Attack on Titan is and always has been imperialist propaganda written by a Nazi supporter. The idea of the walls and their fragility is meant to criticize Japan’s antiwar policy, and the Titans coming back after 100 years is meant to imply that if Japan doesn’t start having wars and breaking down their “walls” and conquering the East again, other countries will come to terrorize the region. What bothers me most having watched the first season of it is the line about “Living like livestock”. It asserts the notion that to live without imperialism is a form of complacency, like somehow the country isn’t living life to its fullest if it isn’t out pillaging and raping the peoples of Korea, Manchuria, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, etc. I will say that it’s actually really poorly written, so the ideas the writer has don’t come across super strongly, but it’s still seriously dangerous stuff.
Add to that the fact that so many characters have German names and that the setting seems to have a lot of european and specifically German vegetation and architecture becomes obvious that the writer wants viewers to feel nostalgic for the Axis Powers. It’s really infuriating to me as a Jewish person because it’s supporting a political climate under which the genocide of my people could resume even when we just now have the same Jewish population worldwide as we did pre-Holocaust. It’s fucked up and now that people are talking about it coming back for a second season after so long I want to urge you all to please boycott it.
-Stephen
Lol yes! Unfortunately it’s all true! For instance, the character called Dot Pixis is based on general Yoshifuru Akiyama, a famous war criminal during the occupation of Korea who Attack on Titan’s writer, Hajime Isayama, called “frugal and respectable” on his twitter account. Popular character Mikasa Ackerman is named after a warship in the Russo-Japanese war, a war over which power would violently occupy Korea, according to the show’s own damn official guidebook (Which I cannot link to because it’s a book) and wikia page.
In a separate reply to this post, a friend of mine has also noted that the character called Erwin Smith is named after a Nazi called Erwin Rommel who, despite occasionally defying orders he deemed “unjust”, was still a fucking Nazi and still took part in the Holocaust. I did find a source for this albeit not the best one. But it should also be in the official handbook as Outside Kou apparently claims that the origins of characters’ names are in that book.
And if you don’t find it bad enough that these characters are designed to be nods to imperialist/nazi history, then what ought to convince you the show should be boycotted is that it isn’t for shits and giggles. Hajime Isayama actually does support Imperialism. He named and designed those characters as homages to nazis and war criminals for a reason. Not because he thought the names were cool. He actually worships those military institutions. So I’ll say it again. Boycott Attack on Titan.
-Stephen
EDIT: Tumblr is a fucked website, so the reply that was made by user ramen-catholicism saying “Lol no” that prompted me to make this addition is not showing up on my computer as part of this post. Also some links aren’t showing up underlined in the second paragraph so if you want them you have to hover over my words with your cursor to find them… sorry
koutetsujou no kabaneri is a good substitute with less nationalism and much prettier character design overall
While this is sort of a valid interpretation in a purely theoretical (???) sense, and the author seems to be apologetic or denialist of war crimes, which is not acceptable, it’s a pretty heavy accusation to say he advocates going back to imperialism, especially considering Japanese culture. Hayao Miyazaki also got flak for saying Japanese WWII plane engineers were awesome (not a quote), even if he isn’t pro-war. Some Japanese people have a habit of honoring people that did awful shit but had traits that would be virtues in another context, and this seems to be a cultural thing, which may seem baffling, but is not objectively wrong (like war crime denial). The references to historical figures in the manga may not be as apologist as the post makes them out to be when taking this into account.
you know i truly try not to get angry on this hell site but could you honest to god shut your mouth the fuck up because as someone whose country was colonized by japan, those are valid as shit criticisms. the japanese government has refused to compensate the colonized countries, ESPECIALLY the women they kidnapped and sexually enslaved (many of these women are still alive btw), there is still heavy anti-korean, anti-chinese, anti-vietnamese racism present—actually, the whole country is pretty discriminatory towards any non-japanese east/southeast asian people
japanese culture of course presents itself as “nice” and “polite” and rich because the country of japan literally got to where it is by colonizing and exploiting other countries and ravaging them and landing many people into poverty. your insistence that it’s just “a cultural thing” and that japanese people just HAPPEN to be ignorant and MEAN WELL and is fucking infuriating because THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT THEIR PROPAGANDA IS INTENDED TO MAKE YOU THINK. a lot of anime is FULL of propaganda that wouldn’t be apparent to non e/se asians.
also “the wind rises” totally gives off propaganda vibes—the planes were made off the slave labor of chinese and koreans and subsequently used to bomb them but do you ever hear those people mentioned in the film AT ALL lmao horikoshi was not just a nice guy that made a silly mistake
just bringing this back because season 3 will be out in July 🙂 fuck this show
Wanted to bring this back lmao. Japan should never not be reminded of their war crimes just because they make nice things. I don’t make that concession for the USA and I certainly won’t make it for the country of thousands upon thousands of rapists who refuse to pay reparations to their victims.
The youngest living comfort women were 14-17 years old during the war. Raped by a line of Japanese soldiers all day. Just because the word “Japanese soldiers” doesn’t invoke the same hateful reaction as “Nazis” doesn’t mean they weren’t just as bad, and in many different ways, worse.
Death By Catchphrase 