The Greatest Anime Bible Story Ever Told (Superbook Classic Anime S1E3 “The Flood”)
Christian propaganda most definitely included
That time the kids caused a time paradox that nearly destroyed humanity. It almost certainly sent Noah to Hell.
The first series, Superbook (Anime Oyako Gekijo), begins at the home of a young boy named Christopher “Chris” Peeper, who discovers the ancient Bible named Superbook that can speak and send him, his friend Joy (Azusa Yamato), and his clockwork toy figure named Gizmo the Crusader Robot back in time during the events of the Old and New Testaments. — WIKIPEDIA
YOU MEAN ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT COULD DESTROY THE UNIVERSE?
Precisely!
A time paradox.
And if they get this wrong, Noah won’t just doom everyone. He’ll doom himself.
That old dude will go straight to hell.
Remember the question of faith?
Do you remember the question that came next??? It was a lot bigger.
BIGGER QUESTIONS
THE BIGGER QUESTION: Can you have faith without free will?
THE NEXT BIGGER QUESTION: And if you violate the tenets of your faith — are you destined to go to hell?
A PSEUDO-THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SUPERBOOK CLASSIC: S1e3 “The Flood”
I realize most of you grew up with traditional Christian Propaganda. And in some sense, I envy you. You experienced a world I never will.
But then again, I experienced one you might not remember, either.
In the mid-80s, Japan produced two exceptional (at least to Kindergarten-era me) Anime cartoons: Superbook and The Flying House.
And no sooner did I get back to Superbook S1E3 than SCRIPTURE. GOT. REAL.
GOD MEANS TO DESTROY ALL OF YOU
The kids going back in time means Noah meets them. And they tell him they’re from the future. And he says great!!! He was beginning to doubt this whole thing.
But this means he knows with 100% certainty that God will first destroy — then repopulate the Earth.
This means Noah can confidently tell the kids listen, everyone made Dad/God really angry, so he’s going to slaughter everyone. Literally everyone. Not just people. All animals, too. Except the ones Noah puts on the Ark.
And that’s okay, because these kids showing up from the future proves that it will all work out in the end.
SO WAS NOAH A CALVINIST?
That’s all fine and dandy…but what does that do to the question of Noah’s faith? Wasn’t the point — or at least part of the point — that we must choose to believe despite never having the evidence we crave?
Doesn’t Noah knowing it will all work out in the end kind of defeat the point? Or at least part of it?
Because I’m having a hard time reconciling how the kids traveling back in time doesn’t put Noah in a bigger predicament than Back to the Future.
CAN SALVATION EXIST WITHOUT FREE WILL?
It’s a huge question. It’s one Noah never faced in the original timeline — the one recorded in Genesis. But thanks to Superbook and these meddling kids, Noah faces a question the best friend of a tiger wouldn’t answers for centuries to come.
Because even if there is no free will, there must still be a soul inside to embrace salvation…right? (Or agree to disagree, I’m not your preacher)
I have to believe that’s what Noah did. That something essential inside him changed once his CHOICE to follow God’s will was taken from him.
Maybe that’s the most fun way to see this episode. The kids traveling back in time threatened all of existence by giving Noah a second chance he never had: a choice whether to follow the vengeful spirit of an angry god intent on slaughtering all of humanity.
WHAT WAS THE THEME OF THE EPISODE?
What is the takeaway from this episode of Superbook?
What are kids meant to close the “book” and always remember to honor?
Chris starts the episode just wanting to skip homework and play baseball for a minute. A normal, healthy desire in children that the adults around him consistently diminish and ignore.
To teach those kids a lesson, Superbook takes Chris, Joy, and their talking toy pal Gizmo back in time to witness how stopping to recharge, refresh, and relax displeases God (and your parents) to an unforgivable degree.
THEMATIC QUESTION: IS IT OKAY TO HAVE FUN?
Sure, if it’s done in service to God. But otherwise, too much fun is evil. And if it isn’t done in God’s service? Any fun is too much.
By the end of their time on the Ark, Chris says he wishes he could go back home now to focus on homework. He understands now the cost of having a little fun. Too much — also known as any — could lead to peacefully standing on the side of a boat while you watch all of humanity cry out their frantic last breaths before succumbing to the Deep (aka God).
