I was always able to give the Japanese a pass on this because it was obvious they didn't understand what they were writing about. Even ones that put a positive spin on Christianity, like Saint Tail, were so laughably off that I couldn't take any of it seriously. And you know all about Hellsing.
(In Saint Tail, the superheroine magician helps people who went to Church to hear "confessions" from her young best friend, a "nun in training" who then tells the gist of the confessions to Saint Tail. There is sooooo much wrong with that... but you can tell the writer is trying to portray it positively. Then the girls pray together and Saint Tail springs into action.)
But... I can't give Westerners a pass. They just drip hatred, not mere misunderstanding. You could not have told me 30 years ago that there would be an anime based on Castlevania... not only that, but Castlevania 3!... that I would refuse to watch.
I made it through Simon Belmont in Captain N and still enjoyed that show. Nothing could be as bad as that... and yet, Netflix Castlevania exists, chock full of Dracula is the misunderstood good guy, the Catholic Church is mustache-twirlingly evil, and sprinkling in children being ripped apart on camera and some bestiality talk. I didn't make it to the second episode. I'm actually mad that the show exists, because it would be better if it simply didn't.
The one that hurt most recently for me was actually The New Mutants movie, 85% of which really did feel fresh among all the cookie-cutter superhero movies lately. I could have really loved that as a B horror movie superhero movie... and yet the other 15% was so ridiculously insulting to Christians that I'm never going to watch it again.
And there really was great tension in the original comics with Wolfsbane, still being devout to God but also having had a bad priest, that was relatable at the time, and that could have been done well on screen.
I do wonder, if things turn around, if we will ever get companies who want money enough that they'll self-edit and sell these films without the ridiculous anti-Christian pandering. But, alas, I'm not holding my breath on that one.
(So, of course, I, like many others, are creating their own stories. But it's better off if Hollywood never wants to touch them, or anything else that's actually good.)
I should also clarify that there's nothing wrong in holding accountable any misrepresentations. Any mistakes that mangaka, or any entertainer period makes should be highlighted and corrected. Don't take my initial response as a dismissal on your point on the work, but I think in the case of Saint Tail, it might've been more of case of trying to combine elements that didn't end up meshing well.
For Saint Tail, are you referring to the manga or anime? I ask as since it was a media mix, there might be considerably differences in how certain aspects are handled between the two.
It was a Phantom Thief Magical Girl shojo work in 90s alongside many others like Phantom Thief Jeanne, though Saint Tail came out before Jeanne.
Jeanne, as an example, is a Phantom Thief magical girl work that combines the figure of Jeanne D'arc with a Phantom Thief by having the Thief in question be the latest incarnation of Jeanne, though that aspect has its own twists as the story goes along. Elements of fantasy as well theology are thrown in the mix, and Jeanne's burning at the stake is also depicted.
I don't know of Megumi Tachikawa's religious background, but her intent was likely to try take the Phantom Thief-type magical girl and more directly tie it with theology, in this case, Catholicism, not intending to misrepresent it at all, but finding ways to try and have those intersect. Saying that the Japanese don't understand what they're writing about is a bit harsh.
What I meant by "it was obvious they didn't understand what they were writing about" is that there's A LOT to digest about Christianity, especially Catholicism and Orthodoxy. You could be practicing it for years and still have many, many questions. Just studying it without practicing, you would have infinitely more questions.
And if you're just studying it long enough to give flavor to a story you're working on (which so many writers do, and that's OK... that's what writers do!), you're going to get a lot wrong. So... that's forgivable, so long as it's not done out of malice.
I like Saint Tail! I've read both the manga and watched the anime and, it's really, really wrong as far as how a Church is laid out, how it works, etc. Heck, in one of the climatic episodes, the hero says something like, I can't remember how it goes exactly, but it was something like: I don't care about God, I love you, or something like that... and, it was obvious it wasn't meant to be anti-religious, it was just a bad interpretation of Catholicism and what God is supposed to mean to a Christian.
But it's not the sort of thing you would write if you were Christian, or if you had a good grip on what is important to a Christian.
Those are fair points all around. Thank you for explaining it so kindly.
As an aside, I mentioned these works in a separate post, have you ever read "Heart of Thomas" by chance? It's a very captivating work that I think you would like a lot.
