This past Saturday, ten of gathered from across the anime fandom came together to discuss episode one of Haibane Renmei online through Google Hangouts. The diverse group brought a lot of great discussion to the table about Christian and other religious themes from the episodes! Here are some of the highlights:
- We did introductions as I shared a little bit about myself and the study and each of us shared a little about ourselves as well.
- We gave our initial thoughts about the series. Many had not seen it before and the general consensus seemed to be that the first episode was good.
- I mentioned the idea that breaking free from the cocoon could represent being born-again for Christians, referencing John 3:1-4
- Discussing Rakka’s dream, some of us mentioned personal dreams of some significance.
- We described how angels are typically represented in media, how the Bible shows them, and even how they’re shown in Evangelion!
- The group talked about the haibane’s acceptance of Rakka and shared about our own experiences with church and other places of worship, including the importance of hospitality.
- Finally, we emphasized Reki’s servanthood in helping Rakka with her wings. There was comparison to Jesus washing feet.
- We ended the evening with sharing time and prayer requests.
As you’ll notice, the meeting has both a teaching and sharing component. We hope to grow to understand more about God and grow spiritually through discussing this noted anime. We also hope to bond and learn more about each other and support one another through sharing.
We’ll continue to meet each week during the summer, with a few exceptions. If you’re interested in joining, please leave some sort of contact information below and I’ll get back to you with further details. We hope to see you sometime!
Thanks for the summary! I look forward to being there next week!
Do you still do this kind of thing, or it was just a one time gathering? I was actually pondering the idea of doing something similar, where we could get together and chat about faith topics that go around anime/video games (my topic 🙂 and pray for Japan, needs of the group, and any other thing we can pray about in regards to the anime industry (or anything similar to that industry).
This was a weekly small group we did last summer. I’m no longer doing it, but JP, one of the writers here (he actually prepared a lot of notes over the series that I used extensively for my small group) did an in-person version of it at his college last year as well.
Ohh very cool. I had actually thought about doing that, and then I saw you had already did it lol. Would have loved to be a part of it when it happened, but glad you guys got it done. Let me know please if you guys decide to do something similar in the future.
I don’t think I’ll be doing it again, due to time constraints, but I’ll certainly mention it here if I do.