D.M. Dutcher's Blog, page 8

Blog Housekeeping

Minor change: any articles that are older than 14 days will have comments turned off. I’ve been getting a lot of spam comments on them that the filter doesn’t pick up, and it gets a little annoying to keep filtering them manually. The spam in general is ridiculous. I’ve been blogging for 3-4 years, and the blog’s had over 45,000 spam comments filtered out, with only a tiny fraction making it past the filter to be consigned to the spam bin manually.

Hopefully I can do this for a few months and reactivate them later. I don’t see it being too much of an issue, but if you ever want to talk about an old post feel free to comment about it on a current one.

Around My Neck, In My Pocket

I came across Canon purely by accident, as I browsed in the library between classes. Our library has a small selection of older manga, and the first two volumes of the series were here. I was surprised to see an interesting shoujo manga with some Christian-friendly themes.

Canon is a girl who’s suffered more of her share of tragedy. She grew up sickly due to an incurable disease, but it only gets worse. One day a silver-haired vampire killed every single person in her class but her, choosing instead to transform her into a demi-vampire. You see, humans turned into vampires are more like ghouls or thralls than real vampires. While both suck blood and have fangs, the human servants are much weaker and are bound to the person that made them. With a vampiric crow as her sidekick, Canon vows to find the silver-haired vampire and kill him.

It gets complicated when another full vampire shows up, one who likes Canon and wants to aid her in her quest. But there are secrets within secrets, and Canon will soon realize nothing can be trusted, not even her own memories.

It’s a well-drawn and engaging manga. Canon is a good character, and the twists and turns are interesting. It’s not too fluffy, yet it’s more sober than something like Vampire Knight, and with less of the modern focus on manservice in shoujo that we see. Canon’s struggle with her nature and her attempts to free others from their curses by removing the vampire blood inside of them is a nice change from the usual hawt vampire motif, and they keep the angst down to a reasonable level. Violence too is kept at a reasonable level. No Blood C here!

The Christian friendly themes surround her fight to control her nature. As soon as she was turned, the hunger for blood assailed her. She keeps it in check by the crucifix she wears around her neck, one given to her by a foreigner who saw her in trouble. That cross gives her the power “to be the you that you want to be,” as he says to her, and symbolizes her humanity. It also symbolizes her mercy to others, as she always tries to save those under the control of vampire blood, and refuses to allow her protector to kill others for her sake. Very much symbolic of sin nature and the need for faith as the basis of resisting inner evil.

However, soon the truth comes out about what really happened that long day ago when she lost her class, and the betrayal is too much to bear. She rips the cross off her neck in sorrow. Her mercy is now transformed into vengeance, and she tells others that she will no longer hold back against the one who she now must kill. But one of the last panels in volume two is of her reaching into her pocket and holding the cross inside. Her humanity is not being discarded completely; the hope that the cross represents is still there.

When we lose faith, many times we are like this. There’s a lot of bad talk about the nature of doubt, loss of faith, and difficulty. Too often we think faith is simply a binary condition that works like a light switch; on or off. No other distinctions. I think sometimes we go a little too far when we talk about this. We do have examples of people in the Bible and verses that indicate faith can be a struggle and not as simple.

I think of John, who ran away so quickly that he lost his night garments and fled naked. Or Peter, denying him three times. Or the person crying out “Lord, I believe! Help me with my unbelief!” Or I remember Jesus saying in John 6:39:

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

I think that even if we doubt, we can at least cry out to God and have faith that He wants to lose none of us. I don’t think belief or nonbelief is solely our problem, and yet I also don’t believe God only saves an elect whom He wills. I think that by accepting Him, we become God-touched in a way. Even if we struggle and lose faith, somehow He is still there with us and always draws us to Him. We’ve been given to Him, and I don’t think He chooses to give us away.

I’m not saying it’s good to lose faith. It’s not. I’m just saying there is hope in God for when faith is lost, or we struggle with Him. It’s not entirely an either/or thing. There’s always a cross in our pocket when there isn’t one around our neck, and it’s a matter of reaching in, and wearing it again. And it’s stubbornly warm and heavy in that pocket, too. It wants to be worn, just as much as we want and need to wear it.

Canon is probably about a PG rating. Mature themes, some blood sprays, but very little explicit or graphic violence. Very, very wonderful female lead character who models courage and compassion.

Lost Under The Star Light

Crunchyroll Manga is one of the best-kept secrets in the anime/manga sphere. Add four bucks a month to your subscription fees, and you get full access to about twenty manga titles like Attack of Titan or in this case, Star Light Woman. Being bored one night I browsed through it, and became completely hooked on that series. Not only is it an interesting retelling of the Hulk myth, but it made me think about being lost in the world. Being estranged from it simply by who you are.