The fanbase over here doesn't like the Christianity present in it as the characters are part of a German boarding school, and big surprise they pray and worship and that's a part of their daily lives. Matter of fact, one of the big turning points being that one seemingly exemplary pious character is actually an atheist, and he gets reprimanded as a fake by one of the leads. It has a bit of a pricey official translation, but well worth it I'd say.
For anime, I would recommend Angel's Egg by Mamoru Oshii. Oshii himself mentioned he was originally planning to join the seminary in College. He puts all of that into the film, using Noah's Ark as the focal point. It's filled with a lot of surreal imagery and symbolism. I believe a 4K version of it is due this year.
My apologies for my long winded reply. As an aside, I have heard of the notion of what gets called "Protestant Propaganda". Despite being Protestant myself, I have no delusions about my sect and am willing to discuss this at length.
I have also heard that Protestant views of history get appropriated by Secularists wanting to cast a "superstitious" blanket on faith as a whole. Other concepts like the Trinity also get appropriated and Secularized to create the "straight line of progress"(from the Trinitarian view of history) which serves as a cornerstone of enlightenment thought.
I would say that "Enlightenment Ideals" this Godless train of thought, which plagues the world currently, likely emerged originally as an extreme counterreaction to all of the sectarian conflict that took place. Rather than God, the notions that began to emerge was a worship of the self, ascribing Divinity to the human mind. This can be felt if one looks at the rhetoric of the New Atheists in particular, though Voltaire doesn't differ much in this regard.
If I would also disagree about one other thing, there was nothing necessarily that held companies or creators back in prior decades when it came to blasphemy. They simply use the common Deist tactic of espousing vulgarities toward scripture but ending it with "I still believe in God".
One example that comes to mind is Life of Brian. I've seen apologetics given, even from Christians, stating that it is not an anti-Christian film because of the Jesus scenes. Yet if you took out those scenes, what would you be left with? A film that mocks the Bible, specifically, the New Testament topped off with a nihilistic message that it makes no effort to hide.
It's a very important subject, one that deserves a lot of coverage.
Another historical phenomenon to look into is how many anti-Christian tropes of the kind wielded by Hollywood and nuAtheists started as specifically anti-Catholic calumnies spread by Protestant missionaries. Every single time, the handy stick they used to beat the Catholics got snatched away by Modernists and used to beat all Christians.
Your account of this shopworn trope's popularity in Japan rings true. Do you think it's finally falling out of style there? More recent games like Bloodstained, in which the Church is not only a force for good that defended the world from a demon invasion, but whose main villain is an apostate atheist, seem to buck the trend.
I think there have always been those who played it straight, but I seem to be seeing more lately. I do think the Japanese emphasis was more as a story-telling trope than propaganda on its own. If you want some politicking in your medieval-inspired story, the church offers some opportunity for drama to be thrown in the mix.
Castlevania is Japanese and has always had explicitly Christian heroes and demonic villains - it was the Western Netflix writers who had to make everything subversive.
I thought that the Septian Church in the Trails series of JRPGs was a pleasant surprise, since they are omnipresent throughout the now 13 game long series and were not unmasked as villains. Several party members (including the protagonist of one game) are from the Septian Church's secret order of holy hitmen who are assigned to protect regions from evil monsters or occasionally hunt down and kill heinous supervillains. Sadly, the series never seemed Christianic. Despite there being a Church in nearly every town in the series and the presence of holy hitmen characters, the heroes never stop and pray to the goddess for help in their struggles, or attend or administer the Sunday mass. Over and over, the denouement of each arc ends with the heroes spouting the same Japanese mantra of "we need no magicks or powers to fix our problems! Humanity will triumph on its own through determination and togetherness!".
The last two Trails games are a little concerning, as we see Muslim looking mosques and Far East Asian themed shrines being retconned into the series, but the religious leaders there insist that they are part of the Septian Church and worship the exact same goddess. Apparently there is a mosque right next door to the great cathedral in the Holy City of Arteria. Combined with the other DEI stuff that manifested in the games at the same time, it feels like there might be a universalist "all Abrahamic religions are ackshually the same" idea here. And then in the latest Trails game, a young actress who portrayed a lesbian girls' school romance in an in-universe movie turns out to be the captain of a new secret order of holy hitmen (separate from the first).
