When I read this article, I thought about Angel Beats. Because, like, it is actually tackling a subtle notion about afterlife and more importantly explaining how what we believe the afterlife to be, that directly impacts the way we look at ourselves right now, and how we live this one.
I mean, it’s a very tangible thing when it comes to organ donation. Some philosophies enable people to donate more willingly than others, after death. And in term, that impacts actual lives of people who can use the help. I think Angel Beats is, from this perspective, an ingenious way to tackle a fairly thorny problem. And it didn’t even had the time to be preachy… Oh who am I kidding?
January 9th, 2013 at 5:09 pm
During my time spent in Japan, I had the ‘willing donor’ boxes all circled on my card. And yeah, it was thanks to Angel Beats. Not that the anime had to convince me much on the matter, but I might have not noticed that part of the card at all if AB hadn’t brought my attention to it. In this sense, the anime did some good on the ‘raising awareness’ front, too.
January 9th, 2013 at 6:33 pm
This is cool. Thanks for sharing.
January 9th, 2013 at 11:09 pm
Same experience here. +1.
Honestly as preachy as it is, Angel Beats! could have been Maeda’s best contribution to society so far.
January 11th, 2013 at 1:17 am
The “dark side” of organ donation is of course, while donors provide organs gratis, hospitals make a lot of money off of successful transplants.
And the organ industry is now millions and millions of dollars. In the past few decades one notices a correlation between pushing definitions of “brain death” with the rise of organ transplant technology… I don’t want to suggest that willingness to be an organ donor is a bad thing, but the incentives of the system as it stands at present are more than a little ghoulish, and shouldn’t be examined uncritically.
January 11th, 2013 at 7:41 am
That sounds like generic BS. Not that your point is invalid, but it’s kind of besides the point.