Something More: Buddhism in Shin Sekai Yori, Homura the Pope, and a Witch’s Familiar

The writers at Anime Diet analyze the first two Madoka Magica movies, and include some great discussion of Buddhist and Christian allusions in the films and series. [Anime Diet]

Speaking of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Nick Calibey points out the similarities between Homura and St. Peter. [A Rather Silly Blog]

Nick also presents a wonderful reflection on whether beauty can be found in media, including in anime like Now and Then, Here and There. [A Rather Silly Blog]

ajthefourth and vucubcaquix do their typically wonderful jobs of analysis, discussing religious allusions, primarily to Buddhism and Christianity, in Shin Sekai  Yori. [The Untold Story of Altair & Vega]

Among other things, Draggle specifically points out the ironic role Buddhism plays in the same series. [Draggle's Anime Blog]

Sweetpea discusses the idea of familiars, mentioning her current search for one and giving some examples from anime. [Pagan by the Book]

Hashi interviews Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda of AltJapan, writers of a new book about yurei. [Tofugu]

Aniblogger Testimony: Hard-Wired for Storytelling

This is the third in a series of Aniblogger Testimony posts, where select writers will discuss their personal faith.  Today’s post is by Niko of Anime Savvy.  The previous posts in this series were written by Lauren Orisini and R86.

I’ve always been fascinated with belief. I even went to graduate school to study folklore and wrote my thesis on fairy belief. And yet, talking about religion makes me uneasy.

For me, religion is interesting in the same way mythology is–after all, every mythology was once the sacred stories of a religion–but for many people, religion is not something that sould be scrutinzed. Belief is something to be, well, believed, and not to be studied. For many people, religious belief is dimished if questioned; it must be taken on faith or it’s somehow less valuable. I find that . . . well I don’t want to say creepy, but I can’t understand why a person would choose to believe anything on faith alone.