Playing the FF7 remake and seeing a Church and hearing Aerith's adoptive mother talk about "praying" was funny, since I have not heard of any god that people would be worshipping.
FF7 is funny because they are presenting a mirror of our own secular society, but I think unintentionally. The heroes care about "the planet" and theorize about the Lifestream, but worship nothing. Gods are mentioned offhand in Cosmo Canyon and we see something of a religious ritual, but there is no mythology below it, no idea who the gods are or what they are supposed to do. There is no bible, no church... The only mythologies are sort of discovered by a giant corporation.
I think that heightens the dystopian nature of Midgar but leaves the rest of the game (or games for the remake) feeling incredibly hollow.
At this point, I just stop watching an anime once a clergy member shows up. It's just too stupid when surprise! priest man is evil. Who could've guessed?
On the other hand, isn't there a sort of atheist/secular cynicism involved? We usually hear, "How could God exist if there's evil?" But I'm not sure the average secularist could answer the inverse: "If God does not exist, why is there anything good?" Can you imagine a massive global religious organization that is fundamentally good based on the worship of something that isn't real? Its not just lack of faith in God, it's a lack of faith in goodness at all. Everyone is fundamentally motivated by self-interest, therefore large and powerful organizations can only be self-serving.
I profess whenever I read comments like this I tend to be very perplexed. Of the Anime and Manga I've gone through, games as well, I would say the "evil church trope" even say Mr. Stewart's headline is a bit reductionist.
If we're to strictly focus on Catholics and no other denomination, a good number of celebrities and figures in Japan are (or were) Catholic. Toshiro Mifune, of Akira Kurosawa fame was Catholic, Eiji Tsuburaya (Ultraman, Godzilla) was also Catholic. Yoko Kano, composer of Cowboy Bebop fame was Catholic, but sadly left the faith when she got older, but mentioned that her musical compositions are very much influenced by her Gospel music. Mamoru Oshii, of Ghost in the Shell fame, himself explicitly stated he was planning to join the seminary, and he directed a film imbued with a lot of spirituality called Angel's Egg, which uses Noah's Ark as the focal point.
One TV anime I plan on going through soon is a Tezuka Productions adaptation of the Bible. Manga adaptations of the Bible are numerous (though remain untranslated). Many popular works of manga also have parallels to scripture in addition to Buddhism. Works considered to be thoughtless macho man punch fests like Fist of the North Star have references to scripture with one key scene being the parallels to Golgotha hill among many others. Many shojo manga like Heart of Thomas actually are off-putting to many Godless Otaku in the states because of Hagio's "Christian themes" as they so dismissively put.
Heck, a super recent anime film I went through recently was The Colors Within. Which is primarily set in a Catholic School. Of course the faculty are portrayed as very strict but they are no means antagonized and scripture is quoted in several key scenes.
There's something to be said about Mr. Stewart mentioning the interest in history in instances when the Catholic Church, or a parallel organizations, shows up in an antagonistic role, I would say that's very spot on. The "Yasuhiko Yoshikazu" approach to doing fantasy works is very popular. Where you treat the fantasy work like a historical work, which comes from how Yas approached Greek Mythology in his debut manga Arion.
I do want to make one comment in response to this paragraph "And there is a Protestant Church they are fighting (funny, because there is no such thing, but Kouta Hirano likely didn’t know or care). And they all kill the robot fake vampire nazi army using real vampires and very large guns. At least he had some fun with it!"
When Hellsing was being serialized I believe it was concurrent with the end of "The Troubles", which was very well known in Japan and was covered in many manga as well. Since conflicts between Protestants and Catholics was a central aspect to The Troubles I believe Hirano wanted to represent it in some form.
This comment doesn't comment on the trope inside Japan. If anything, the examples reinforces the idea that religious people are portrayed in a negative light.
How so? I thought I made my points rather clear. What Mr. Stewart mentioned was on point. I think anything pertaining to the Catholic Church or a parallel organization in an antagonistic role has to due more with historical interest than any hostility toward theology. That's pretty clear cut. I thought there were some gaps that many folks online had when it comes to even the overall presence of Christianity in Japan, and I thought that needed clarification.
