![]() ![]() It's the position that makes it uniquely difficult to criticize. For a lot of people this was their first anime, and their first introduction to a genre of fiction they love. Even if you don't currently watch the show, or read the manga on which it is based, you've at least seen the iconography from the show, especially its military insignia, in the wild. The manga’s creator Hajime Isayama, for his part, told the New Republic that he didn’t want to weigh in on the controversy, stating that “Being a writer, I believe it is impolite to instruct your readers the way of how to read your story.”Ī big, recurring controversy in the fandom is figuring out how to discuss or even deal with these issues at all.Īs a show, Attack on Titan has taken a position of reverence among anime fans. The question, then, as the series wraps up, is figuring out how to engage with it, and figuring out whether a show can deal with fascistic themes in the way it does without being fascistic and antisemitic itself. Also on the first page of results is the rant of a frustrated fan on Reddit, complaining about people on Twitter shitting on their favorite show. If you search "Attack on Titan antisemitism" on Google, the first three results are articles discussing the show's fascist themes. ![]() Trying to understand the line between the allegory that the manga’s creator Hajime Isayama is playing with and his own personal beliefs is where anime fans have gotten themselves tangled up. While Attack on Titan boasts a huge audience, it also has a noted and vocal right wing fanbase as well the New Republic even called it “ the Alt-Right’s Favorite Manga.” These themes have been pointed out before, with some even saying that the work itself is fascist and antisemetic. According to the artist and writer of the series, Hajime Isamaya, Pixis, a military general in Attack on Titan, was inspired by real world World War II general Akiyama Yoshifuru, who is considered a hero in Japan, but also has committed war crimes against China and Korea. This aspect of the series has made other parts of Attack on Titan stand out, especially the character of Dot Pixis. In some variations of the theory, Jewish people already secretly run the world government, just like the Eldian Tybur family does in Marley, where they live as honorary Marleyans and secretly control the other noble families. To some fans, it all feels a little too close to the broad arc of most antisemitic conspiracy theories, which say that the Jews rule the world through an ancient conspiracy. "I think, given the resurgence of fascism globally in the real world, you can expect to see elements of that seeping into popular culture." "It should be uncontroversial to say that to a certain degree, Attack on Titan is about fascism because, I mean, they have coded Jewish ghetto," Thew said. Attack on Titan would catapult anime into the mainstream in a way few other series have been able to outside of Japan, at least not since Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon would air on cable television in the decades prior. Crunchyroll, which had begun to air series simultaneously with their schedule in Japan starting in 2008, had already had a hit on its hands that year with Sword Art Online, and Attack on Titan would go even further than that. But by 2012, the world of streaming video had caught up with the world of anime in the west. Prior to that moment, anime wasn't very accessible other than to people well versed in internet piracy, or had enough of a disposable income to buy expensive DVDs if the series they were interested in ended up being licensed in America at all. When Attack on Titan's anime adaptation came out in the summer of 2012, it was at the beginning of a shift in culture for anime. The manga reached its final volume this month, and as fans are saying goodbye to the series, they're also revisiting some uncomfortable, and unresolved conversations about what the story is all about. It's probably the last anime that every anime fan either watched, or had a very strong reason not to watch." Now it's this full fantasy epic that is coming to its culmination. "It's not just this really good 24 episode action thing. "It's hard to overstate how important Attack on Titan is," Geoff Thew, who makes videos about anime on the YouTube channel Mother's Basement, told Motherboard. ![]()
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