CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I was looking through some video tapes at my library and I found an anime that I had never seen before. It's called In The Beginning and it is about the old Bible stories from the Old Testament and one about the Birth of Jesus! I flipped to the back cover and it says that it was made by legendary Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka! I checked one out, watched it and found that it is great! There are 26 episodes. I looked for them online and found a place where you can buy them http://www.christianbook.com/. Just search for In The Beginning in the little search thing and they should come up. Watch out though, its kinda expensive. $7.50 per tape and one episode per tape. Check it out!

I thought more people would be interested in this.
It's not an April Fool's joke. It's a real anime.

I never was a fan of Astro Boy... but I suppose this is still pretty cool. If you were to provide a more specific link it would be helpful. I made a brief effort to locate the actual site for purchasing said "In the Beginning" and did not uncover anything for searchs by the title or either of the author's names.

Can you assist?

Here's the description from christianbook.com:

"Description: Discover all the spelndor and majesty of the greatest stories ever told, brought to life in the award-winning animated series, In the Beginning. Children of all ages will love the excitement and drama, accurately portrayed through the animation skills of a multi-talented international team, under the direction of the world- reowned animator, Osamu Tezuka. Joseph in Bondage recounts the story of Joseph as his brothers sell him into slavery and how God turns what they meant for evil into something good. (30 minutes)"

The link for this particular one is
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product/145039393?item_no=43826&event=CF

It looks good!

uc pseudonym wrote:I never was a fan of Astro Boy... but I suppose this is still pretty cool. If you were to provide a more specific link it would be helpful. I made a brief effort to locate the actual site for purchasing said "In the Beginning" and did not uncover anything for searchs by the title or either of the author's names.

Can you assist?

Here ya go.
Tezuka Osamu @ World - In The Beginning

This anime used to show on EWTN several years ago. It's a shame that Tezuka died during production. I wonder if he was saved...

I think I saw something like that on television once. But I think it was about Jericho and the story of Joshua? (I'm just confused...)
I think this is a bit odd, because Mr. Tezuka has drawn comic books about Buddha. (I'm confused again...)

Ah. It doesn't look half bad.

About Buddha... this is saddening, as it makes me suspect Tezuka subscribed to an "any religion goes" philosphy. If you prefer to be optimistic, you coul believe he converted and continued using his talents for God.

<Ah. It doesn't look half bad.

About Buddha... this is saddening, as it makes me suspect Tezuka subscribed to an "any religion goes" philosphy. If you prefer to be optimistic, you coul believe he converted and continued using his talents for God.>

That stinks..

Has anyone actually watched the Christian one? I'd like to know how accurate it is, because I looked through some of Tezuka's Buddha manga while I was in Japan (the art is classic Tezuka) and he took a lot of liberties with the story, if I'm not mistaken. It seemed more like a dramatization-type thing than a Buddhist evangelism tool. Perhaps a look at his accuracy (or lack thereof) in the Christian anime could give more insight into his beliefs.

Actually, I have seen a couple, and they were quite accurate.

Looks good i'll check it out!

uc pseudonym wrote:About Buddha... this is saddening, as it makes me suspect Tezuka subscribed to an "any religion goes" philosphy. If you prefer to be optimistic, you coul believe he converted and continued using his talents for God.

*sighs* Yet another person who thinks this... *shakes my head* Tezuka respected all the peaceful religions. From the Astro Boy story "Eyes of God" to this "In the Beginning" anime, this was respect to other people's beliefs. He always referred to a knowable Christian before writing a story with Christian elements. That's better than what most if not all Japanese manga/anime makers do now with Christain beliefs...


I can't believe there was an actual dub of this series. Very interesting! Mega-cool... I should look into getting Brean Christian Supply to get these then...

If anyone is interested, here are some more detailed descriptions of these videos: http://en.tezuka.co.jp/anime/soft/te05/index.html

I'm not entirely certain what your point is (as I'm not clear on which of my thoughts you refer to), so forgive me if this does not apply or I misunderstand you.

Breakman wrote:*sighs* Yet another person who thinks this... *shakes my head* Tezuka respected all the peaceful religions. From the Astro Boy story "Eyes of God" to this "In the Beginning" anime, this was respect to other people's beliefs. He always referred to a knowable Christian before writing a story with Christian elements. That's better than what most if not all Japanese manga/anime makers do now with Christain beliefs...

While that is another interesting bit of information, and it does relate to how the anime operates, I don't see what relevence it has to my post. What does it matter if he respected Christianity? Also, can't that respect be presumed, in that he created this anime?

O.O
Osamu is like the Disney of anime, and he made some Christian movies? Sweet. Freakin sweet.

From what I have read, The Vatican asked Tezuka to do this series, though he died before it was finished.

As far as I know he was never Christian.

I have found this on a few Google searches, but nothing on the level of an official news story unfortunately.

As I understand it, the popularity of anime and manga is more widespread in Italy than the US, and has been shown on TV for years. Many joint Italian/Japanese ventures were done (I understand "Sherlock Hound" was done in such a fashion).

If so, it sounds reaonable that a request could be made to an anime company to do an animated version of the Bible.

Oh, I saw part of an episode of this once on a Catholic tv station!

I was shocked to see 1) anime on a Catholic network, and 2) Biblical anime at all, much less by someone so famous.

It actually looked good, too. But they never ran more of it, as far as I could tell. And I never bought any, either. But it looked good.