I mentioned the examples above because like it or not, Christianity is a part of the culture. Many popular figures that have influenced Japanese culture as a whole are Christian, and to deny that I would say is neglectful.
You are discussing IRL examples, that can also be found stateside. David (and the OP) were discussing the entertainment trope. "The church is evil" also exists as a trope in entertainment in the modern US. And yes, I can find genuine Christians in the US too. It's about it's use in entertainment.
Also there are no parallel organizations to the Catholic Church in particular. That's probably part of the interest.
You misunderstood my point and I don't think you read my initial reply in full.
To address the misunderstanding, when I said:
"I think anything pertaining to the Catholic Church or a parallel organization in an antagonistic role has to due more with historical interest than any hostility toward theology. That's pretty clear cut."
I was strictly referring to it in a fictional sense. By that, I mean a fictional organization that's more directly supposed to be the Catholic Church or a "parallel organization" that serves the same purpose but may possess imagery that is loosely connected and may not even necessarily be monotheistic. Simply a religious institution with a lot of influence.
I definitely should have phrased that better.
"The church is evil" also exists as a trope in entertainment in the modern US. And yes, I can find genuine Christians in the US too. It's about it's use in entertainment."
Again, it's simply historical interest, I don't think that needs to be lingered on any more than it needs to. I think overall it's a false equivocation to say that the trope exists in both countries. The secularists had been peeling away the onion that is faith, so in entertainment in North America and Europe, for centuries since the start of the enlightenment, they would often mask disdain for faith with thin mask of "I'm not saying all Christians are like this, just the crazy ones". This simply doesn't exist in Japan.
The "Church being evil" might have more to do with how the scenes in game are meant to parallel a certain IRL figure or historical event. Attention would be drawn more to the event itself, and the overall themes of the work, not necessarily theology.
Whereas over here, the "Church being evil" is taken as a given, because of the very long history of blasphemy and imposed secularization, perennialism, etc.
While there has been an attempt to impose this sort of secularization, among many other things on the country, folks who have to been to Japan can see the spirituality in the country.
In any case, I used IRL examples, but I was also explicitly naming numerous anime, manga, and so forth where the leads themselves are religious and its treated as simply part of the work, in addition to the IRL figures. I also highlighted the figures as they made their faith part of the works, and these works are deeply embedded in Japanese culture.
Ultraman had episodes where the Ultra brothers were crucified on Planet Golgotha, this was deliberate from Tsuburaya as even though he largely handles effects work, he wanted to insert his faith into his productions as well.*
*Correction: Tsuburaya passed away two before the episode aired(I thought something was off), but the example still applies.
If I may provide more explicit examples, you'll even have mangaka, who might be Shinto, or Buddhist do manga with Christian characters and themes. Rumiko Takahashi with One Pound Gospel, Osamu Tezuka with MW and Ode to Kirihito, among many others.
I should also note, based on the comments, and even from Mr. Stewart, most of the comments seem to be mostly about Final Fantasy, which is one series that I overall don't have much familiarity with. I'm more acclimated with Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest.
"We are now at a point where the evil church trope is so boring and expected it is a set piece of standard narrative rather than a subversive variation or plot twist. The church being secretly evil is now the default, and it is very rare to see any religious person portrayed as a genuinely kind or intelligent person."
The good news is that paired with "the message" in a failing Hollywood that most people will come to assume it's the opposite of reality.
Good article and good discussion in the comments. Final Fantasy 14 did the evil church trope in the first expansion Heavensward. It was ... Sigh. A good story, but the evil church plot with the evil pope was just so cliche and predictable. However, they revisit it three expansions later and I was very surprised at what they did. One of the Endwalker role quests has you deal with the church struggling badly in the wake of the Heavensward revelations and plots. There are calls to disband the church. But the solution they find is to instead reform the church, and go back to their original worship of their goddess, because religion was so important. (Endwalker is extremely pro-religion, to the point where the opening screen's music says "tales of loss and fire and faith"). It shocked my socks off. I did not expect such a thoughtful, loving treatment of the evil church trope.