Hoshi is a young woman on the run. You see, she was abducted by aliens and experimented on in order to become a tool for their revolution against their oppressors. Unlike the other subjects, this succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and she’s become a super-powerful human on the level of She-Hulk. The aliens are desperate to recapture her, and chase her from part-time job to part-time job. Then they start throwing other experimental human subjects into the mix, including one teenage girl who has desperately latched on to her for her own sake. Can Hoshi remain free? Can she ever get rid of the powers that she hates? Can she return to a normal life?

If Zetta Karen Children reminded me of the X-men, this strongly reminds me of the Hulk. Both Hoshi and Bruce were given powers against their will due to an experiment, both are super-humanly strong and tough, and both long to do nothing more than to be normal and return to everyday life. Hoshi wanders from place to place homeless, very much like Banner did in the television series the Incredible Hulk. Hoshi doesn’t transform into another form, or is driven by uncontrollable rage, but instead the combination of the massive collateral damage whenever she fights and the aliens chasing her from place to place makes her unable to maintain any sort of stable existence. We first see her at a convenience store on the night shift, and after work sleeping in a makeshift structure leaking in the rain.

Her only desire is to be normal. And in time, others gather around her, other humans who have been experimented on and are discarded by the aliens. One is a telepath who can only sleep when Hoshi is around, due to hearing everyone else’s thoughts all the time. Another is a selfish teenage girl who was rescued by Hoshi inadvertently, and who desperately latches onto her because of her new-found feelings of gratitude and love. One of the striking things in the series is how broken everyone is despite their powers, and how they deal with it in an uncaring universe.

In a way, it can be seen as illustrating one of the big problems of atheism.

While there are creators in Star Light Woman’s universe (the aliens who gave them their powers) the creators have no love for or caring about the humans they use. They experiment upon humans in order to find ones with enough power to defeat their enemies, and if the power they gave doesn’t match up, they discard them. They don’t destroy them, but instead they throw them back into the normal world, no matter how much their powers may harm them. It’s sort of like natural selection in a way, but with the conceit of aliens doing it instead of a natural process. The end result is creating beings that are often completely estranged from the world they live in, and have little way to deal with normal life.

This is the role of humans in an atheistic universe.

Out of all the animals we are the only ones that are self-aware and capable of abstract thought. This makes us unique, and it makes us unable to be a part of natural life. The anime Arjuna had a striking point of this when it set its heroine into survival training into the woods. Humans are the only animals who don’t know what is safe to eat in the forest instinctively. There are many other ways we don’t belong, too. Star Light Woman just pushes this up by making certain humans unable to live normally due to experiments.

The lack of a caring God or creator is the second part. The aliens don’t care one way or the other about humanity. While they play a constant role in the manga, none of the attributes of a God are there for them, and they nakedly use whatever means they can to achieve their main goal-recapturing Hoshi. There was no purpose in selecting her over the other humans in the world, and nothing to her that caused her to get her powers; it was just chance, and now her life is forever changed. This is the dark edge of atheism that never seems to be explored much. A lot of people would argue for the freedom of atheism, but that freedom only favors people who have the power or ability to use it. If you’re like Hoshi, and don’t have such even with your powers as a human being, the universe can be incredibly cruel and empty. Atheism has always been a religion for winners; if you aren’t a winner, you wake up to find your one consolation kicked out from under you and the only answer is for you to better yourself. Very much like kicking the crutch out from under a man with a broken leg and telling him he now has the freedom to run marathons. The realization of the brokenness and estrangement of man in the universe is what makes Christianity so compelling.

These aspects combined make for a unique take on a western superhero story. It’s not “wow, I have powers!” It’s more “I have powers; I am no longer able to live the normal life of a human.” It’s telling that the one character who truly enjoyed her powers was a broken, narcissistic, teenage girl who was unable to feel a single thing before she met Hoshi, and who uses her powers at the will of the aliens to try and get Hoshi back. It’s unusual to have this kind of sadness and melancholy in a hero book, and that’s what makes Star Light Woman so interesting.

The manga itself is PG. No explicit violence beyond tearing the tentacles off of typical octopus-style cartoony aliens. Some mature themes. The big shortcoming of this manga is that it ends far too soon, at only fifteen chapters. The ending feels abrupt because of it, although it makes perfect sense. This is a series that really needed more time to explore its themes. The relationship between Hoshi and her stalker Madowa really was unique, and longed for some more pages. If you can get over that, Star Light Woman is a decent series to read.

Molten Jesus Vs. Science Team Ninjas!

I came across this unusual Science Ninja Team Gatchaman Episode recently. It’s called The Magma Giant, Emperor of Hell, and our five favorite bird-themed superheroes go up against a unique foe in it.

