Anime / The Laws of Eternity

The Laws of Eternity (永遠の法―エル・カンターレの世界観, Eien no Hou—Eru Kantāre no Sekaikan, lit. "The Eternal Laws: El Cantare's Worldview" in Japanese) is a 2006 anime film directed by Isamu Imakake, animated by Group TAC, and distributed by Toei Company. It is the fourth of nine anime movies produced by the Japanese religious organization Happy Science. It is based on Ryuho Okawa's third book, The Nine Dimensions: Unveiling the Laws of Eternity.

The plot begins with the three young men — Ryuta, Patrick and Roberto — visiting the Thomas Edison Museum in New York. As they are leaving, the three are approached by a shaman who claims to have a message for Ryuta from Thomas Edison himself with instructions to build a "spirit phone". Following the instructions, Ryuta and his friends complete the spirit phone, which leads to them being called to the spirit world in a series of events that culminates in a giant robot fighting a demonic elephant controlled by Adolf Hitler.

The movie can be watched in English here.

Tropes:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The film, made in 2006, is set into the near future, which uses touchscreens and holographic interface devices.
• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Both the giant Hermes robot and the Bihimoss demon elephant are animated using 3D animation, rather than 2D like the rest of the film.
• Arcadia: The fifth dimension of Heaven, the Realm of the Good, is depicted as a vibrant countryside where kindhearted, selfless souls live happily serving each other without expecting anything in return as they did on Earth.
• Astral Projection: Ryuta, Yuko, Patrick, and Roberto do this to enter the Spirit World, which is depicted as them reaching out to golden feathers that take them up there.
• Author Tract: Much of the film's plot after the characters go to the spirit world is spent laying out Happy Science's beliefs.
• Big Applesauce: The movie is set in New York City, in the near future.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Friedrich Nietzsche and Adolf Hitler, both of whom are demons looking to lure the protagonists to Hell.
• Bloody Bowels of Hell: The "Hell of the Bloody Pond", which is tailored for people who lived their lives lusting for the opposite sex, is depicted as a Red Light District on the outside and pools of blood resembling hot springs on the inside, with the souls inside writhing in lust.
• Climactic Elevator Ride: Ryuta, Yuko, and God Eagle ride on Thomas Edison's elevator to rescue Patrick and Roberto from Hell. Once they arrive into the Demonic Realm, Ryuta engages in a fight against Niches and Hisler, the two main threats.
• Cruel Elephant: The "Bihimoss" is a demonic elephant summoned by Hitler to crush Ryuta, which is a weird reference to the legend of Nalagiri, an angry elephant that Devadatta set free in a town where Buddha preached with the intent to kill him.
• Cultural Translation: In the English dub, the Sanzu River is referred to as "River Styx" as the two rivers have a similar role in being the boundary between life and death that souls must cross before passing on to a proper afterlife.
• Demon of Human Origin: A bizarre example. In Happy Science teachings, humans are actually reincarnations of immortal spirits, angels, and demigods throughout time, they just lose memories once they leave the Spirit World to reincarnate. However, as God Eagle explains, when a spirit goes astray and promotes wrong thinking while living as a human, they will fall into Hell and become a demon instead.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Patrick and Roberto's bickering in the Spirit World caused a hole to form underneath them and swallow them. However, God Eagle shows up in time to save them and explain that the Spirit World is a reflex of one's mind, which if disturbed, will be taken to an appropriate place. Later on, when they are left behind at the Bodhisattva Realm's gate after failing to meet the requirements to enter, they start acting entitled and complaining about how it's not fair, which causes them to fall into Hell with no one to save them this time.
• Dream Reality Check: When Patrick muses he's dreaming upon entering the Spirit World and finding it looks like a normal city, Roberto pinches him in the rear to "wake him up".
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: God Eagle explains that when a person's soul falls into Hell, their sinful thoughts are bloated a hundredfold, warping them into a horrid appearance that matches their minds.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: The "Hell of Strife" or Ashura Realm is depicted as a city filled to the brim with rivers of lava, volcanoes, and burning buildings. This dimension of Hell is reserved for people who were violent and/or abusive throughout their mortal life.
• Freudian Trio: Ryuta, Patrick and Roberto. Patrick is stern, logical one who refuses to believe in spirits (until he's given irrefutable proof), Roberto is the passionate one, and Ryuta is The Generic Guy.
• Healthy in Heaven: When Yuko enters the seventh dimension of the Spirit World, the Bodhisattva Realm, she is surprised to find Helen Keller in there, having recovered her hearing and sight after death.
• Hellevator: Despite being designed by Thomas Edison in the Tathagata Realm of Heaven, his elevator can also go down to Hell, which comes in handy when Ryuta, Yuko, and God Eagle take it to go down to Hell, where Patrick and Roberto are trapped.