I was always able to give the Japanese a pass on this because it was obvious they didn't understand what they were writing about. Even ones that put a positive spin on Christianity, like Saint Tail, were so laughably off that I couldn't take any of it seriously. And you know all about Hellsing.
(In Saint Tail, the superheroine magician helps people who went to Church to hear "confessions" from her young best friend, a "nun in training" who then tells the gist of the confessions to Saint Tail. There is sooooo much wrong with that... but you can tell the writer is trying to portray it positively. Then the girls pray together and Saint Tail springs into action.)
But... I can't give Westerners a pass. They just drip hatred, not mere misunderstanding. You could not have told me 30 years ago that there would be an anime based on Castlevania... not only that, but Castlevania 3!... that I would refuse to watch.
I made it through Simon Belmont in Captain N and still enjoyed that show. Nothing could be as bad as that... and yet, Netflix Castlevania exists, chock full of Dracula is the misunderstood good guy, the Catholic Church is mustache-twirlingly evil, and sprinkling in children being ripped apart on camera and some bestiality talk. I didn't make it to the second episode. I'm actually mad that the show exists, because it would be better if it simply didn't.
The one that hurt most recently for me was actually The New Mutants movie, 85% of which really did feel fresh among all the cookie-cutter superhero movies lately. I could have really loved that as a B horror movie superhero movie... and yet the other 15% was so ridiculously insulting to Christians that I'm never going to watch it again.
And there really was great tension in the original comics with Wolfsbane, still being devout to God but also having had a bad priest, that was relatable at the time, and that could have been done well on screen.
I do wonder, if things turn around, if we will ever get companies who want money enough that they'll self-edit and sell these films without the ridiculous anti-Christian pandering. But, alas, I'm not holding my breath on that one.
(So, of course, I, like many others, are creating their own stories. But it's better off if Hollywood never wants to touch them, or anything else that's actually good.)
I should also clarify that there's nothing wrong in holding accountable any misrepresentations. Any mistakes that mangaka, or any entertainer period makes should be highlighted and corrected. Don't take my initial response as a dismissal on your point on the work, but I think in the case of Saint Tail, it might've been more of case of trying to combine elements that didn't end up meshing well.
For Saint Tail, are you referring to the manga or anime? I ask as since it was a media mix, there might be considerably differences in how certain aspects are handled between the two.
It was a Phantom Thief Magical Girl shojo work in 90s alongside many others like Phantom Thief Jeanne, though Saint Tail came out before Jeanne.
Jeanne, as an example, is a Phantom Thief magical girl work that combines the figure of Jeanne D'arc with a Phantom Thief by having the Thief in question be the latest incarnation of Jeanne, though that aspect has its own twists as the story goes along. Elements of fantasy as well theology are thrown in the mix, and Jeanne's burning at the stake is also depicted.
I don't know of Megumi Tachikawa's religious background, but her intent was likely to try take the Phantom Thief-type magical girl and more directly tie it with theology, in this case, Catholicism, not intending to misrepresent it at all, but finding ways to try and have those intersect. Saying that the Japanese don't understand what they're writing about is a bit harsh.
What I meant by "it was obvious they didn't understand what they were writing about" is that there's A LOT to digest about Christianity, especially Catholicism and Orthodoxy. You could be practicing it for years and still have many, many questions. Just studying it without practicing, you would have infinitely more questions.
And if you're just studying it long enough to give flavor to a story you're working on (which so many writers do, and that's OK... that's what writers do!), you're going to get a lot wrong. So... that's forgivable, so long as it's not done out of malice.
I like Saint Tail! I've read both the manga and watched the anime and, it's really, really wrong as far as how a Church is laid out, how it works, etc. Heck, in one of the climatic episodes, the hero says something like, I can't remember how it goes exactly, but it was something like: I don't care about God, I love you, or something like that... and, it was obvious it wasn't meant to be anti-religious, it was just a bad interpretation of Catholicism and what God is supposed to mean to a Christian.
But it's not the sort of thing you would write if you were Christian, or if you had a good grip on what is important to a Christian.
Those are fair points all around. Thank you for explaining it so kindly.
As an aside, I mentioned these works in a separate post, have you ever read "Heart of Thomas" by chance? It's a very captivating work that I think you would like a lot.