In an alternate version of America, a young sculptress is carrying on her father’s legacy of carving the face of Jesus into Mount Rushmore. She vows to finish it, and carve the likeness of the Virgin Mary besides him. Meanwhile, a research base working on an anti-pollution tool is attacked by a rather familiar-faced giant lava monster:

Yes, it’s Jesus. Apparently Galactor has set up base behind the Jesus face on Mount Rushmore, and is using the head as a basis to create its giant magma monster. It travels across the world through a series of networked caves linking volcanoes, and it successfully destroys the research station. The science ninja team arrives on the scene, and investigates the heart of the fiery volcano, only to be driven off by magma Jesus. After it retreating when it sees them by the water, the team wonders about them, leading Joe to realize he recognizes the face.

They link the magma monster to Mount Rushmore. Hurrying there, they encounter the sculptress, who denies she’s with Galactor. A brief battle ensues, with the Gatchaman wrecking the facility and destroying the monster once and for all by luring it to the ocean.

In the end, the sculptress vows to keep on carving, for the sake of peace.

This awakens a new fighting spirit in the hearts of the Gatchamen, and the episode ends.

It’s a brief episode, and surprisingly doesn’t make explicit any real symbolism or point. You could make a subtle point about the danger of grafting Christianity onto public government with this episode; it enables Galactor/evil people to sneak in, hollow it out, and use the Savior’s likeness for their own ends. However, the episode actually doesn’t make this point at all, and the girl continues to add Jesus and Mary to the mountain as a symbol of peace. Even a point about religion destroying beneficial science isn’t made; there’s no anti-religion tirade in the episode at all.

This makes it unusual, once you get past the absurdity of giant molten Jesus. The world has been so politicized that you naturally assume that any work of art concerning Christianity will have a political edge to it. This one really doesn’t. Of course, you need to be careful about reading too much into a 22 minute episode of seventies anime anyways, but there aren’t many works of art that just show Christianity as a natural part of the world, as opposed to either pushing for it or against it. Everything is political now, even the simple act of saying you’ll pray for someone.

One of the goals of my writing is to make Christianity seem natural like that. Not pushing for it, not arguing, but saying “Hey, belief in God and prayer is just as much a part of our world as not.” I think we argue when we should be reminding people of the unnatural climate we live in, that makes a huge part of human experience unsayable in the public sphere and handled like nitroglycerin. People are so concerned about abuses that they forget the use; so focused on people being harmed by prayer that they forget its natural to pray at all. This shouldn’t be.

It just takes a funky seventies anime to remind me of that.

Absolutely Lovely, Pint-Sized X-men

I wasn’t expecting to find a show that actually out X-mens the X-men.

Zettai Karen Children (inexplicably renamed Psychic Squad in the west for whatever reason) is a story about a trio of espers who serve an organization named BABEL, designed to take down any special esper crimes and keep the peace. It’s a typical setup, right down to naming said organization Babel. There’s a post on that somewhere, how espers in particular seemed to be linked to Biblical imagery. Spriggan for example was tied up with Noah’s Ark. But that’s a tangent.

What’s unusual about Zettai Karen Children is that apart from the nutty comedy moments it really upholds the spirit of the original X-men, way before it devolved into endless murk and drama. Not to say it’s a clone, but it treats the themes of the comic seriously and surprisingly well. Let me explain.

In the Japan of the future, espers are more or less mutants. They are popping up in society in increasing numbers, and have the potential to do some serious damage. There’s about seven levels to them, with any level above four being a serious threat to the people around them. They aren’t secret, and society is working on dealing with them. By using limiters and with BABEL keeping the peace, society is more or less functional. You do have people opposed, like The Normal People, a standard human anti-esper terrorist organization, and the series hints at a “brotherhood of evil espers” analogue led by the silver-haired Hyoba opposing BABEL. Though he seems to have more Hellfire-club intentions to one of the titular trio.

What it gets right (once you look past the jokes) is the science fiction aspect of mutants.

Unlike Marvel, the Japan of the future has managed to make a more or less successful way of coexistence. Weak espers can lead normal lives, so long as they keep their limiters on in public. The rarer, more powerful espers work with BABEL to keep the peace. BABEL is kind of like a more militarized version of the Westchester Academy, and even has a Cerebro-like early warning system made up of rotating shifts of precogs working in parallel. The three espers (named The Children) are Japan’s only level 7 ranked espers, and they get called in when the situation is bad. They have a professor-X/cyclops style mentor in Minamoto, and a Magneto in Hyobu. And while there’s a lot of corny humor and dirty-old-man stuff, the actual esper concept seriously evokes mutants, and hard.

I’m only twenty episodes in, and we already have hints of Kaoru as Dark Phoenix. We have an episode about human/esper prejudice, and the friendship (and maybe romance) between a human and an esper. This is done without the needless grimdark and cast changes of the modern X-men, and the series is not afraid to get serious when it wants to. Like the X-men, the villains aren’t faceless numbers, but real people on differing sides of the question whether or not espers and humans can co-exist.

