I read Tangle’s guide to anime for Christian parents, and I’m kind of disappointed that it delivers not much beyond the usefulness of a Wikipedia article. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t go to any of the instances in which I find some connection spiritually with the anime I’ve seen over the years. Maybe I shouldn’t have been looking for that, being an insider rather than an outsider.

Truth is, religion and spiritual beliefs are intensely personal things, so it’s difficult to write anything about them in a way that is intended for a general audience, at least for me. Parents, too, would also apply that rule, so I think, even if the application is just as intensively personal on the part of the family. It takes a certain gifting or certain moment of inspiration, I feel, to be able to generalize to that level in this category of topics, and at any rate stuff that I probably do not have.

What’s probably just as bad is trying to talk about parenting ideas in the same way, because I feel that is just as personal as anything religious. I mean, do you want to get all up and in inside your tween’s media consumption? Some parents do, others not as much. I don’t blame them. Either of them. I mean, if I was a 14yo, do I want my dad to watch anime with me? I guess regardless how I feel about it, it’s up to the parent or child to decide.

Or not. Because I think either way could work. It’s like how some find religious release and salvation through simple stories and personal anecdotes that resonate with the deepest part of their existence, a personal revelation. Others seek answers in rationality and things they have a deep grasp of, to construct the system that they live by. Some do both.

It’s how I approach anime, actually. Invariably, when we’re dealing the media output of one of the most introverted country and culture in the world, it feels a bit foreign. In other words, anime is a bit like a stranger in my eyes, in my culture’s eyes, and in the eyes of its analysts, critics, policy makers, academics, parents, and what have you. There is not much that one could call gospel or bible when it comes to anime (although there may be a few encyclopedias lying around, and one very black bible), so most people are left to their own devices to make sense of it.

Thankfully, anime is cartoons. It’s not something made in order to discuss really complex issues (even if it can) or to hide something from plain sight (even if it can), or just plain confusing (which happens more often than one imagine, but not that often). I think the average tween-raising adult (probably in their 40s or 50s?) should have enough common sense to handle it. Because the average teenager is by far more complicated than the average anime, and that includes even late night offerings.

So, perhaps it is naive, but I am hopeful that kids will still be kids, and grow up in such a way that how they were cared for reflects appropriately in the end.

And this is basically how I approach the whole Manabi Straight thing. The thing when I wrote about that it is the picture-perfect illustration of God’s kingdom. Because it’s about seeing it; it’s the way how prophecy, anointing, hope, patience, faith, standing up to what is right, fighting for what you believe, understanding, reason, charity, acceptance, and by some measure, love, come together to make a beautiful whatever-it-is. And the thing is, you won’t be able to see it unless you are looking for it, and you can’t find it unless you know what it looks like. That stuff, no amount of anime is going to be able to teach you.

Just ask your mom.

So, yes, it didn’t occur to me because this article was about Fast Five, which came out some time in late April, about a movie that came out over a week ago, which is yet another a few days prior to the Toyota Corolla x Hatsune Miku tie-in.

The Boston.com article, titled “Fast Forward: Why a movie about car thieves is the most progressive force in American cinema” details the nature of American mainstream cinema and how somehow The Fast and the Furious franchise is now the #1 progressive franchise in America mainstream cinema which treats race as a fact of life and not some issue or point. It mirrors a less-whitewashed reality experienced by more people in this country than most other films. Perhaps a coincidence, it is no less a force for progress.

The article is a good read, and if that topic interests you, please go ahead. I am just going to grab one thought out of it. I quote:

In a sense, the balkanization of movies would appear to be an example of how much culture has splintered into niches—more proof, if we needed it, that we no longer watch, listen to, or read the same material. But moviegoing is one of our last shared public acts. Hundreds of millions of people continue to watch movies together, and it’s easy to scan the house and see who’s watching with you. Were you to visit the big theaters in Boston—the AMC Boston Common or the Regal Fenway—you’d see that the audiences at both complexes are often diverse. The movies are not.

You wouldn’t draw much of a popular audience, mixed or otherwise, to a movie about race, of course. And that is the accidental genius of the “Fast and Furious” movies. They’re not about race. Race—and casualness about race—is just their hallmark. They’re about something else, a great American unifying principle: sexy cars that everybody wants to drive.

So to me, it comes down to two things:

1. To see Hatsune Miku–a first pop idol of sorts for her race (Japanese meme-oid fictional character)–in a car ad is something truly American. Big dreams! I laughed pretty hard, I confess. But it’s the right car, for the right audience.

2. Some people are complaining because, well, it’s a Toyota Corolla. In fact it’s probably as opposite to “sexy cars that everybody wants to drive” as it can get. Just look at how well the Corolla XRS sold (cancelled for 2011 model year). I mean I suppose there’s a perverse joy in putting racing stripes on your Chrysler Town and Country, and a Miku x Corolla ad is not as bad as that, but one might just question the unifying qualities of such choice on the automobile. Well, at least there is no question to its desirability, considering that despite the failure of 10th gen Corolla versus its competition, its utilitarian appeal ensures a sales figure of over 200,000 vehicles a year in the US alone. Still, it just isn’t a “big dreams” vehicle. It’s the exemplary Asian-conservative econo-car.

Mr. Opportunity should have had his chance with the young idol. Imagine the scandal it would generate back in Japan! At least Civics had way more face time in F&F than the Corolla (which was always just the cameo of the iconic AE86). Thinking about it, I think people would have reacted more positively if it was a Civic or a Mazda 3 (a truly progressive merger of American and Japanese concepts and technologies), if we’re sticking with that class of cars. The production quality nitpicks are always going to be an issue when we’re talking about international copyright and money spent on ads, but it would have soften the jarring migration from one media scene and aesthetics to another.