This is a reoccurring motif within Japanese games. Arguably, it stems from Japan's rather odd religious history- you have the native animist very material Shinto and the very immaterially focused foreign Buddhism. They did clash, though some would like to say they wouldn't, and the end result is a merging. I know of Buddhist temples where, say, one can drink from two of three springs to secure a combination of two of either luck, wealth, or long life. This runs against the core of Buddhist thought as it originally went, which is incredibly Gnostic, but it's what emerged in Japan.
It isn't terribly coherent, hence a spiritual struggle remains. People, both Japanese and not, like to laugh and say Japan has figured out how square that circle in a kind of enlightened apathy, but the evidence you point out in video games points to that not being the case. No culture on this Earth is without some sort of spiritual malady, and I think it is in these stories we see it being given voice. It's a universal one because, well, same species.
I should look into St. Kolbe's time in Japan in more depth, because this seems to be something he (like many others) recognized. The author of Silence, a native, as well (the movie does his novel a disservice by most accounts). There's a reason the Kakure Kirishitan persisted for centuries despite intense persecution.
I'm glad you brought up the Shinto/Buddhist dynamic. That was something I wanted to explore as well, but realized I needed to do more formal study on. It comes up a lot in Japanese media, such as the more explicit references to the collision as seen in Sekiro.
From what I _have_ read, I get this strong sense that the Shinto side of Japanese culture is particularly strong in the arts, as almost every hero I can think of embodies that ancient animist aim of being in a state of equilibrium with the earth and the spirits that reside in it, while rejecting ideas of ascending to a "disconnected" heaven where the soul escapes the concerns of the world—as opposed to a "connected" heaven where ancestor spirits can continue to commune with the world in some way.
I should read St. Kolbe as well. I've seen some stories that ride so close to the Christian worldview that I really ought to familiarize myself with the history of how our faith has influenced the region.
I am a sincere believer in the True Myth, even outside the “west”. Christ is the answer to the longing in the human- and even perhaps the non-human, if it’s out there, or even if we manage to actually build it- heart. There’s a reason Marcus Aurelius’ meditations line up so well with our faith, despite his own hatred of the early Church. If you pursue the Truth, and if you prioritize that pursuit, you end up here, no matter where you started.
God is Truth afterall, so to be completely removed from God—to be entirely untrue—would mean ceasing to exist at all. Anything that does exist must conform *to an extent* to truth, even if its ultimate end has been perverted by the devil to turn away from God and thus to death. Therefore, it's good for evangelizing Christians to remember that their mission isn't to completely uproot other cultures, but to correct those sometimes subtle perversions that the devil has sowed (although, now that I'm thinking about Jesus's parable on the field with the weeds, I'm thinking that "correcting" might work in a different way than I would initially envision).
There are such things as parasitic weeds. I feel like if one really knows gardening and farming, that metaphor has whole new depths. Certainly, as someone who runs a household, those parables have only become truer.
St. Kolbe's time in Japan illustrates this well, what I do know of it. The monastery he founded was built on the ill-favored side of a hill in Nagasaki according to Shinto beliefs- I think it had been a mass grave at one point (it was also cheap and funds were short). In doing so, the only effects of it felt from the atom bomb were the windows blowing out from the pressure wave- and so the residents were able to minister to the ruined city. There is something there that uproots what needs to be uprooted, but leaves to grow what should be left. He didn't opt for a bunch of huts in a remote mountainside, in some damning of the city.
This is a reoccurring motif within Japanese games. Arguably, it stems from Japan's rather odd religious history- you have the native animist very material Shinto and the very immaterially focused foreign Buddhism. They did clash, though some would like to say they wouldn't, and the end result is a merging. I know of Buddhist temples where, say, one can drink from two of three springs to secure a combination of two of either luck, wealth, or long life. This runs against the core of Buddhist thought as it originally went, which is incredibly Gnostic, but it's what emerged in Japan.
It isn't terribly coherent, hence a spiritual struggle remains. People, both Japanese and not, like to laugh and say Japan has figured out how square that circle in a kind of enlightened apathy, but the evidence you point out in video games points to that not being the case. No culture on this Earth is without some sort of spiritual malady, and I think it is in these stories we see it being given voice. It's a universal one because, well, same species.
I should look into St. Kolbe's time in Japan in more depth, because this seems to be something he (like many others) recognized. The author of Silence, a native, as well (the movie does his novel a disservice by most accounts). There's a reason the Kakure Kirishitan persisted for centuries despite intense persecution.
I'm glad you brought up the Shinto/Buddhist dynamic. That was something I wanted to explore as well, but realized I needed to do more formal study on. It comes up a lot in Japanese media, such as the more explicit references to the collision as seen in Sekiro.
From what I _have_ read, I get this strong sense that the Shinto side of Japanese culture is particularly strong in the arts, as almost every hero I can think of embodies that ancient animist aim of being in a state of equilibrium with the earth and the spirits that reside in it, while rejecting ideas of ascending to a "disconnected" heaven where the soul escapes the concerns of the world—as opposed to a "connected" heaven where ancestor spirits can continue to commune with the world in some way.
I should read St. Kolbe as well. I've seen some stories that ride so close to the Christian worldview that I really ought to familiarize myself with the history of how our faith has influenced the region.
I am a sincere believer in the True Myth, even outside the “west”. Christ is the answer to the longing in the human- and even perhaps the non-human, if it’s out there, or even if we manage to actually build it- heart. There’s a reason Marcus Aurelius’ meditations line up so well with our faith, despite his own hatred of the early Church. If you pursue the Truth, and if you prioritize that pursuit, you end up here, no matter where you started.
God is Truth afterall, so to be completely removed from God—to be entirely untrue—would mean ceasing to exist at all. Anything that does exist must conform *to an extent* to truth, even if its ultimate end has been perverted by the devil to turn away from God and thus to death. Therefore, it's good for evangelizing Christians to remember that their mission isn't to completely uproot other cultures, but to correct those sometimes subtle perversions that the devil has sowed (although, now that I'm thinking about Jesus's parable on the field with the weeds, I'm thinking that "correcting" might work in a different way than I would initially envision).
There are such things as parasitic weeds. I feel like if one really knows gardening and farming, that metaphor has whole new depths. Certainly, as someone who runs a household, those parables have only become truer.
St. Kolbe's time in Japan illustrates this well, what I do know of it. The monastery he founded was built on the ill-favored side of a hill in Nagasaki according to Shinto beliefs- I think it had been a mass grave at one point (it was also cheap and funds were short). In doing so, the only effects of it felt from the atom bomb were the windows blowing out from the pressure wave- and so the residents were able to minister to the ruined city. There is something there that uproots what needs to be uprooted, but leaves to grow what should be left. He didn't opt for a bunch of huts in a remote mountainside, in some damning of the city.