At times, it even surpasses the X-men. One thing you notice about Professor X and Magneto is that too often the writers treat them as ideas instead of people. But Minamoto truly loves the children (and in one adorable scene, mother hens a young enemy esper,) and Hyobu manages to evoke Magneto’s gamesmanship yet adds honor and even a sense of caring. The original emotional impact of the X-men has faded over time and endless deaths, resurrections, retcons, and stories, but somehow Zettai Karen Children manages to bring back the wonder of the idea of humans and superhumans living together.

The only downside is that there’s a loli aspect to the series. It’s not intense, but it’s there. The jokes tend to center around Kaoru’s “dirty old man” act, and the humor doesn’t always strike the right notes. When it works, it’s drop dead funny, but it doesn’t always work. But when it gets things right, you have a serious, sweet, funny little series that evokes the classic feel of Marvel’s X-men in a way I’ve not seen any other anime or show do.

Review: Rebirth Of Mothra 3

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Note: the trailer has significant spoilers, but the story in general doesn’t make all that much sense to begin with. There’s going to be spoilers in this review, but pretty much anyone interested in the movie already knows what’s going on.

This happens to be one of my bucket list items; watch RoM 3. Thanks to Sony, who has bundled all three movies in a Blu-ray release, I now can.

A little history. Rebirth of Mothra is a spinoff series featuring the giant moth from the Godzilla films. Aimed primarily at children, three films were made. However, only the first two saw release in the States on home video. The third saw limited broadcast on the Syfy channel, but other than that no other way to watch it was available save for importing the original Japanese DVDs. Now that Sony has released it though, I can finally watch it.

It’s both better and worse than expected.

The story is confusing. A swarm of meteorites falls on Japan, creating large organic domes in the forest nearby a small family. Meanwhile the three Elias-diminuitive humans linked to Mothra-are battling over an unknown artifact. The eldest of the three, Belvera, tricks the other two into unlocking it, revealing gems that grant the three of them power. As Moll and Lora drive off Belvera, she warns them about something called the King Of Terror.

It’s popular Godzilla villain King Ghidorah, and he’s out to kill us all. Only Mothra can save us, but the way to defeating him is a lot more involved than you think.

The story is weird, to put it bluntly. It’s not shown so much as told, and is more a collection of images. Some very cool, some hokey, and some unique. You’re really not going to watch this for the story, as opposed to seeing the two best portrayals of Mothra and King Ghidorah of all time.

from vsbattleswikia.com

The version of Ghidorah in this film is called Grand Ghidorah, and he’s never looked better. There’s a solidity and mass about him that makes him terrifying, yet it doesn’t sacrifice the original concept. Ghidorah is a monster that can either look imposing or silly, depending on the camera angle but Grand Ghidorah manages to look imposing nearly all the time.

He’s also powerful. TV Tropes used to include him under their “Eldritch Abomination”  entry, because he’s practically immortal and comes from space to kill us all periodically. This movie amps him up considerably. He’s millions of years old, and the last time he was on the earth, he killed off all the dinosaurs. Now he’s come back, and the first thing he does is steal all of the children in Japan.

You’d think this would be bizarre, and it is. I didn’t really get why he did it, and I don’t think it’s explained in so many words. But remarkably it manages to work.

It works because the scenes where the kids are being stolen are surprisingly well done, and it hints at such malevolence that you can start to think it really does want to wipe us all out. Ghidorah flies over, and suddenly they are gone. Sometimes the scene shows him warping them out for effect, and against all odds it works well. Ghidorah also has a few other tricks up his sleeve, and he’s not just three heads wobbling on strings firing out random lightning in this film; he takes it to Mothra hard.

Mothra himself has her best incarnation in this film, Rainbow Mothra. 

Her/His final form.

Mothra is a limited character in these movies because you can’t really articulate a big moth puppet that well. Rainbow is well done though, and a striking model. Mothra in general though fights fiercely and really comes across as a character instead of an idea. A striking scene is Moll and the young boy Shota approaching the downed Mothra in the forest; all around them the light is shining through her wings in a kaleidoscope of warm color.  The battles make heavy use of beam spam for the most part, but are engaging despite that.

Another great element in the movie are the Elias-the three fairies linked to Mothra. Belvera sees a dramatic improvement. In the first two films, she’s sort of like Rita Repulsa; the token evil Maleficent style character who acts as an adversary to our heroes. In this movie she changes dramatically and while still an adversary at first, is wonderfully, wonderfully serious. The film mentions that the eldest sibling often has the most problems, and Belvera reflects this.  Moll and Lora also come across as stronger characters. Each of them is part of what is called the Elias Triangle: Wisdom, Courage, and Love. It plays all three of them surprisingly straight, and there are some dramatic moments that you wouldn’t expect a film aimed for kids to have.