FURTHER UNANSWERED QUESTIONS THAT SUPERBOOK NEVER ANSWERED (at least in this episode)
IS GENOCIDE TOO MUCH FOR HUMANS TO COMPREHEND?
After the flood and while they’re waiting for the waters to recede, Noah sends a dove out to find anything green.
There’s a brief moment where Chris worries the dove didn’t survive it’s quest for dry land. He already lost the raven he loved so much, he named it Caw. That poor friend went out to find an olive branch and simply never returned.
The intensity of his anxiety and potential grief over the dove not returning, too, is so much more than what he expresses before/during/after the Flood that killed pretty much everyone and everything on the planet.
But for the dove? He’s overwhelmed. That’s the kind of grief a child can feel. The kind of scope their heart is yet big enough to comprehend.
But the same is true for adults too, isn’t it? We’re all grieving in ways we don’t understand from the mere weight of how many have already been lost through the pandemic. It’s something we feel — and yet it’s too much to FEEL.
Instead, we process and express that grief in strange ways. Sometimes in small ways, like pointing our grief at a loss our hope can contain.
Other times, by accepting that however dark the road ahead, the future depends on us.
IS THIS CHRISTIAN STUFF ALL JUST IN THEIR HEADS?
Now, there is this strange scene at the end of the episode where the dad at the house at the end of the street around the corner tells them nope, they’re confused.
Nothing happened.
The kids are actually concerned about how long they’ve been gone.
He tells them it’s only been an hour since they went upstairs.
But here’s the thing. If none of this happened, excuse my blasphemy, but wtf was the point?
Thankfully, Superbook Himself (Itself? Herself? Themselves? Surely Superbook is pan-gender?) shows the audience that while God may have returned them to nearly the same point of time as when they left, Superbook is real.
Now that this adventure is over, Superbook slowly closes the pages.
Everything that just happened is real.
(it’s a cartoon though, don’t forget that part you eager believers)
HOW LONG DID THEY SPEND ON THE ARK?
Chris says it feels like months and months (and months.)
At one point, Joy calculates that it’s been about six months so far.
Gizmo offers to compute the exact amount of time they spent on the Ark.
But Joy says that’s not important. What’s important is that they keep faith that everything will turn out okay.
I’m kidding. She doesn’t suggest anything about faith. She says to remember that they KNOW everything will turn out okay. Time travel, you know?
DO THE KIDS CONTINUE TO AGE AS THEY TRAVEL THROUGH TIME?
Because according to this episode, the kids spent just as long in Noah’s time as it takes to read that part of Genesis. They appeared BEFORE the flood. They lived with Noah and his family on the Ark during the flood. And they’re with him as Morgan Freeman lets us know that in time, the waters receded, the Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat, and Kevin Costner became a fish facing way too much dry land.
You’re telling me God is good and yet allowed THAT?
WAS SUPERBOOK SECRETLY GAY?
Urban legends tell us that Disney artists secretly encoded messages into their cartoons.
Is it possible the Holy Spirit did the same thing?
Did the scribes of the Bible encode a message we’ve all been speaking as Truth at the end of every prayer?
THE CASE FOR GAY FAITH
Amen=Ahhh…men!
And though I don’t like men —aside from my wife, I may as well be asexual — I embrace this spiritual war cry.
Ahhh…men!!
I embrace it as God’s will for all of us to reclaim the queerness He Himself embodies. That She Herself embodies. That an imaginative construct that depends on the psychological constraints of the people with a systemic impact on the dominant societal paradigm embodies.
Every time you say this phrase — AHHH…MEN!! — let it symbolize a prayer greater than you. Greater than me. Greater than any one person.
If the world could be remade once, let it be remade again. But this time, let it be remade according to God’s own words:
GOD: Noah…this is the sign I give unto you and to all generations. Let the rainbow remain forever a sign of my promise. I shall never again destroy the Earth.
NOAH: My Lord, thank you —
GOD: You didn’t let me finish! I shall never again destroy the Earth…by flood.
BONUS NFT: every refresh of the gif encodes a new divine NFT code just for you
the existence of these divine NFTs depends on the same self-confirming nature of the Holy Spirit and thus supercedes all judicial or material claims to prove they don’t exist
PRIDE AFTER THE FALL
NEXT TIME: An equally insightful look into the companion series THE FLYING HOUSE
The end
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