Animé, Rome, and the Scandal of Plastic Junk

Plus a pumpkin recipe because it's still October

At a press conference on Monday, the Vatican unveiled a new cartoon “culture mascot” for the 2025 jubilee year. She’s designed in the pop anime style popularized in Japan—a little like Precious Moments meets manga. She’s dressed as a pilgrim, with rain slicker, mud on her boots, staff in hand, and seashells (a symbol of pilgrimage) in her eyes. Archbishop Fisichella said the Church desires “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.”

Many people thought it was a joke at first, or hoped it was. The contrast between the elderly cleric and the odd little doll struck a discordant note and had people wondering if it was some AI rendering of the Church’s internal strife. It’s not. It’s real.

Progressive Catholic, Mike Lewis, made a prediction on Twitter that “everyone with an ounce of decency and humanity will grow to love her.”

My initial response was far less romantic. You might say I was contrary about it…

Grow to love an anime figure? As if she’s real? Are we so empty that we must make up a virtual/plastic character to move us to love? Luce is not really for children—they need very little to know and love the Lord—but is for adults with lagging faith who find comfort in cultural attachment. We are the ones who perpetually seek placeholders to fill the void where Christ should be.

There is a way of looking at Luce where I can see a cute little figure of hope. I can certainly see a place for Catholic toys and childlike fun as a way to keep the faith present to young minds. Shining Light Dolls come to mind as a positive example. But as a “cultural mascot” for the universal Church? I just can’t get there.

So, I don’t like Luce.

She’s not a real girl and there’s no cause to get attached to her, but I sense that we are expected to form an emotional attachment simply because we are Catholic and should try to flow with the hype. The Church is our identity. We want to be unified. We want to like it here. But it’s important to understand that the art springs from the mind and heart of the artist and from the culture which produces that art. Is it Catholic? And does Rome understand that the evangelization of children doesn’t happen through corporate campaigns but primarily through the home?

I think they do understand, which is why Luce is not actually being marketed to kids but to their parents.

Adult Catholics have to decide whether Luce and Friends are going to be part of our parish and domestic churches. I don’t like Bluey or Blippi or Barney either so it’s no surprise that I am unmoved. I’m giving no shade to anyone who is into the cuteness, but…

They lost me at animé.

I don’t like animé and haven’t allowed it to come into my home, largely because the subculture is disordered and a short bridge to pornography for children. It was possible that Luce was the brainchild of a dynamically orthodox Catholic artist. It was also possible that she was a product of a compromised animé culture…

It took about 4 minutes to find out which it was.

Simone Legno, founder of the Tokidoki art brand, describes his work as a “global lifestyle brand” that “offers an extensive range of products which include apparel, handbags, cosmetics, accessories, toys and more.” He’s an Italian with a love of Japanese culture who has collaborated with many brands such as Karl Lagerfeld, Guggenheim Museum, Sephora, LeSportsac, Onitsuka Tiger, Marvel, New Era, Hello Kitty, Fujitsu, Levi's, Xbox, T-mobile, Medicom Toy, MLB, Barbie, Canon, and now... Rome.

I’ll get back to the artist in a minute, but let’s talk a little more about animé first. On Twitter/X, Baritus Catholic articulated a little of my own concerns about animé and confirmed the primary reason we don’t allow it. His experience living in the animé-saturated Japanese culture has informed his view.

He wrote: “Unlike many other sub-cultures, anime has a strange direct tie to pornographic content. I say this as someone who lived there and experienced it first hand as a youth. Say what you will about anime, this fact cannot be denied.”

Another commenter shared: “I can confirm. Anime porn right next to anime comic books in the convenience stores. Eye level to kids.”

Though not every person who enjoys anime falls into pornography, it is common and a very short trip into deviancy. This often happens through gaming and YouTube and social sites. Is the artist who created Luce a part of the darker side of that culture? A little due diligence is appropriate, and so I went looking.

The Mind Behind Luce

Simone Legno is not particularly unique among pop animé creators. A quick trip to his media pages reveals that has a significant overlap of sexualized content along with the absurdly childish. In the pedophilic art culture, it is common to see a combination of toys, hearts, and childish imagery presented alongside contrasting images of death, monsters, and sex.

I’m not accusing the artist of these things, just explaining that his body of work is consistent with the darker themes of animé subculture. In fact, it striking to me precisely for its total lack of originality.