The final two delights in the movie are the cinematography and the music. When I say the cinematography is a delight, I’m not saying this is a masterpiece. It’s a Japanese film, with all the pitfalls of that industry; low-budget effects, bad CGI, and some silly design work. Despite this though, you find yourself admiring the shots. A scene where Moll falls to the earth off mini-Mothra Fairy is done very well, and a lot of the film is set in a lush, green forest. The destructive city scenes are brief, but really show the terror of people fleeing from a giant monster that is taking their children from them. Even some hokey dinosaur work turns into an unusually chilling moment when Ghirdorah busts out on the scene and you are reminded how big and malevolent he is. It works in spite of itself.

The music has the two great versions of Mothra’s “power up” theme, Haora Mothra. It’s two of my favorite pieces of music ever, and it;s only let down slightly by the dance Moll or Lora does while singing it.

Now that I’ve praised the movie, I have to damn it some.

The story…well, it’s loopy. It doesn’t explain much. Things happen, and then we get told the bare minimum needed to connect the scenes into some kind of whole. Considering the movie likes to invent new powers and abilities for the kaiju,  this gets pretty bad. Mothra can travel through time? King Ghidorah can hypnotize people? The Elias Triangle does what exactly? Stuff like that forces you to shut your brain off to have a chance of tolerating the film.

The effects too suffer. Surprisingly, the monster suits are the best of the effects. There’s some horrid blue screen work whenever Moll and Lora ride Fairy, and you get 1990’s B-move CGI effects, which means you get no quality whatsoever. Playstation One-level graphics. Since this is a Rebirth film, you have the necessary child actors/sidekicks. About all that can be said is that at least they aren’t as annoying as the first two films. They still feel out of place, especially since the movie passes up a strong opportunity to mirror the three Elias with the three children. And of course, it’s Japanese film, which barely rises above B-level at best due to the relatively lesser amount of money in that industry. Much better than Sharknado, but nowhere near a moderate budget Hollywood A film.

So I’d probably rate this a 5/10 objectively. Godzilla or kaiju fans might get some more out of it if they are willing to put some effort into thinking on the plot. Kind of a better Godzilla’s Revenge or Godzilla Vs. the Smog Monster-it’s not the best film out there, but has its charms.

Ratings for Christians. Mild PG due to very brief monster blood and some semi-violent monster battles. Christian kaiju fans might find some weirdness about this film that may be considered Christian friendly.

For example, Mothra is usually an illustration of death and rebirth. Oddly in this film, Mothra doesn’t seem to die. She is gravely (maybe fatally) wounded, but is buried in the earth to emerge from her cocoon in a powered up form. It’s a noticeable difference from the main Toho films, in which she dies and the next generation of Mothra pick up the fight. There’s also the tripartite nature of the Elias Triangle, faintly evoking faith, hope, and love. Some weak parallels that would make some interesting discussions exist, especially since Mothra is considered a physical God in the Godzilla universe. The film itself though has little to no objectionable content.

Adventures In Cultural Christianity: Moneychangers In The Temple Edition

Inspired by two things I have had the pleasure of noticing this week.

I’m not big on name and shame of cultural Christianity when it comes to actual culture. Yes, a lot of it is hokey or bad. Yes, it can make you wince. But that’s not something to be irate about, because the people are honestly trying to serve God. I can’t get too mad about people who do this, because it’s better to try to serve Him and be incompetent or fail than to never try. However, what gets me mad are things that are done to be harmful, or for self-aggrandizement, or that promote seriously screwed doctrines. These two random things made me think of this, and how sometimes cultural Christianity needs to be overturned and run out of the temple.

1. WholesomeWear.

Loved by the Duggars and mentioned in their faq. WholesomeWear…what do you think those things are?

Skirts?

Jumpers?

Workwear?

No, those are swimsuits.

Yeah, WholesomeWear makes swimsuits that are designed to be even more modest than normal clothes. According to the site, they are designed to draw attention to the face, and not the body, and come in two separate pieces for your homeschooling pleasure. They’ll set you back about $90-$100 bucks normal price.

Look, I’m not saying you need to go and get your kids bikinis. We can have a long argument about when garments do cross the line between revealing the body in lustful ways, or are just comfortable or fun to wear. But this…this is too much. This is modesty raised to the level of a spiritual disease.

Christianity is often a balancing act. Too much liberty and we sin. But this is falling off the other side into an almost gnostic level of hatred of the physical body. This is such a fear of lust that it’s almost like a prison. We are to avoid sin, but this to me would go beyond that to create negative thoughts about a person’s own body that can be hard to overcome later in life. Your body as a woman isn’t evil that you need to hide it so much, nor are you so weak as a man that you need this kind of stuff to keep your soul from being in jeopardy. They are pushing weakness, not strength, and making a healthy profit off of it.

2. Duck Dynasty: Quack or Treat.

Can we just call these guys shills yet?

You would not believe the tons of merchandise surrounding these good old Godly boys. I mean, there is no trinket to low and no kitschy good too vile for them to slap their likeness on to make lots of money.

LOTS of money.

