I take it you enjoyed this more than Laws of Eternity, or at least feel more comfortable laughing at Happy Science doctrine now.
I did enjoy it more than Laws of Eternity. I'm still halfway uncomfortable mocking most religions because that's just the way mom and pop brought me up to be, but I mean. Well, here, we'll do this officially.
The Rebirth of Buddha
Let me begin by saying I actually enjoyed this movie. Which means my tastes are as bad as dimb says they are, among other things. I'll go more into depth as to why I liked it, what I felt was critically no good, and such as I go, but first I think I'll take a crack at its doctrine.
It should be noted that as a Mormon I've kinda grown up used to people making cracks about my own religion (and I can dish them about as well as I can take them), but sometimes just saying "that's stupid crazy" doesn't cut it for me since I suppose that anybody who looked at what I believe could well say the same. I mean, Ancient American Christians? Then again, you never really know when you're inside of something. The point is, if I'm cutting a cult a break it's only because like, my whole life I've been taught to be mindful of not stepping on the religious toes of others.
On the one hand, I think that doctrinally there are some okay things being said in this movie. The message that you shouldn't be afraid to tell the truth is sort of a recurring theme here and in Laws of Eternity, and I'm okay with that. I'm also pretty okay with the Massive Religion Crossover that Happy Science seems to have going. Religious crossover is actually pretty nifty, I think, because it represents finding things you have in common with other belief systems, rather than obsessing over the different. I concede that Happy Science is perhaps just a bit
too giddy about it, but eh, what the hey.
There's also the fact that you can't shake off the fact that this is a cult we're talking about here. I hate to use that word, as many times as it's been thrown in my face, but it always seems to me that in Japan there is a larger amount of Christian cults, though as someone who has like, NO experience with religion outside the Western world, I really cannot say. Which is another point I should bring up: my knowledge of non-Abrahamic religions is extremely limited, so I really dunno a whole lot about Buddhism or Shinto.
That said, I feel that Buddha is used here in a way that practically lacks any sign of being Buddha at all. I mean I really feel the author just wanted to say Jesus, but since Buddha is the bigger name, they went with Buddha. But I mean, I dunno that false Buddhas are a thing, the way false Christs are.
The other major complaint I feel the need to make in this area is that I have a hard time thinking someone actually believes this. Or rather, I don't know exactly what the people believe. For instance, in both Laws of Eternity and Rebirth of Buddha a major character turns out to actually be a historical religious figure reincarnated. Do the members of Happy Science believe these anime characters are these figures? Do the characters in the anime correspond to the real life leaders of Happy Science? Are the events in these anime meant to be real depictions of what the people believe, or just fictionalized stories set to the back drop of the religion's faith?
For instance, the LDS Church has a movie called "The Testaments" which follows the life of an ancient American family leading up to the coming of Christ. I imagine watching this movie if you don't know anything about Mormonism would be a similar experience, since the family is fiction, even to the members, whereas the rest of the events in the film are part of the faith. So I
assume that Sayako and her friends are fictional characters meant to teach us about something else, except that unlike in the Testaments where the LDS Church is really saying that yes, the Glorified Christ came to the Ancient Americas, I have a hard time believing that the Happy Scientists want me to believe that
demonic aliens invaded modern day Japan.
Moving on from the criticism of its teachings to the plot, I have to say that on the whole--and if you did not believe I was insane prior to this point in the post, you will soon have confirmation--it reminded me of Earth Maiden Arjuna . . .
except it didn't suck. The two plots have a fair amount in common, following a girl's spiritual quest, guided by her Jesus guide and accompanied by her dopey blonde not-boyfriend. Tonally there's a lot of stopping the plot to preach to the viewer (who is personified by the girl), and several occasions in which danger leads to an intended lesson. The key difference, I would say, is that where Shoji Kawamori is a hateful man who thinks that humanity is horrible and that our TVs give boners to space aliens, this movie is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, being sugary to the point of diabetes in its hope for the human race. Jesus H. Buddha doesn't exactly do more teaching than Chris did, but at the same time he's far less over bearing, and Mari is an infinitely less shitty Cindy.
The most apt comparison to make, though, is between this and its predecessor, the Laws of Eternity. It still follows a rag-tag gang of heroes through their spiritual conquest over evil, but I think the writers actually did a bit better this time around. The romance is still way more forced, but at least they tried to show Sayako and Yuki in love, rather than just MAKING the leads from the last movie be in love. There's still a racist caricature in the cast (last time it was Roberto, this time it's Australian dude). Last time there was a demon elephant in Hell, so to make things fair this time there was a heavenly elephant, too! And there's still a fair amount of time spent looking at terrible CGI. There were also several cameos from the last movie and, God help me, I actually thought the terrible CGI angel knight cameo was clever of them.
Unlike Laws of Eternity, which meanders like hell, this film actually makes an attempt at pacing. It can be neatly divided into three arcs, (Sayako learning about Buddha, the Flood Arc, and the Baseball Arc) and for the most part, they work, though I would say that the third arc felt sort of unnecessary, since it was clear the battle was over once the Flood Arc was over and the rest felt like some kind of Scouring of the Shire business. It's not the best anime you'll ever see, but compared to its predecessor, they have improved.
The most notable parts of the film are the incredible ambivalence the human race has in reacting to, well, everything. I mean a dude uses psychic powers on TV and rather than the govt locking him down, he's still out and about. ALIENS DESTROY A GOOD CHUNK OF TOKYO and nobody gives a damn ten minutes later when they're told a Tsunami is coming. The bad guy comes riding in on an alien hover craft saying he's Jesus and people believe him, even though he is pretty obviously holding a teenage girl captive.
Speaking of that last part, it's something of a huge plot hole that where the bad guy gets the alien technology to you know, level a town, is never explained. I assume the answer is "from the demon world" but then again, like, what? These demons have the tech to level cities and they know that human misery is the one thing keeping God from closing the doors to Hell forever, so why are they playing this TV game? GO BLOW UP SHIT. I don't know. I just know that out of fucking nowhere aliens level stuff and I'd love to hear an explanation for that. Like, I don't mind if you do crazy stuff, but let's hear some answers why, okay?
So yeah, I
enjoyed this. Mostly because it was better than Laws of Eternity, but also because it was better than Arjuna. I wouldn't say I loved it. It's no ZZ Gundam or Monogatari or G Gundam or Shin Mazinger Z or so on or so forth. Not something I'm going to rave to you about. But compared to those two particular shows, which I was reminded of and compared it to for the reasons I have already explained, it was all around a better experience.
