Recently I was reading an article about how anime has become more and more pervasive in the West and thought that I could shoot off some of my thoughts on some subjects around this from time to time. I was born in 1984 and anime was a small part of my early life, much larger during my teens, and though I don’t watch much of it at all right now, I have lived in Japan for the past 16 years, so I am never quite out of the loop on things.
One anime that I got into, namely through the recommendation of a trusted friend is One Piece. To tell the truth, much before watching the anime, I read the anime and still have (as of now) all 112 volumes. Its a story about Luffy who gathers a crew to set out and find the treasure the “One Piece” and so become the “Pirate King”. The show is much deeper than that, but generally most deep novels have simple and easy to understand objectives that help give grounding for the more thoughtful aspects of characters and episodes (the Lord of the Rings is just about throwing a ring in a volcano…but it is because of this base that we are able to explore the good and evil that is in all people’s hearts).
Before I ever go into any storylines that are very illustrative of Biblical values (and there are many), I think I should introduce my favorite character…Usopp. He is the fourth member recruited and works as the sniper/gunsman for the crew…though he also has other jobs such as creating the emblem, building weapons and doing minor ship repairs before Franky came along. He shown to be a coward, but in a sense, this presentation of his fear ends up showing the complete opposite. Perhaps Usopp is the bravest member of the crew. That is because his disposition and his strength tend to him being more negative regarding himself. He is not rash, not gungho, not super strong and in now way assertive. Yet he is faced with danger for his village and later for his life numerous times. And in all of these cases, he half runs away, only to come back and face what he knows he has to do. If he were naturally strong and brave, then perhaps he would go about these dangers without second thought and face them head on. But that is not his personality. Yet despite his deep fears that are always with him, he continue to push them aside and eventually choose what is right rather than what his fears dictate to him.
I think that shows how we should be very slow to judge the hearts of others. We see someone who doesnt raise their hand up as fast, doesnt volunteer right away, doesnt look as assertive or intentional as others…and we pin it down to some intrinsic fault against them. But what we do not know is that the ladder that this person must climb to get to the same ground as another, is much higher. While the expression of bravery given by two people may look the same on the surface, internally, person A may have worked 100x harder than person B. Again, I understand how we are not equipped to judge the hearts of others as only Jesus can. We can still point to truth, but we do so humbly, knowing that we can neither know nor see all that there is.
Usopp and his struggles and victories remind me of a C.S. Lewis quote…“Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Quinby 