The fanbase over here doesn't like the Christianity present in it as the characters are part of a German boarding school, and big surprise they pray and worship and that's a part of their daily lives. Matter of fact, one of the big turning points being that one seemingly exemplary pious character is actually an atheist, and he gets reprimanded as a fake by one of the leads. It has a bit of a pricey official translation, but well worth it I'd say.
For anime, I would recommend Angel's Egg by Mamoru Oshii. Oshii himself mentioned he was originally planning to join the seminary in College. He puts all of that into the film, using Noah's Ark as the focal point. It's filled with a lot of surreal imagery and symbolism. I believe a 4K version of it is due this year.
My apologies for my long winded reply. As an aside, I have heard of the notion of what gets called "Protestant Propaganda". Despite being Protestant myself, I have no delusions about my sect and am willing to discuss this at length.
I have also heard that Protestant views of history get appropriated by Secularists wanting to cast a "superstitious" blanket on faith as a whole. Other concepts like the Trinity also get appropriated and Secularized to create the "straight line of progress"(from the Trinitarian view of history) which serves as a cornerstone of enlightenment thought.
I would say that "Enlightenment Ideals" this Godless train of thought, which plagues the world currently, likely emerged originally as an extreme counterreaction to all of the sectarian conflict that took place. Rather than God, the notions that began to emerge was a worship of the self, ascribing Divinity to the human mind. This can be felt if one looks at the rhetoric of the New Atheists in particular, though Voltaire doesn't differ much in this regard.
If I would also disagree about one other thing, there was nothing necessarily that held companies or creators back in prior decades when it came to blasphemy. They simply use the common Deist tactic of espousing vulgarities toward scripture but ending it with "I still believe in God".
One example that comes to mind is Life of Brian. I've seen apologetics given, even from Christians, stating that it is not an anti-Christian film because of the Jesus scenes. Yet if you took out those scenes, what would you be left with? A film that mocks the Bible, specifically, the New Testament topped off with a nihilistic message that it makes no effort to hide.
It's a very important subject, one that deserves a lot of coverage.
Another historical phenomenon to look into is how many anti-Christian tropes of the kind wielded by Hollywood and nuAtheists started as specifically anti-Catholic calumnies spread by Protestant missionaries. Every single time, the handy stick they used to beat the Catholics got snatched away by Modernists and used to beat all Christians.
Your account of this shopworn trope's popularity in Japan rings true. Do you think it's finally falling out of style there? More recent games like Bloodstained, in which the Church is not only a force for good that defended the world from a demon invasion, but whose main villain is an apostate atheist, seem to buck the trend.
I think there have always been those who played it straight, but I seem to be seeing more lately. I do think the Japanese emphasis was more as a story-telling trope than propaganda on its own. If you want some politicking in your medieval-inspired story, the church offers some opportunity for drama to be thrown in the mix.
Castlevania is Japanese and has always had explicitly Christian heroes and demonic villains - it was the Western Netflix writers who had to make everything subversive.
This is great. I still stump for Breath of Fire 2 though.
Yeah, I like that one too.
I thought that the Septian Church in the Trails series of JRPGs was a pleasant surprise, since they are omnipresent throughout the now 13 game long series and were not unmasked as villains. Several party members (including the protagonist of one game) are from the Septian Church's secret order of holy hitmen who are assigned to protect regions from evil monsters or occasionally hunt down and kill heinous supervillains. Sadly, the series never seemed Christianic. Despite there being a Church in nearly every town in the series and the presence of holy hitmen characters, the heroes never stop and pray to the goddess for help in their struggles, or attend or administer the Sunday mass. Over and over, the denouement of each arc ends with the heroes spouting the same Japanese mantra of "we need no magicks or powers to fix our problems! Humanity will triumph on its own through determination and togetherness!".
The last two Trails games are a little concerning, as we see Muslim looking mosques and Far East Asian themed shrines being retconned into the series, but the religious leaders there insist that they are part of the Septian Church and worship the exact same goddess. Apparently there is a mosque right next door to the great cathedral in the Holy City of Arteria. Combined with the other DEI stuff that manifested in the games at the same time, it feels like there might be a universalist "all Abrahamic religions are ackshually the same" idea here. And then in the latest Trails game, a young actress who portrayed a lesbian girls' school romance in an in-universe movie turns out to be the captain of a new secret order of holy hitmen (separate from the first).