These guys are so moneychangers it’s not even funny. And we wound up defending them when it seemed A&E would drop them over their remarks on gay marriage. I oppose gay marriage, but man, the fact that we aren’t rebuking these Proud ‘Muricans for their remarkably materialist ways is starting to make us look bad.

You think I kid? Here’s some of D.M.’s snapshots of the lovely God-honoring merchandise from these bearded bozos.

Because all good Christian men slap their face on jigsaw puzzles. Like nothing to do with profit, or making even more money despite being on TV and owning a successful business already. It’s a calling from God to put out Christian-honoring jigsaw ministries to save souls.

Got to get those kids to save up for their tithes some way, after all.

Makes you long for the days that Christians thought playing cards were from the devil.

Dudes, you allowed people to make Duck Dynasty Garden Gnomes.

If all you did was bring out a lot of books like these, I wouldn’t complain one bit. But you guys are notorious for slapping your face on EVERYTHING. Duck Dynasty fleece throw blankets. Duck Dynasty cups. Bracelets. Duct tape. Dear God, this:

And we as Christians don’t call them out on this.

You cannot play the good old God honoring lovable redneck thing when you aren’t God honoring. At some point, what we do matters. When you flood the Wal-marts of the world with junk bearing your own name, who really is your God? None of this stuff adds value, save for the Faith Commander book. It’s sole purpose is to make you money.

That’s okay, but you are also playing the God card while doing it. If you were merely an unbeliever, this would be kitschy. As a believer, this is poisonous. It’s cynical to a level I can’t fathom.

***

If I did some research, I’m sure I could find more things like this. I notice we really don’t talk about moneychangers in the temple all that much.

It’s not something that should be neglected.

The point of this is not that money is evil, or being a good businessman is bad. The point is that merchandise and money-making can be extremely toxic to the faith, because with it come a host of other nasty behaviors. The profit motive is not a specifically Christian thing; like any normal urge, it too can be perverted and be used as a carrier for harmful values. And it’s not the kind of values we are instinctively wary of.

See, most orthodox Christians are very good at noticing secularism from nonbelievers. But many absolutely suck at defeating bad ideas when its wrapped in a Christian gloss and not beating us over the head while saying “Bad Sheeple!” And we’ve had some absolutely horrid ideas as of late; the damage both homeschooling and the hyper-purity culture have inflicted in a generation of Christian kids will not be easily repaired. This is because we’ve really neglected the fact that we also have things that we like that can bring us to sin. No, Christians aren’t as vulnerable to promiscuity, but we can be vulnerable to a gnostic hatred of the flesh which has no place in the faith. Less pride, more greed in the guise of Dave Ramsey homeschooling classes. I think we have gotten way too comfortable fighting visible adversaries, while Satan slips in and saps the walls.

I’m not saying this to make people more paranoid. It’s just that we’re not supposed to neglect sword and shield; we parry and defend from attacks from both right and left. We’ve been a bit too comfortable with the right so we’ve dropped our guard. And I think we’re starting to wake up and realize we’ve been getting more and more wounded from the sneaky attacks on that side. We need to be vigilant, otherwise we wake up and see ourselves damaged from things like this. Endless piles of merchandise hiding Jesus from view.

Why Don’t They Believe Me?

Episode 8 of Invaders of the Rokujyoma?! starred one of the series most lovable characters, the magical girl Yurika. She’s whiny, a crybaby, and one of the many girls trying to take over Koutarou’s room for her own reasons. In this case, it’s to defend it against other magical girls. This week one finally shows up.

True to form, no one believes Yurika when she mentions that the new arrival Rika is a evil magical girl. But unlike before, when Yurika’s being mistaken for a cosplayer was played for laughs, this time it’s very serious.

Rika is even unwittingly invited into the very room Yurika desperately wants to defend. The evil magical girl is taking full advantage of everyones atheism surrounding magical girls, and it gets to be too much. Yurika storms out of the surprise party being held for Rika in tears. She’s found by Knitting-kun, as she’s dejectedly sitting by herself on a bench.

 

Sound familiar?

Yurika gets played for jokes a lot, but her story in a way is very serious, and very sad. Out of all of them, she is the only one who fights on her own, and the only one to possess a truth that no matter what she tries to do, she can’t get others to believe. She’s a little like a Christian that way; the world really views what we believe in a way the others handle what Yurika believes; they like her, but they think it’s just playacting or an endearing (or even annoying) quirk. But her truth is real, and it’s vital that she gets it across.

Especially when she’s the least likely person to do so.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

Unlike the others, Yurika only has good motives in trying to invade the room. She’s not doing it to take over the world, or to prove herself by conquering a backwards species, or even just to get peace and quiet. She’s trying to defend it and by extension the people in it from others who would harm it. But she’s clumsy, and weak, and so whiny. She’s a normal girl in possession of an awesome power, but who doesn’t want it for its own sake or to get glory for herself. She just wants to help because another magical girl cared enough to save her life. It’s not even something she likes to do, or thinks she can, but she must.