If there is anything that distinguishes Legno’s art from others like him, it is primarily his “dragon girl” character. He pulls her image from his more sensual paintings into his commercial cartoonish drawings. The themes are separated stylistically… but essentially, not at all. The naked Japanese girl depicted in a sexual position with a dragon in his paintings and sculptures is the same girl he works into his cutesy pop art.

My suspicion is that most people who buy his kitschy unicorn have never seen his bare-bottomed Japanese girl. Or the Tokidoki sex toys that are mainstream enough to be reviewed by editors at Glamour magazine. If the response of many Catholics to this information (disinterest) is any indication, we know no one else cares. We live in a porn-saturated world. What’s a bottom or two, eh? One young Catholic said she was fine with all of it as long as genitalia wasn’t shown in detail.

All things considered, it hardly seems appropriate that Legno should have any authority over a mascot of the universal Church since his creative process is so antithetical to the work of evangelization—to Christ.

People looking at Luce have noted that Legno gave her blue hair (a common symbol of sexual defiance) and what looks to be a stang. Her features are not distinctly female, even missing eyelashes which are given to one of her friends. It is possible that those are meaningless features of what is just a sweet little doll. We are asked to have a generous spirit toward the Church, toward the artist. But is it reasonable that we should disregard our own sensibilities and hand over discernment to a creative such as Legno? Did any cleric venture to say “Hey, maybe not blue hair since that has complicated associations in America right now” or “So a pilgrim staff is cool but can you make it look like a tree branch and not so dang much like a witch’s forked staff?” And maybe “Give her eyelashes. Her friend has eyelashes. She’s a girl. Just make it clear.”

Rome emphasized the symbolic nature of the simple little figure and Legno’s entire body of artistic work swims in symbolism. It is reasonable for the faithful to examine, inquire, and discuss before receiving this as a new element of Catholic culture and passing it on to children.

The Scandal of Plastic Junk

Clearly I’m not a fan of Legno, Tokidoki, and animé. It’s fine and we all find different paths through the quagmire of culture. But I can’t close out my short protest without mentioning the irony of a Laudato sí pontificate diving eyeballs deep into collaboration with a brand that swims in cheap sensual commercialism.

If Francis ever succeeds in eliminating air conditioning (he says it is an example of a harmful habit of consumption), I'll have a word to say about the Luce figurine recently unveiled in Rome and whatever polyvinyl chloride/polyethylene/polypropylene it's made of. Long after the flesh and bones of the clerics who commissioned her have decayed in the soil, that figurine will remain a testimony to all the excesses that they scold about. There is deep irony in that fact that this radically leftist environmentalist pontificate has just elevated a culture of purposeless plastic junk and digital immersion by way of an animé doll.

Don’t think on it too long. None of it makes sense. Like the rest of the culture, the human egos of the institutional Church collide in an attempt to stay relevant and effective. My first social media reaction was more than I’d typically respond to a non-essential action coming out of Rome. But some of you know how it is. Have keyboard — will prattle…

An androgynous anime baby is the new mascot for out-of-touch Vatican clericalists. Merch rumored to be coming soon. This might be worse than the Vatican-issued vaccine collector’s coin. But as someone probably said in a boardroom somewhere:

“The key to evangelizing the youth is to mirror the secular world, but do it with less skill and beauty.”

P.S. I love the Church. There is no obligation within that love to accept this or withhold criticism.

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In less fatiguing news…

• It’s wedding season here as we prepare for the upcoming nuptials of a beloved cousin. It’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to dress up with just girls and laugh and celebrate. Such a lovely event. Photo with two of my daughters.

• This GF Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Recipe is excellent! I don’t typically love snickerdoodle cookies (they’re a little boring) but this pumpkin variety is made with browned butter and knocked my socks off. Enjoy!
  Chewy Gluten-Free Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

• It’s been an extraordinarily beautiful October. There’s more to do than can be reasonably done here but it helps that the kids are a little bigger now and can do the lion’s share of their All Saints’ Costumes by themselves. Remarkably, I managed to spend a whopping total of just $7 on costumes. (I don’t want to spoil it for the saint guessers in our family who won’t read this far, so you can what I spent it on here) Given that we still have four minors in the home, I’m feeling rather accomplished.

  

Enjoy these last days of October, friends. Every day is precious. Blessed be God!

Melody

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