And then there was the Japanese animated feature, “Hermes, Wings of Love”. I saw this in 1997 or 1998, shortly after it came out. I was invited to a screening by a Japanese gentleman who said that it had recently premiered theatrically in Tokyo and had topped the Japanese box office for two weeks; they were trying to get an American theatrical release for it; and as a well-known anime fan they hoped that I would talk it up.
I assumed that it was a publicity screening, but it was a private screening in Los Angeles’ Japanese community in what looked more like a church. It was. I was the only gaijin in a solemn group of about a hundred who acted like they were attending a religious service. The movie, about the god Hermes and the hero Theseus fighting the Minotaur, looked like it was based on Greek mythology, but it was presented as a historical drama based on real events. As it went on, I had to fight to keep from laughing at many melodramatic scenes that everyone else was taking as serious history. I don’t believe in laughing in someone’s face at his religion, and this was obviously not a good idea when surrounded by over a hundred True Believers.
They did not get an American theatrical release. I later found out that the movie was commissioned in Tokyo by the Institute for Research into Human Happiness (IRH), a.k.a. the Happy Science Church, legally recognized in both the U.S. and Japan. I think of it as the “Let’s have worldwide Peace and Love, after we kill all the Koreans” church, based on their teachings. Every couple of years, they take in enough donations from their parishioners that they can commission Toei Animation Company, the largest animation studio in Japan, to make a theatrical feature around one of their teachings. They have enough believers in Japan that it’s at the top of the charts for a couple of weeks. This was their 1997 feature. They’re still commissioning Toei Animation to make a new one every two or three years.
I posted on Flayrah a few years ago that the IRH believes that Satan is an evil furry; an immortal anthropomorphic felinoid general from the Andromeda Galaxy who came to Earth in a flying saucer millions of years ago, and who rules a secret civilization at the center of the Earth where he shoots energy beams up that make surface people (us) have wars and get sick. The dinosaurs became extinct because they were all killed by Andromedean catman Big Game Hunters flying over the Earth on their flying saucers. Don’t laugh; there are over a million believers who are absolutely serious about this. When that 1997 screening ended, I was given a copy of the IRH’s Bible titled “The Laws of the Sun”. You can buy it on Amazon.com. I defy any Christian or furry fan to read it and keep a straight face.
And then there was the Japanese animated feature, “Hermes, Wings of Love”. I saw this in 1997 or 1998, shortly after it came out. I was invited to a screening by a Japanese gentleman who said that it had recently premiered theatrically in Tokyo and had topped the Japanese box office for two weeks; they were trying to get an American theatrical release for it; and as a well-known anime fan they hoped that I would talk it up.
I assumed that it was a publicity screening, but it was a private screening in Los Angeles’ Japanese community in what looked more like a church. It was. I was the only gaijin in a solemn group of about a hundred who acted like they were attending a religious service. The movie, about the god Hermes and the hero Theseus fighting the Minotaur, looked like it was based on Greek mythology, but it was presented as a historical drama based on real events. As it went on, I had to fight to keep from laughing at many melodramatic scenes that everyone else was taking as serious history. I don’t believe in laughing in someone’s face at his religion, and this was obviously not a good idea when surrounded by over a hundred True Believers.
They did not get an American theatrical release. I later found out that the movie was commissioned in Tokyo by the Institute for Research into Human Happiness (IRH), a.k.a. the Happy Science Church, legally recognized in both the U.S. and Japan. I think of it as the “Let’s have worldwide Peace and Love, after we kill all the Koreans” church, based on their teachings. Every couple of years, they take in enough donations from their parishioners that they can commission Toei Animation Company, the largest animation studio in Japan, to make a theatrical feature around one of their teachings. They have enough believers in Japan that it’s at the top of the charts for a couple of weeks. This was their 1997 feature. They’re still commissioning Toei Animation to make a new one every two or three years.
I posted on Flayrah a few years ago that the IRH believes that Satan is an evil furry; an immortal anthropomorphic felinoid general from the Andromeda Galaxy who came to Earth in a flying saucer millions of years ago, and who rules a secret civilization at the center of the Earth where he shoots energy beams up that make surface people (us) have wars and get sick. The dinosaurs became extinct because they were all killed by Andromedean catman Big Game Hunters flying over the Earth on their flying saucers. Don’t laugh; there are over a million believers who are absolutely serious about this. When that 1997 screening ended, I was given a copy of the IRH’s Bible titled “The Laws of the Sun”. You can buy it on Amazon.com. I defy any Christian or furry fan to read it and keep a straight face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjD-DAjAF9I
Fred Patten