First Glance: Saint Cecilia & Pastor Lawrence
Alternative title(s): Shiro Seijo to Kuro Bokushi
Manga Adaptation by Doga Kobo
Streaming on Crunchyroll
Premise
Saint Cecilia, a saint, shares a church home with Pastor Lawrence. There is some unrequited love and some talk of supernatural protection; I don’t know, it’s just nice religious people acting sweet.
Peter’s verdict: Holy shit
In theory, this first look should have been released last week, but there was NOTHING to write about. It’s a textbook illustration of a “healing anime/slice-of-life,” in which there is a lot of character interaction but not much actual action. In order to better comprehend what this program is about, I choose to watch episode two before writing this. So, here goes:
Dictionary and bible lore:
Pastor: I had to look this up, and apparently outside the USA a pastor is called a “minister” and they aren’t a direct representative of god like a vicar/priest but rather a generic term for the leader of a church of non-specific Christian flavour. TIL.
Saint Cecilia: an actual saint from Rome, Italy with a story that she wanted to remain a virgin, was forced to marry a pagan and became a saint by singing really good at the wedding, being declared the saint of musicians. Post-marriage, she said an angel would punish her husband if he raped her, and told him how to see the angel for proof. He did so, and everything was fine…then she was killed for not renouncing her beliefs. There is a 5th century church in Rome that you can visit today called “Santa Cecilia in Trastevere” dedicated to Saint Cecilia. You can read more about this on Wikipedia.
Lawrence: There’s a few religious Lawrences, I’m thinking Saint Lawrence of Rome as the dates of him being in Rome map to when Saint Cecilia was in Rome also. Also martyred albeit several years after Cecilia.
Abel: One of the sons of Adam and Eve. Killed by their other son, Cain. Supposedly the first murder of humankind according to Genesis.
Right, now we’ve got that out the way, what’s this anime about?
In a small European-esque village somewhere (presumably near Rome), there’s a church where Saint Cecilia lives with Pastor Lawrence. The saint likes to laze about all day (become true moeblob), but only if Lawrence is around, otherwise she’s saintly and proper and the townspeople all love her. There’s some angels and fairies hanging around (depicted as floating orbs of light) that only the saint can see that boost the divine protection of the church and the pastor. Now don’t forget, this is an anime and SURPRISE it’s romantic comedy. The saint fancies the pastor, the pastor is oblivious, and the third wheel introduced in episode 2 (another pastor called Abel) recognises this and teases them both about it.
And that’s the plot as-of episode 2. It has some funny jokes occasionally, like the saint changing between moeblob mode and saintly mode at the drop of a hat, or that she puts too much divine protection on pastor Lawrence and he gets a headache, etc. It’s not aggressively funny or anything, as mentioned it’s a “healing anime”, and all the various Christian elements feel like they’re just for a vague aesthetic that isn’t generic fantasy. I’m not especially religious, so I don’t really care, but you may have stronger feelings about their liberal use of Christian symbols and terminology. It’s certainly a change from your typical school setting.
There are worse shows you could watch, and there are better too, but perhaps not this season, eh?