You know, some 10-15 years ago, (before I got into anime) I recall some Sunday School catalog advertising some series of Bible movies. One of the points was that it was animated by a Japanese company. I wonder if that was the series (It wasn't superbook or any of those)...

Forgot about that until now...

That's coolness. I'm not really a fan of Tezuka's art but I have lot's of respect for him. That's cool that he created a mostly accurate "christian" series. I might check it out sometime.

That Dude wrote:That's coolness. I'm not really a fan of Tezuka's art but I have lot's of respect for him. That's cool that he created a mostly accurate "christian" series. I might check it out sometime.

He tries to be respectful in his works as I recall though mistakes can be made. For example, in "Adolf," he portrays Jews praying in a Christian style in a synagogue that looks like a Christian church. As I remember the books had a note that the family of Tezuka said he intended no offense, but had no idea what a synagogue looked like. Christians are 0.8% of Japan's population and I suspect Jews are almost non existent in Japan

uc pseudonym wrote:I'm not entirely certain what your point is (as I'm not clear on which of my thoughts you refer to), so forgive me if this does not apply or I misunderstand you.

No, no. I re-read my post. I wasn't totally clear. I'm sorry. *sweat drop*

I was saying that Tezuka liked religions that aligned with his philosophy. If Christian was "evil" to him, he wouldn't dare make a anime for those who believe in it. So "any thing/religion goes" isn't what Tezuka believed in.

About if Tezuka made the cut to Heaven or not, it's hard to say (he did good things, supported non-violence, etc. even if he wasn't Christian). They say that even some saints don't make it, so...

Is that better? ^^;

AnimeHeretic wrote:He tries to be respectful in his works as I recall though mistakes can be made. For example, in "Adolf," he portrays Jews praying in a Christian style in a synagogue that looks like a Christian church. As I remember the books had a note that the family of Tezuka said he intended no offense, but had no idea what a synagogue looked like. Christians are 0.8% of Japan's population and I suspect Jews are almost non existent in Japan

As I understand it, the Jews there are a small portion indeed, basically those who are soujourners stay there for some reason or another and very few natives (although Judaism has for some time resisted its original calling to be the light of the world, leaving it to us, the spiritual Israel), and that many there mistake it for another sect of us Christians (doubtless to their ire).

Perhaps Tezuka wished to honor those religions he felt worthy of his respect by using his influence and talents to counter ignorance of these religions. Also, one thing not mentioned in this thread is that Japan has a long tradition of religious syncretism - who is to say that he didn't end up with some fusion of Buddhism and Christianity that retained the saving tenants of Christianity (declares that Yeshua/Jesus/Ioseous/whatever-other-translation-or-transliteration Christ is Lord, that He died for the sins of the world, and that YHWH/God/see-previous-linguistic-note raised Him again on the third day).

Oh, and this, which seems to be the same product we are talking about, is a DVD combo pack along with the pretty good film The Miracle Maker: The Story of Jesus for $25 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005NX1B/qid=1117769164/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-2470784-7645712?v=glance&s=dvd .

I was wondering if this series has been put onto DVDs? I have a VCR but it's downstairs and often my parents use it so I'd like to use my DVD-ROM on my PC instead. Thanks in anticipation.

Just replying to Solitary Prototype's comments..

"About if Tezuka made the cut to Heaven or not, it's hard to say (he did good things, supported non-violence, etc. even if he wasn't Christian). They say that even some saints don't make it, so..."

I think in the end it comes down to what a person did about Jesus Christ's offer of salvation.

Having said that I know the issue of whether people who have never heard the gospel or been told about God can be saved is a perennial one..

I'd suggest the book "Who Can Be Saved?" by Terrance L. Tiessen (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004).

Cheers.

Breakman wrote:No, no. I re-read my post. I wasn't totally clear. I'm sorry. *sweat drop*

I was saying that Tezuka liked religions that aligned with his philosophy. If Christian was "evil" to him, he wouldn't dare make a anime for those who believe in it. So "any thing/religion goes" isn't what Tezuka believed in.

Thank you for that clarification, it made your intent much clearer. Now that I properly understand you, thank you for sharing that information.

Breakman wrote:About if Tezuka made the cut to Heaven or not, it's hard to say (he did good things, supported non-violence, etc. even if he wasn't Christian). They say that even some saints don't make it, so...

Thankfully, it isn't necessary for us to judge his soul. That aside, nice Rock avatar.

I would love to see this, as long as I could find it in its original language.

Jeikobu wrote:I would love to see this, as long as I could find it in its original language.

...Which is probably Italian.

I figured it would be Japanese...why Italian? It is an anime right? o_O Unless it's like Sherlock Hound, one of the few anime not originally done in Japanese...

Jeikobu wrote:I figured it would be Japanese...why Italian? It is an anime right? o_O Unless it's like Sherlock Hound, one of the few anime not originally done in Japanese...

Like I said, the Vatican asked Tezuka to do this series, and apparently it was done for Italy. I think I did read that on the official Tezuka site.
Besides, do you think an anime based on the Bible would be popular in Japan? Doubtful...

Unfortunately, but any Biblical anime sounds great.

I think that is it-- a production made for foreign audiences.

Found a reference in "The Anime Encyclopedia" by Clements and McCarthy
Called "In the Beginning" (Tezuka Osamu no Kyuyaku Seisho Motogatari)
Comissioned by Italian station RAI, 1984 to 1992. 26 episodes listed. Evidently a JP version exists since it was shown in Japan in 1997. Evidently a fox witnesses all the events and is the joining character