A Glimpse to Something Much Bigger...

Material presented at MCAD's 2001 "Girls and Mobilesuits" Anime Seminar. All images are properties of their respective artist, publisher, or distributor, and used for academic purposes only.

Perhaps Miaka is a bit like the reader of the manga itself, at first drowning in the drudgery and pain of daily life.
Like the reader, Miaka escapes into a fantasy world through a book....
And there, Miaka learns that life has a meaning, that she is not powerless, that love gives her strength,
and that there is something beyond the narrow confines of what she thought was life....
Is this also what the reader learns too, perhaps?

The fantastic, epic Romantic elements of Anime serve to connect the reader to a world "bigger" than the daily world.

The moral elements also serve to connect the reader to a spiritual world "bigger" than what we may normally perceive.

Hence, these elements serve to connect the audience to something bigger, deeper, larger, more profound, more eternal
than any one person alone....

If the theme of "love others" "strength comes through love" "in giving we receive" and so on sound familiar,
perhaps that's just because of the universality of the human spirit...!

Concluding comments