But she’s failing.

As a Christian, it can really be a hard thing to have no one believe you. People talk a lot about Christian privilege or cultural influence, but I don’t think many people really get that a devout Christian is often very much like Yurika; alone, unlistened to, and often with no one who understand their fight. People really do treat our faith like Yurika’s power is treated; as  a story we make up for our own reasons. That’s a hard thing to take, especially when the battle grows real. It’s no wonder Yurika has lost her courage.

But she gets some good advice, for magical girls and Christians both.

And we do, really.

Sakuraba-senpai is right. A lot of people assume that faith in Christ and preaching the Gospel is done for selfish or bad motives. But it’s not. We really do care for people; for friends, for family, and more. That’s why evangelism exists. But Yurika is reminded of a necessary truth.

This gets abused a lot. But it’s done very well here. Actions, not just words. Many people say “You need to preach by your actions!” as a way of shutting people up. In other words, you need to be Mother Teresa before you can say anything about Jesus. But this isn’t the case. Yurika will never truly be a saint, even if she is slowly becoming a loyal friend and a courageous magical girl. But she needs to use actions too; she can’t give in to her weak nature and hide. And so she does.

The episode ends on a big cliffhanger. But actions do convince, at least. Faith isn’t in vain. At least we can be encouraged by the example of a slightly ditzy magical girl.

Fight on, Yurika!

Review: Creation Of The Humanoids.

I don’t often review non-anime movies here, but this one was so good that I couldn’t pass it up.

A little history. If you grew up in New England around the 1980s, one of the highlights of your week was WLVI-56’s Creature Double Feature. This was in the days before cable networks, so you had a bunch of local TV stations trying to fill the hours with whatever programs they could find. This station, located in Boston, MA, would broadcast old monster movies from noon till four on every Saturday. You had Universal monster movies, Godzilla and Gamera pictures, Hammer horror films, and more. This program created a tremendous number of geeks in the Northeast, and even now many people still have fond memories of being a child and watching bad b-movies and giant monster flicks. This was how I was introduced to Godzilla and Gamera, among others.

So bored at work, one day I found the site above. They had a list of every single movie played on that program, and I vowed to go down and watch every one of them. When I got to Creation of the Humanoids, I was shocked. It was one of the best pure science fiction movies I have seen, ever.

The plot is surprisingly sophisticated for a B-movie. In a future after atomic war, the human race is a shadow of itself. To survive, they create robots to do all the menial and difficult jobs that they can’t. However, not everyone likes how humanity has declined due to this; a society of anti-robot humans called The League of Flesh and Blood are campaigning against one model of the robots, the human-like Humanoids. One day on patrol, a man from that society named Cragus observes some odd behavior from a pair of humanoids. He follows them, and soon discovers a plot by them which will have grave implications for humanity as a whole.

It’s a basic plot, but what’s surprising is the depth and complexity of the ideas behind it. Cragus in any other movie would be a fanatic and destined to be killed, but the movie manages the incredible task of making him a fully realized human. It gets how a human can be resistant to change, and even violently so, and not be evil; it gets the conservative mindset in a time of drastic societal upheaval. You can feel his shock as the world is changing around him, conveyed brilliantly in a conversation with his sister.

And that conversation is one of the highlights of the film. Cragus’s sister is the liberal side of things. She has a rapport with her robot-she’s literally taken part of her personality, put it inside of him, and has fallen in love with the reflection he is to her. She’s also surprising; while she’s liberal, she’s triumphant, smug, and definitely dismissive of Cragus as her brother while having good points about adapting to change instead of pointlessly fighting it. This is a B-move made in the 60’s, yet it talks more intelligently about how science can disrupt mores and customs than many films made forty years later.

That sophistication continues through the film. The idea of humans racist against robots is a common trope today, but the hatred against the Clickers is done much better than later films. This predated Blade Runner by twenty years, and in a way is a better treatment of it. The Humanoids aren’t just toys or dolls, but are slowly building their own society and religion, and are also dealing with a future in which Man will one day no longer exist. They’ve begun the first steps to that by creating robots that forget they are robots: humanoids who are imprinted with the minds of men.

And amazingly, they talk about the implications of that, and even in some Christian terms. Even if you are a robot, you are not Godless, for in the end the same creator who made the humans made you. The question of whether robots have a soul is also done well; while the robots don’t truly know if they do, they do know they are possible of having the faith to believe in their own souls, and that has to mean something right? And there’s some discussion about whether or not a soul can be diminished by robothood, with some good points. If you cut off a person’s leg, does their soul diminish? No.

There is the main twist of the thing, which I won’t spoil but is slightly more than you’d think. There’s a second “gotcha’ twist which really needed some more developing, but is thought provoking. It’s not the strongest plot, but this is more about the ideas than the explosions or danger.

