5 Points Exploring ‘Christianity’ In Anima: Beyond Fantasy

Anima: Beyond Fantasy
Editor’s Note: The Anima RPG is no longer available for purchase (in English) from the publisher, so the link above is for the forums that remain. If you’d like information on purchasing a copy, visit its Amazon page or other resellers.

Almost a thousand years before the end date in the timeline of Gaia’s history, there was a religious movement that united all of humanity under one banner, give or take a few nations. It was this movement that provoked a response from almost all of the human and non-human peoples of the world, including the Sylvain (Light Elves), Jayan (Giants with horns and a third eye), D’anjayni (a species devoted to hiding their true nature at all costs), Ebudan (the Angelic knockoffs of the world), Daimah (a species loosely related to the animal kingdom), Duk’zarist (Dark Elves), and every other sapient and sentient species… a response that would have lasting repercussions all throughout the world. In the following list of five points, I will cover what the actual history of the movement was like, with what should be enough information to understand everything.

1) ‘Christianity’ Is A Fake Religion
To emphasize the point, I would like to introduce the organization known as Imperium, one of three Powers in the Shadows that tend to manipulate history for their own gain. The organization has a council called the Inner Circle as the second highest power in the organization, the highest power being a man named Barnabas. Together, they give the orders that translate to modifying history to their advantage. One of their initial plans was to give humanity, which they represented among the Powers in the Shadows, knowledge to let them get ahead of the other species. That… didn’t turn out so well. Then they tried to keep the human race ignorant of the truth of the world by giving them a religion to unite them. Three guesses as to which they modeled it after (the first two don’t count). This is implied by the events surrounding Point number 4, where the in-setting Christ figure’s crucifixion is stated to be an “allegory which only Imperium understood.”

2) ‘Christianity’ Is A Violent Religion
Abel, the in-setting Christ figure as manufactured by Imperium, had a lot of followers gathered to his banner. During one of his sermons about Heaven, which he claimed was where his father lived, a mage from an organization called the Order of Yehuda interrupted the gathering and used magic to kill some of the gathered. In a sorrowful rage, Abel picked up a sword for what seemed to be the first time and made it clear to his followers that his ‘father’ was not an entirely forgiving one, especially to those who used magic and other forms of the occult in the world.

3) ‘Christianity’ Had A Mind Control Agent
During the creation of their plan to take over the development of the human race, Imperium made a mind control system called the Auspice, one that would make the people closed-minded and homogenous. It was with the use of this system that people would begin to grow as a united front for Imperium’s plans, on top of being made blind sheep being led to the slaughter, so to speak. It would have lasted for a long time, too, had it not been for a woman named Eljared giving the people an immunity to it over 900 years after the death of Abel… but that is an article for another time.

4) ‘Christianity’ Had A Stupid Ending
The religion should have ended when Abel died. Abel, for lack of a better expression, was the ultimate blind sheep being led to the slaughter. His capture and execution by the citizens of Solomon were akin to the death of Jesus, except, by all rights, his death didn’t have anything fancy, like natural disasters or other scenes of nature making things dramatic. He just died.

5) ‘Christianity’ Had A Better Judas Iscariot
The whole betrayal of Abel by the equivalent of Judas Iscariot, whose given name in Anima was Iscariot, was orchestrated by Imperium to go exactly as the Biblical accounts told it. However, due to circumstances outside of their control, Iscariot received 30 pieces of magitech supercomputers that Imperium had given the city of Solomon, failing to retrieve them when the leader of the city at the time had successfully hidden them from the organization. Iscariot was able to access the power of the supercomputers and learned about the manipulation of history, thus seeing to it that he would exact revenge on the Powers in the Shadows through his family line… however, like with point three, that is an article for another time.

Over the years, real world religions have been used as models for game setting religions, much like this one, yet the extent of what was modified about this particular ‘religion’ is baffling. I only say this because I like to read and study what has happened in the real world, as history has always been a fascinating subject for me, even when I was young. The ‘christianity’ as presented in Anima does not bear much resemblance to the modern day real world religion of the same name, and its merits are few and far between. Still, this is just my understanding of the game lore. If only the licensors managed to publish more expansions for the game beyond what they did in the English Language…

Picture Refernce: https://wen-m.deviantart.com/art/wallpaper-The-Holy-Church-112605975 
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Samuel Kenneth Kauffman is, full disclosure, a real world Christian that follows the doctrines of the Free Methodist branch of the Protestant denominations (vastly different from the game setting version), an amateur Game Master, a gamer of both tabletop RPGs and videogames, a “professional” writer of fanfic, and is somewhat aware that he needs to improve his writing ability for more professional work in the industry. He is a fan of Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Starfinder (although that one is somewhat up for debate), 13th Age, the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Saga Edition RPG, Fantasy Flight Games’ rendition of the Star Wars RPG, and, more recently, the Genesys RPG. Be sure to look out for his upcoming blog about roleplaying, gaming in general, and the writer’s life.

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