Gabriel DropOut

1 comment on Hacker News

1. NeutralkrappApr 21, 2018

   > If anything, anime is notorious for making any Christian in it a distaff version of shinto, just glammed up; TV Tropes has the trope "All nuns are mikos" to show it. (2)

   Also see "Anime Catholicism[0]."

   But then again, how many accurate portrayals of Eastern religions do you find in popular Western tv and film? It's usually vague mysticism and dragon talismans and nonsense.

   I don't think your comment and the parent's necessarily disagree. It's entirely possible that Japan's view of Christianity in general has changed in the intervening centuries, or is more complex than one or the other. I'm reminded of the story that Hideaki Anno added the Christian symbolism to Neon Genesis Evangelion because of it's "exotic" appeal, and only recently there was a moe-blob slice of life anime about Christian archangels and demons hanging out in modern Japan (Gabriel Dropout.)

   And while not all anime portrays Christianity accurately, they also don't do Shinto or Buddhism correctly either, just more so because they're more familiar with those religions. There aren't a lot of actual mikos running around slaying demons and aliens, after all. And some modern writers do put in a surprising amount of research into Western religion and mythology, although it is true that, in most cases, they don't care about accuracy.

   [0]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimeCatholicism