Forgiveness and religion were bound together for many centuries [1] . Surviving shards can be found in anime usually in the mahou shoujo genre, where the heroine plays the role of the messiah and doesn't simply banish evilness but most often purifies it by first of all forgiving the villain and then with words of love takes him/her on the good guys' side. When I saw Araragi-kun in Bakemonogatari, I made that (faint) connection and got the urge to search the reasons behind his always forgiving attitude, since he wasn’t given any role to save the earth and there’s no actual reason for him to play the savior.
