Originally Posted by
Datenshi
Get this, my friend: Japan is not a Christian country. I do not know if whether whatever corner of the world you reside in is so blissfully secluded from the outer world that such is so staggering a concept that you would find it hard to accept, but it's unfortunately true.
You remind me of accounts of 18th century Christian missionaries complaining about women bathing in public in Edo period Japan, and it's precisely as ethnocentrically arrogant as it was 300 years ago.
Many of what you describe as witchcraft was considered a sacred religious rite in pagan Shintoist Japan (such as possession by a deity, or a kind of pantheism, as the Shintoist pantheon has 80,000 Gods and Demons), and it's not unusual if these motifs enter mainstream popular culture in Japan today.
I have no problem with you holding your beliefs about what is right or wrong for people to view in your country and cultural background, but it has nothing to do with the spiritual background from which anime happens to be spawned and ranting against that borders on lunacy.
If you happen to hate Japan so much because a majority of citizens do not conform to your particular beliefs, I can accept that as well as long as you are not hurting anyone for it. Boycott our products, turn off the TV when it airs anime, it's of no consequence to the majority of the world, least of all to us.
If you choose to campaign to ban Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter, written in English and published in predominantly Christian countries, from the schools, again I'd respect that to an extent, but venting your narrow-minded anger on perfectly respectable creators from overseas and coming from an entirely different cultural sphere is where I draw the line. It's simply disrespectful and I find it utterly disgusting.