• Heroic Sacrifice: God Eagle rams into Bihimoss to knock it off guard in a last bid to save Ryuta and his friends from being crushed by the beast. However, he gets better afterward as Happy Science lore states that spirits never die.
• Historical Hero Upgrade:
  • Thomas Edison is portrayed as a selfless inventor who sought to enrich humanity with his inventions. Moreover, he's also claimed to have invented the printing press and paper as Johannes Gutenberg and Cai Lun were two of his past lives.
  • While Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Panasonic, and Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota, certainly weren't evil people, saying they were both angels sent from Heaven to uplift Japan's economy is a bit much, no?
• Mundane Afterlife: The fourth dimension of the Spirit World, the Posthumous Realm, acts like this as it looks no different from a city on Earth. However, its real purpose is for souls to experiment and get used to their spiritual existence. However, to enter this realm, the soul has to go through two tests: cross the River Styx and let go of their material possessions, and then have a movie of their entire life and thoughts screened for their other dead relatives and friends to watch and then vote on whether the soul goes to Heaven or Hell.
• Nazi Zombies: The soldiers summoned by Niches to trap Ryuta and Yuko in Hell all wear Wehrmacht uniforms and even do the Nazi salute when Hisler's demonic elephant, Bihimoss, shows up.
• Our Angels Are Different: In this movie, angels are depicted as not only guides and protectors for humanity from birth to death and the afterlife but also reincarnate as humans to save souls from Hell. Moreover, they're also willing to descend into Hell to take people's souls out of that place.
• Rent-a-Zilla: The "Bihimoss", a giant demonic elephant that Hitler summons in the film's climax to crush Ryuta after he rescues Patrick and Roberto.
• Reincarnation Romance: Ryuta and Yuko are revealed to be reincarnations of Hermes and Aphrodite, respectively, in a reference to Ryuho Okawa and his then-wife, Kyoko Kimura.
• Secret Test of Character: God Eagle told Ryuta and his friends that they had to heal ten sick people each to enter the Bodhisattva Realm. When Patrick and Roberto are the only ones left behind at the gate, GE reappears to reveal that Ryuta and Yuko were admitted because of their selflessness. Patrick and Roberto, on the other hand, were selfish and expected thanks or appreciation in return.
• Self-Duplication: When Ryuta and Yuko meet Albert Einstein at the eighth dimension of the Spirit World, the Tathagata Realm, he divides into copies of himself while explaining that people who enter this realm have reached a level of enlightenment where they stop being human and become "huge bodies of consciousness" upon death.
• Supernatural Phone: The movie's plot parts from Thomas Edison's "spirit phone," which he invented to communicate with spirits, only that Ryuta's gang finally makes it work with advanced equipment and Yuko's prayers.
• Swans A-Swimming: When Yuko visits her version of the Bodhisattva Realm, a swan flies towards her and lands on the water. A lotus bud closes around it upon landing to reveal it is Helen Keller.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ryuta gives Niches a blistering rant for leading people astray from God by spreading atheism and lack of faith.
  Niches: You see, humans gain true freedom when they stop relying on God or Buddha!
  Ryuta: Freedom? [...] The "freedom" you believe is a freedom that makes people unhappy. But the truth is, that we come back to the spiritual world that corresponds to the mind we had on Earth. Whatever you may say, the fact is, you're speaking from Hell! That is the proof that your mind is wrong! Just because you're unhappy, you're trying to bring others to suffer the same misery! It's you who needs to wake up!
• Throwing Off the Disability: A posthumous example is seen when Yuko meets Helen Keller in the Bodhisattva Realm, where she is no longer blind nor deaf. Moreover, Happy Science claims that disabled people who meet the requirements to enter this realm will no longer be disabled after death.
• Transhuman Abomination: Anyone who meets the requirements to enter the Tathagata Realm essentially becomes this upon dying, as these souls have become enlightened to the point they're sentient luminous substance with knowledge acquired from their past and future lives. However, given the fact it's Heaven, these souls double as Benevolent Abominations.
• Underworld River: When the gang arrives in the fourth tier of the Spirit World, the Posthumous Realm, God Eagle takes them to River Styx, where people with threads tied around them swim through it after dying. He then explains that the threads are silver cords connecting the spirit to the mortal body, cut 24 hours after the heart stops. Moreover, those unwilling to let go of their mortal attachments are more likely to sink under.
• We Can Rule Together: When Ryuta, Yuko, and God Eagle enter the Demonic Realm in Hell, Niches tries to convince the former to join his side by appealing to a sense of superiority among atheists. However, Ryuta doesn't fall for it and recriminates the demon for causing misery on Earth by having people renounce God and Buddha.