Christian Cotton is an independent scholar and freelance author. He has been a philosophy instructor at Piedmont College and the University of Georgia. He edited Wikileaking: The Ethics of Secrecy and Exposure (2019) .
The Consolations of Anime vii
I Finding Meaning in Instrumentality 1
1.The Desperate Search for Meaning in Life -HEATHER BROWNING AND WALTER VEIT 3
2.How Do We Know Who We Are? -NATHAN VISSER AND ADAM BARKMAN 13
3.A Teenage Existence-SANO YASUYUKI 23
4.My Life Is Worth Living Here! -JAKE POTTER 33
5.The Meaning of You -JONAS FARIA COSTA 43
II After (Re)Birth and Before Death 49
6. When Heroes Can (Not) Choose to Become Themselves-ANDREW M. WINTERS 51
7.The Young, the Old, the Monstrous -HANS-GEORG EILENBERGER 61
8.What Do Children Find in the End? -YUUKI NAMBA 71
9.Shinjis Choice -LUCA CABASSA AND MATTEO CAPARRINI 81
III How to Think When You Are (Not) Alone 91
10.When You Have Two Right Hands and Theyre Both in Flames -DAVID FAJARDO-CHICA 93
11.The Mysterious AT Field -LUKA PERUSIC 103
12.Loneliness and Watermelons -YOSHIHIRO TANIGAWA 113
13.Evangelions Terminal Dogma -KHEGAN M. DELPORT 129
IV You Can (Not) Exist 141
14.Living Questions or Dead Ends?-ZACHARY VEREB 143
15.A Tale of Two Anti-Heroes-MARK CHEONG 153
16. Plant a Tree, Build an AT Field, and Wait for the Apocalypse -GIONATAN PACHECO 163
V Tools to Rebuild After Impact 173
17. Hands Off My Show! -JEREMY CHRISTENSEN AND ERIC HOLMES 175
18.Desperately Seeking Misato -DAVID BORDONABA-PLOU 185
19.From Kabbalah, Angels, and Apocalypse to Kaiju, Mecha, and Personal Growth -DENIZ YENIMAZMAN 195
Bibliography 205
The Pilots 209
Index 213