Playing the FF7 remake and seeing a Church and hearing Aerith's adoptive mother talk about "praying" was funny, since I have not heard of any god that people would be worshipping.
FF7 is funny because they are presenting a mirror of our own secular society, but I think unintentionally. The heroes care about "the planet" and theorize about the Lifestream, but worship nothing. Gods are mentioned offhand in Cosmo Canyon and we see something of a religious ritual, but there is no mythology below it, no idea who the gods are or what they are supposed to do. There is no bible, no church... The only mythologies are sort of discovered by a giant corporation.
I think that heightens the dystopian nature of Midgar but leaves the rest of the game (or games for the remake) feeling incredibly hollow.
At this point, I just stop watching an anime once a clergy member shows up. It's just too stupid when surprise! priest man is evil. Who could've guessed?
On the other hand, isn't there a sort of atheist/secular cynicism involved? We usually hear, "How could God exist if there's evil?" But I'm not sure the average secularist could answer the inverse: "If God does not exist, why is there anything good?" Can you imagine a massive global religious organization that is fundamentally good based on the worship of something that isn't real? Its not just lack of faith in God, it's a lack of faith in goodness at all. Everyone is fundamentally motivated by self-interest, therefore large and powerful organizations can only be self-serving.
I profess whenever I read comments like this I tend to be very perplexed. Of the Anime and Manga I've gone through, games as well, I would say the "evil church trope" even say Mr. Stewart's headline is a bit reductionist.
If we're to strictly focus on Catholics and no other denomination, a good number of celebrities and figures in Japan are (or were) Catholic. Toshiro Mifune, of Akira Kurosawa fame was Catholic, Eiji Tsuburaya (Ultraman, Godzilla) was also Catholic. Yoko Kano, composer of Cowboy Bebop fame was Catholic, but sadly left the faith when she got older, but mentioned that her musical compositions are very much influenced by her Gospel music. Mamoru Oshii, of Ghost in the Shell fame, himself explicitly stated he was planning to join the seminary, and he directed a film imbued with a lot of spirituality called Angel's Egg, which uses Noah's Ark as the focal point.
One TV anime I plan on going through soon is a Tezuka Productions adaptation of the Bible. Manga adaptations of the Bible are numerous (though remain untranslated). Many popular works of manga also have parallels to scripture in addition to Buddhism. Works considered to be thoughtless macho man punch fests like Fist of the North Star have references to scripture with one key scene being the parallels to Golgotha hill among many others. Many shojo manga like Heart of Thomas actually are off-putting to many Godless Otaku in the states because of Hagio's "Christian themes" as they so dismissively put.
Heck, a super recent anime film I went through recently was The Colors Within. Which is primarily set in a Catholic School. Of course the faculty are portrayed as very strict but they are no means antagonized and scripture is quoted in several key scenes.
There's something to be said about Mr. Stewart mentioning the interest in history in instances when the Catholic Church, or a parallel organizations, shows up in an antagonistic role, I would say that's very spot on. The "Yasuhiko Yoshikazu" approach to doing fantasy works is very popular. Where you treat the fantasy work like a historical work, which comes from how Yas approached Greek Mythology in his debut manga Arion.
I do want to make one comment in response to this paragraph "And there is a Protestant Church they are fighting (funny, because there is no such thing, but Kouta Hirano likely didn’t know or care). And they all kill the robot fake vampire nazi army using real vampires and very large guns. At least he had some fun with it!"
When Hellsing was being serialized I believe it was concurrent with the end of "The Troubles", which was very well known in Japan and was covered in many manga as well. Since conflicts between Protestants and Catholics was a central aspect to The Troubles I believe Hirano wanted to represent it in some form.
This comment doesn't comment on the trope inside Japan. If anything, the examples reinforces the idea that religious people are portrayed in a negative light.
How so? I thought I made my points rather clear. What Mr. Stewart mentioned was on point. I think anything pertaining to the Catholic Church or a parallel organization in an antagonistic role has to due more with historical interest than any hostility toward theology. That's pretty clear cut. I thought there were some gaps that many folks online had when it comes to even the overall presence of Christianity in Japan, and I thought that needed clarification.
