched the internet for hours and found nothing to support my "pokemon doubts." A friend gave me your web address the same day that I started reading a book by Chuck Pierce about ridding your home of spiritual darkness! Anyhow, I wanted to mention something that I didn't see in any of the other comments, and it has to do with anime (Japanese animation) in general.

Are you aware that there are adult anime videos that deal with violence and sex? They look exactly like the pokemon animation - same genre - but they are adult. I caught a news program about anime pornography and how the Japanese are going crazy over it! They showed a tape of Japanese men at a magazine counter pouring over animated pornography! All I could think of was how the children who are so desensitized to this anime via pokemon and the cartoon would easily be tricked into looking at the adult videos and pornography; what a slick plan of the enemy! My idea was confirmed when we went to the video store recently and my 4 year old son saw one of the anime action videos and said, "There's pokemon! I want that one!" I picked it up and it was clearly labeled "for mature audiences" and this was in a family video store. The women on the cover all held weapons and were scantily clad; of course they had unearthly bodies. I don't like this anime stuff at all. It is ugly and it gives me the creeps. The bottom line, though, is that our kids learn discernment - now it's pokemon, but tomorrow the devil will try something else.

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From a concerned mother: I homeschool my 5 children . . . . I sadly let my children get a little involved in Pokemon. It began at VBS of all places.... I was also sick that week and when I brought them home each day I went to bed to sleep. They began watching the program while I napped.

I do not care for the Asian cartoon style but could not put my finger on what was wrong with the program. I did not know there was a game also. I told my children I would not buy them one thing of Pokemon. Other children gave them cards.

Tonight I did a on-line search on [note from Berit: I am purposely leaving these words out in order not to give any clues for children who might want to explore these awful sites that showed up on her search] … I had to tip toe around site because they were all PORN SITES. I could not really look into it but it looks like cartoon porn. I do not know if this is something you should pursue, but I wanted it known.

Who would have thought that one of these sites would have a FAQ. What it said was... Anime is japanese animation (cartoons) and Manga is japanese comics. [Deleted word] is defined as:- Abnormality. Sexual perversion. Used also to describe a certain class of anime or otaku (as in "H-Anime"). Lit. "Change of State", two Kanji.

This is big business in Japan. They are on the internet censored and people use software to uncensored them. (blurring of body parts removed). To me it looks like the artists are making clean versions and dirty versions.

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From Terri (Concerning the absence of specific information on links to Japanese anime porn in same genre as Pokemon): All that to say "Yes! yes!" Your comments and appropriate deletions are right on target. Enough to give us the truth and present the danger--I don't want the blanks filled in. Thanks!

About a year ago I checked out a new Focus on the Family on-line magazine. It was targeted to older teens/college age youth and dealt with controversial issues. Although I appreciated the expose of Lillith, it described some of the scenes so well that I had a mental picture I did not want. The article went too far. I want my teenagers to be exposed to issues that are "out there" and know the Biblical response. I could not do that via the FOF site.

By the way, I wrote a summary of the Pokemon issue to the parents of our church (and included printouts of your article for those not on the internet). I discovered that Wizards of the Coast is the maker of the Pokemon trading cards. Wizards is the official card trading game site and sports Nintendo's official license. One click more, and a child on that site has direct access to D&D and the Magic game. In my investigation I saw the term anime, but didn't realize what that was. I will caution parents when I speak with them.

http://www.crossroad.to/text/responses/Anime1.htm