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@lain plenty of shinto symbolism to go around too. Wish there were more games that utilized eastern religion and mythology instead of western ones tbh. But western is probably more interesting to them because it's different, same reason why eastern is interesting to me.
@lain also not exactly Christianity, more like abrahamic religion in general. Most of the stuff they use is old testament which is more or less the same across the big 3 just called different stuff. Anything extra they use is usually apocrypha, but sometimes it'll go even deeper into what one could consider Jewish/Christian "mythology." Haven't really seen the same thing for Islam but I can only assume it is because that's deemed to be much more offensive.
I'd like to see more games that have themes of alchemy too. Not just like crafting game mechanics but the whole belief and its practitioners secrets.
@SockPuppet @lain I don't know nearly as much about anime or manga as I do video games, so that's pretty interesting to hear about!
Eiji Tsuburaya was Catholic and put a lot of Christian imagery in Ultraman. Every Ultraman moves into their arms into a Crucifix position when using the ultra beam and in the earlier series when Eiji Tsuburaya was still alive, Ultraman was literally crucified in many cases.
There's also the fact ultraman literally comes the "Land of Light" and takes on a human host in a very similar sense to Catholic doctrine regarding the Godman of Christ, having a separate Human nature and God nature, yet both are the same self. Likewise each staring Ultra has separate Human nature and "Ultra" nature, yet the host and Ultra are the same self.
Hideki Anno was an Ultraman fan and adopted the Crucifix in EVA in reference to Ultraman, not really understanding it in reference to Christ. In general EVA is seen in a vacuum as this wholly unique series with "deep" commentary on religion and mecha genre, when most of influences comes from older mecha and toku series like Ultraman and Ideon.
Instead most manga and anime seen to take more from Gnostics, likely to due to certain similar parallels with Buddhism. The goal is basically the same, physical asceticism to reach a state of gnosis or nirvana.