Christianity in Anime

      As with much cultural media that comes from overseas, some of the content that is displayed in these works can be deemed to be offensive in other countries. A classic example of this is from the anime Space Battleship Yamato, renamed Star Blazers when it came to America due to the fact that the battleship Yamato was obviously named after the Japanese battleship used in World War Two. This whole adaptation can be seen in many other countries that participated in the war, such as Italy (part of the Axis) and France (who was the first to surrender, rather quickly I might add) titled the anime “La Corazzata Spaziale Yamato” and “Yamato, le Cuirassé de l’Espace” respectively. However Spain titled it’s anime version “Estrellas Luminosas”. So censorship in order to prevent cultural problems has appeared in times previously. Now however, with greater connection between Japan and the U.S. less is being censored from foreign releases. So now we get into the main topic. There are few anime out there that have strong Christian themes such as Neon Genesis Evangelion but there are many different anime that only use them as a base or small theme such as Hellsing or other vampire anime. The latter seems to be becoming more popular with some anime and manga having angels who are obviously based (and sometimes even named) after biblical angels, and also includes devils, but the devils can often be the good guys, only in anime. Or even the more subtle references such as having a moe nun (1/2 lbs. Gospel) or having a church be a focal point in the story, although it has become an orphanage ( Ef ~ A Tale of Melodies).

     Obviously with such information exchange as we have today we aren’t going to get much if any extremist religion in anime, but it still appears readily enough in anime and manga aimed for children and young adults where it is not the focal point in itself, it is just a base to build the rest of the story upon. For example Hellsing the cross is used as a weapon against the vampires but I doubt many crosses appear in the recent vampire love novels that have been flooding the shelves. In this way people may argue that it is because Japan does not have a strong Christian base, and while this may be true as only 2.0% of Japanese are Christian, in the information age countries must be very careful about what they release knowing that other countries will see it. The Japanese do not shy away from the Shinto beliefs that their country was based upon either, featuring them much more prominently than Christianity. So Japan is relatively open to displaying religions in a not so good/pure light (moe, ecchi, hentai, bad guys, world destruction just to name a few from anime.), and how does that effect which anime move over to the U.S.? In the end not much it seems. Anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion was still a huge hit in the U.S., the anime A Certain Magical Index and Blue Exorcist was licensed and released by FUNimation, Wolfwood the gunslinging priest still captured the hearts of more fans and fangirls during the Trigun: Badlands Rumble, and other instances where anime that danced along the fine line of insulting Christianity have been accepted. And we all know that somewhere in the house we have a body pillow with a moe nun on it, right?

Sincerely,