It’s not a perfect film, however. It’s more of a stage play set to film; there is little to no camera work, and a lot of talking. There’s a romance that’s key to the plot which to me developed abruptly. It is a B-movie made in the sixties, so it’s not triple A level production values. It does have some striking set design, with a  retro-sixties Art Deco tinge to it which has aged very well. Ironically, it fails at being a B-movie; most people watch science fiction films of that era to enjoy bad storylines, campy acting, and the absurdity of the 50’s idea of the future.

What you get instead is a very thoughtful look at a human future in the middle of being absorbed into a transhuman one. There’s a complexity to the subject which is unusual for films even done today, let alone in an era where radiation was magic. You can find the film up on Youtube, or a DVD edition bundled with another sixties movie on Amazon. It’s worth a watch at least once though. A similar film, but with a higher budget, is Truffault’s version of Fahrenheit 451. 

A Game That Never Was

I have to write this, just to keep the memory of it somewhere. Tonight, I once again dreamed of a game that never was. It was called “From My Own Friends,” published by Square Enix, and this was the first time I dreamed of it in years.

It’s hard to detail the plot of a dream, but I’ll try. There was this villain in control of a world somewhere, who had brought over a girl from our world. She was desperately trying to escape him, with the help of a fairy-like companion and a boy wizard. It wasn’t working though, as he had caught up with her and forced her to choose something which diminished her humanity even further. Like arriving had caused level one, and now he had caused level two; when the level filled up, it was game over. She would become his bride. There was a scene of the boy wizard fighting the villain, and getting his butt kicked, and one where gameplay was being explained; a centaur had a forwards attack of seven squares, but only the tip hit enemies; you got bonuses for each square before it that was occupied by friends. I had a memory of going to a movie and getting a bonus item for the game, and in the dream I actually looked it up on Amazon to see if I could buy it; it was something like fifty bucks used.

Needless to say when I woke up I immediately looked up on Amazon for it. It didn’t exist. I had hallucinated it.

I’m writing this post if just to keep the memory alive. It felt almost like a magical spell; I barely remembered the name on waking, and in the brief time between searching for it on Amazon and starting the post I forgot it again! I had to look up in my history to remember the title. I had dreamed of it many years back, and recognized this in the dream. For me, very rarely, certain dreams can and will repeat themselves. It’s a unusual thing when it happens, because it makes it feel like an actual historical memory instead of a dream. Like I had really played some obscure PS 1 RPG, had forgotten about it, and was now remembering it in the context of a dream.

It was unusual this time because I actually remembered the name. On reflection now, it’s obvious it’s a dream. The boy wizard (who was overconfident) used a cell phone’s battery power to enhance his magic; this wouldn’t have existed in a PS 1 RPG. Nor even in my dreams back then; I owned a cell phone only in the past five years. Even now the rest of the dream is fading.

It’s eerie in a way because it does feel like a spell. There is no game by SE or anyone called “From My Own Friends,” which in a way makes it weirder. I could see a game with that name filtering into my subconscious and being misidentified, but the thought that I literally created the title of a dream game in my mind as well as assign it to a publisher and struggled to remember it is an unusual feeling. It’s potent too because one of my important values is to remember things that are forgotten or lost. I tend to like weird or obscure things so that they stay alive in memory. I’m the kind of guy who forgets where he puts his car keys if he isn’t careful, but can remember vividly all the places where he first played an arcade game over thirty years ago. I’m probably one of the few gamers who remembers Kartia and played it before the rerelease. When I didn’t believe, I’d say that remembering things like this was a small victory against entropy and death.

This though, I know I will forget. I really don’t want to.

I think in part this is why atheistic claims of rationality just don’t work on me. It’s hard to be against superstition and in favor of rationality after an experience where your mind deceives you enough in a dream where you imagine a game you created out of whole cloth is real. You get reminded of the oddity of memory and how little we know about it, or even how little we remember. Another example would be sleep paralysis; rationally, you understand the concept of your brain firing off while your body is still immobile in a sleep trance. In reality, you suddenly are aware of a spiderlike jumble floating two feet above your head, hovering there, and then floating away to disappear into the wall. The atheists thought that focusing on the mechanical aspects of the brain would debunk any idea of a soul, but instead it created massive doubts about how rational we really are.

It’s like everything breaks down. Really, in the end all we have is hope. It’s really only the young who disdain faith as a crutch, I think. As you get older, the uncertainty of everything only grows. You hope in Christ not entirely because He explains everything, but because there’s nothing else in the world that warrants hope to any level similar. All other crutches break under your own weight. This dream was just an odd little reminder of how little I can trust one of my own core values; the remembrance of things forgotten. How fluid a sense of memory can be at times. Without the internet, I doubt I’d even know the game didn’t exist. The world has a habit of  acting like this. Little weird moments like imagining a game you thought you played ten years ago.