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AUM Shinrikyo Anime?




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Abarenbo Shogun



Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 1573
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:46 am Reply with quote
Someone told me that AUM Shinrikyo (that cult with the half-blind Guru that spread sarin Gas thru the Tokyo Metro Subways) made an anime for propaganda purposes.

Is this true?
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abunai
Old Regular


Joined: 05 Mar 2004
Posts: 5463
Location: 露命
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:46 am Reply with quote
Abarenbo Shogun wrote:
Someone told me that AUM Shinrikyo (that cult with the half-blind Guru that spread sarin Gas thru the Tokyo Metro Subways) made an anime for propaganda purposes.

Is this true?

I'm not sure about the anime (though I think the answer is no) - but I know for a fact that AUM Shinrikyo made extensive use of manga in its propaganda. There's nothing particularly unusual about this use of comics in religious propaganda - google "Jack Chick tracts" for a Christian (if you can call it that) version.

The Tokyo attacks (and AUM Shinrikyo's other shenanigans) have inspired a number of manga and anime, to some degree. Perhaps the most directly influenced is Yamamoto Naoki's manga Believers. Though it doesn't deal with a quite similar situation, the subtext is very clear.

- abunai
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Nani?



Joined: 20 Jul 2003
Posts: 632
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:14 am Reply with quote
There was another Japanese new religion that did sponsor a Anime several years ago, something set in ancient Greece, (I believe Minos of Crete was the bad guy) which I can't remember the name of and is supposed to be truly horrible.

All the Best,

Nani?
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4561
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 11:17 am Reply with quote
I once heard the exact same thing about eight years ago from a renowned cult expert who was also one of my professors, but I've never been able to corroborate its existence, and I've looked several times over the past near-decade.

It's either a complete and total urban legend, or an urban legend based on a misunderstanding from those people who get "manga" and "anime" confused.
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cookie
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 02 Jan 2002
Posts: 2460
Location: Do not contact me for support.
PostPosted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:33 pm Reply with quote
Nani? wrote:
There was another Japanese new religion that did sponsor a Anime several years ago


animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=4414

Ougon no Hou. We don't have it in the Encyclopedia, amazingly enough..
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jfrog



Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 925
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:20 am Reply with quote
If you're interested, check out Underground, Haruki Murakami's nonfiction book about the gas attacks. Towards the end, there's an interview with an Aum member who actually worked in the animation department of the cult, and he gives some brief descriptions of the projects he was working on, though I don't know whether they were shorts, a feature-film, or what. But either way, there does exist anime out there that shows Shoko Asahara levitating and performing other miracles and whatnot.

EDIT: Semi-OT, just thought I'd post this transcript of an article analyzing the cultural significance of Evangelion (very interesting stuff regardless of your opinions of the series, and mine is quite low) that briefly touches on the relation between Eva and Aum, as well as that of the live-action cyberpunk film Rubber's Lover, which is apparently a Sogo Ishii/Tetsuo the Iron Man type thing - though I haven't seen it myself, so I can't really comment one way or another about its relation to the cult.
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