Anime against Orthodoxy: Who is hindered by the Theotokos-chan

Whether we like it or not, Japanese anime culture has firmly entered our lives. Many are trying to resist this, and the struggle sometimes takes a grotesque form, as it happened recently in the capital of Bashkortostan, Ufa, where the Orthodox declared a fight to anime icons.

The other day, GTRK "Bashkortostan" showed a story that tells about one of the VKontakte groups, the content of which offended the feelings of Orthodox believers. The group contains anime-style images stylized as Christian icons. A priest, a restorer artist and a church parishioner share their indignation in the plot. In addition, the indignation of users of social networks is mentioned, who demand to protect them from such sacrilege.

The most interesting thing about this "resonant case" is that the group has long been abandoned and no activity has been noted in it for a long time. Netizens drew attention to the pathetic plot of the GTRK "Bashkortostan", filled with righteous anger. Its authors are trying to create a loud scandal with a religious background out of the blue, although the case is clearly not worth a damn.

The role of the main actor in the video is assigned to a clergyman — the head of the missionary department of the Ufa Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, Dionysius Lobanov. The Holy Father learned about the blasphemous community on the social network from parishioners and immediately began to sound the alarm.

The priest claims that this kind of creativity is "inappropriate for Orthodoxy," and the author of the plot, Anvar Aslyamov, adds fuel to the fire by suggesting that deviation from the canons of icon painting smacks of a serious sin.

Another "deeply offended believer" was Alla Khalyavkina, a restorer from the Ufa Iconostasis artel. The master of the icon-painting workshop says that he always starts each part of his blessed work only with prayer.

That's it. No wonder they say that anyone can offend an artist, and, apparently, you don't even need to touch an icon painter — he will find something to be offended by. But the gentle indignation of the pastor and the offense of the man of art are nothing compared to the insult inflicted by the bug-eyed Japanese non-consecrated parishioner of the Holy Cross Church. She bluntly stated that the authors of the "icons" are deliberately mocking God, causing her moral torment.

The story also says that VKontakte users are outraged by this group and its contents and even directly say that its creators would do well to bring to criminal responsibility. The outcome of the plot can be said to be optimistic — not a single attacker with felt-tip pens will escape justice.

A sample of the protest creativity of Orthodox visitors to the groups In the course of the story, neither journalists nor offended believers voiced the name of the blasphemous group, but it was not difficult to find it with the help of tags.

The creators called it "Orthodox anime Icons", and the description of the group says that "this current of folk art grows out of Orthodox Christianity and Japanese animation."

It should also be said that it is not known why the GTRK "Bashkortostan" decided only now to raise the issue with an edge. The group has been in existence since 2014 and no new posts have appeared in it for more than a year. All the comments shown in the story are also dated back to 2017.