I mentioned the examples above because like it or not, Christianity is a part of the culture. Many popular figures that have influenced Japanese culture as a whole are Christian, and to deny that I would say is neglectful.
You are discussing IRL examples, that can also be found stateside. David (and the OP) were discussing the entertainment trope. "The church is evil" also exists as a trope in entertainment in the modern US. And yes, I can find genuine Christians in the US too. It's about it's use in entertainment.
Also there are no parallel organizations to the Catholic Church in particular. That's probably part of the interest.
You misunderstood my point and I don't think you read my initial reply in full.
To address the misunderstanding, when I said:
"I think anything pertaining to the Catholic Church or a parallel organization in an antagonistic role has to due more with historical interest than any hostility toward theology. That's pretty clear cut."
I was strictly referring to it in a fictional sense. By that, I mean a fictional organization that's more directly supposed to be the Catholic Church or a "parallel organization" that serves the same purpose but may possess imagery that is loosely connected and may not even necessarily be monotheistic. Simply a religious institution with a lot of influence.
I definitely should have phrased that better.
"The church is evil" also exists as a trope in entertainment in the modern US. And yes, I can find genuine Christians in the US too. It's about it's use in entertainment."
Again, it's simply historical interest, I don't think that needs to be lingered on any more than it needs to. I think overall it's a false equivocation to say that the trope exists in both countries. The secularists had been peeling away the onion that is faith, so in entertainment in North America and Europe, for centuries since the start of the enlightenment, they would often mask disdain for faith with thin mask of "I'm not saying all Christians are like this, just the crazy ones". This simply doesn't exist in Japan.
The "Church being evil" might have more to do with how the scenes in game are meant to parallel a certain IRL figure or historical event. Attention would be drawn more to the event itself, and the overall themes of the work, not necessarily theology.
Whereas over here, the "Church being evil" is taken as a given, because of the very long history of blasphemy and imposed secularization, perennialism, etc.
While there has been an attempt to impose this sort of secularization, among many other things on the country, folks who have to been to Japan can see the spirituality in the country.
In any case, I used IRL examples, but I was also explicitly naming numerous anime, manga, and so forth where the leads themselves are religious and its treated as simply part of the work, in addition to the IRL figures. I also highlighted the figures as they made their faith part of the works, and these works are deeply embedded in Japanese culture.
Ultraman had episodes where the Ultra brothers were crucified on Planet Golgotha, this was deliberate from Tsuburaya as even though he largely handles effects work, he wanted to insert his faith into his productions as well.*
*Correction: Tsuburaya passed away two before the episode aired(I thought something was off), but the example still applies.
If I may provide more explicit examples, you'll even have mangaka, who might be Shinto, or Buddhist do manga with Christian characters and themes. Rumiko Takahashi with One Pound Gospel, Osamu Tezuka with MW and Ode to Kirihito, among many others.
I should also note, based on the comments, and even from Mr. Stewart, most of the comments seem to be mostly about Final Fantasy, which is one series that I overall don't have much familiarity with. I'm more acclimated with Megami Tensei and Dragon Quest.
"We are now at a point where the evil church trope is so boring and expected it is a set piece of standard narrative rather than a subversive variation or plot twist. The church being secretly evil is now the default, and it is very rare to see any religious person portrayed as a genuinely kind or intelligent person."
The good news is that paired with "the message" in a failing Hollywood that most people will come to assume it's the opposite of reality.
Good article and good discussion in the comments. Final Fantasy 14 did the evil church trope in the first expansion Heavensward. It was ... Sigh. A good story, but the evil church plot with the evil pope was just so cliche and predictable. However, they revisit it three expansions later and I was very surprised at what they did. One of the Endwalker role quests has you deal with the church struggling badly in the wake of the Heavensward revelations and plots. There are calls to disband the church. But the solution they find is to instead reform the church, and go back to their original worship of their goddess, because religion was so important. (Endwalker is extremely pro-religion, to the point where the opening screen's music says "tales of loss and fire and faith"). It shocked my socks off. I did not expect such a thoughtful, loving treatment of the evil church trope.
How bad was it in Unicorn Overlord?