i’ve noticed that a lot of japanese media is like obsessed with christian imagery. is this to do with colonialism or the spread of western influence and just general fascination with another culture and religion?
Basically the Short Answer is actually for hundreds of years Japan has had access to Christianity through trades with the Dutch, though it never caught on really as a religion to -be- yanno? The only real Christian thing that stuck around in modern Japanese weddings are as likely to be western as traditional Shinto.
So what happens is a country where Christianity is definitely known -about- but with few to no people who actually -follow- it, which results in a LOT of anime and manga making oblique references to things like Adam and Eve and the Rapture and all, but not per se knowing the context or even what the plot of the original stories were. So the Christian symbolism -can- get a little slipshod sometimes.
