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Since it premiered in 2013, the Attack on Titan anime has been called "the greatest anime ever produced", "the most overrated anime ever produced", and "the most dangerous anime ever produced". But which opinion is right? Maybe, just maybe... they're all wrong.

I didn't watch Attack on Titan at first because I was in my "anime is for kids" phase and only really got into it earlier this year when countless people online were telling me how gay the relationship between Levi and Erwin was. After watching the show... I have no idea what they were talking about. I don't see gay going on anywhere between these two.

Historia and Ymir? Yes! Obviously! Ymir loudly proclaimed that she wanted to marry Historia.

Jean and Marco? Absolutely! In my mind, they loved each other. But Marco didn't live long enough to see anything come of it.

But Levi and Erwin? I just don't see it. But even though I didn't see the gayness, your ship is valid. 😊

Regardless, I still found myself becoming utterly transfixed by this show, to the point where I ended up watching all 87 episodes in about three days.

But not everyone is so in love with the series. The show and manga on which its base have been attacked for portraying the Eldians (the race of people who live inside the walls) as an analog for Jewish people. And since Eldians can turn into man-eating monsters -- something Jewish people have been accused of being able to do in the past, believe it or not -- the analogous connection has made more than a few people... uneasy.

The fact that actual white nationalists have tried to embrace Attack on Titan as a story that expresses their theory the Jews are purposefully oppressing and attempting to eliminate European people through mass migration and... brainwashing hasn't helped the show's defense.

Many of these people are embracing it not for its representation of a Jewish analogy as fighting to survive against a much larger force, but as a defense of white nationalism. They seem to see the opposite of what normal fans see. They see themselves as the oppressed Eldians while the oppressing Marleyans are the Jewish analog to them, because they failed every media literacy course they ever took.

But they still gravitate toward the story nonetheless, which many find problematic. I say we shouldn't be letting the alt-right take ownership of... well anything, but that's me.

So yeah. Attack on Titan is handling incredibly charged issues and bringing some extremely radical people into its midst, some of whom appear to be rooting for the mass genocide at the end of the story. Rather than realizing that every lead character, minus one, from the first three seasons sees it as awful and wrong. Most of the show's principles are articulated in a clumsy manner and it's clear why some people have been alarmed by how it's portrayed.

That doesn't excuse people from not being fair to the show simply because some members of the alt-right enjoy it in some ways though.

Attack on Titan may not be inherently fascist, but it speaks to a fascist urge. In Attack on Titan, the nature of oppressor and oppressed is fluid and ambiguous. The humanity stuck between those who assume these identities don't really recognize or comprehend them.

When their skulls are crushed and the survivors reflect on watching their loved ones perish in agony, all that is left of our life stories are the deeply personal horrors of humankind's inhumanity toward other humans, and the horror that your precious life can be drained from your body in an instant by forces you do not even comprehend.

So let's bite into this world -- Let's rip open the nape of its neck -- and see what's inside this franchise that has become one of the best-selling mangas in history, one of the most watched animes ever, and one of the most hotly debated pieces of media of the new millennium.

But first! How about you stomp that subscribe button below and ring that Bell so YouTube actually does what it's supposed to and lets you know when I put a new video out! And if you like this video check out my patreon, linked in the description. There's a bunch of really cool perks that come with being a patron so don't miss out.

Alright now let's make like Hange and figure out what's going on inside this monster called Attack on Titan.

The story of Attack on Titan is... [audible exhale] It's a lot. Skip ahead to part two if you don't want manga spoilers.

[Throughout this whole plot-recap section, James's voice is filtered like it is on an old-timey radio broadcast.]

Season one: the "what the hell is going on?!" season.

A boy named Eren Yeager resides in the town of Shiganshina, which is situated on the outermost of three circular walls that shield its residents from the gigantic mindless man-eating Titans. But one day two new Titan species, the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan, break through. Eren manages to flee while his mother is devoured by a Titan. Along with his best friend Armin and his adopted sister Mikasa, he swears vengeance on all Titans and enlists in the military.

Five years later, the Colossal Titan Attacks again, this time closer to the second wall. During this attack, Eren discovers the secret power that allows him to transform into the sentient Attack Titan and uses it to effectively protect the city.

This draws the attention of the Survey Corps, a military group once used to explore the titan-ridden world outside the walls. Led by Commander Erwin Smith, he intends to use Eren's Newfound power to reclaim the broken wall. Erwin's second in command, a short King named Levi, takes it upon himself to whip Eren into shape before they go explore beyond the walls.

Soon Eren and his comrades come upon a sentient female Titan while exploring the forest between the walls, and eventually identify her as their fellow soldier Annie Leonhart. Eren battles Annie and defeats her with the help of his other soldiers, but Annie encases herself in a crystal form and is hidden away from the public. During the battle, it is revealed that there are other sentient Titans within the very walls of the city, sleeping giants waiting to be awoken.

Season 2: the "Plot Armor Titan" season.

Soon after, the intelligent Beast Titan and other mindless Titans mysteriously appear within the walls without leaving any signs of how they got there. One of the newest survey corps grads, Ymir, reveals that she can also change into an intelligent Titan: the Jaw Titan. And a girl named Christa, who Ymir is in love with, reveals herself to be Historia Reiss, a descendant of the ancient royal family.

Two other members of the team, Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover, reveal themselves to be the Armored Titan and Colossal Titan respectively, and attempt to kidnap Eren, but fail. During the incident Eren discovers a new power within himself, known as "the coordinate" which enables him to control other Titans. This forces Reiner and Bertholdt to run, and Ymir goes with them, offering herself as a sacrifice to keep Historia out of harm's way.

Season 3: the "Shit gets complicated" season.

The Survey Corps is being targeted by military police, led by Kenny Ackerman, Levi's Uncle, while Eren and his companions join Levi's Squad. They learn that Historia and her father, Rod Reiss, are the only living members of the royal dynasty, and that the current king is a pretender on the throne. They also learn that one can acquire the abilities of another Titan shifter by transforming into a Mindless Titan and eating it.

Rod Reiss kidnaps Eren and reveals that Eren is in possession of not only the Attack Titan, but the Founding Titan, which Eren's father Grisha acquired after eating Rod's daughter, Frieda Reiss, the day the wall fell, and then passed it along to his son. After a violent altercation in which Historia decides to rebuff her father's demands to become a Titan, Rod drinks Titan spinal fluid and becomes a gigantic Abnormal Titan, but is killed by Historia, who is then crowned queen.

With the pretender king now off the throne, the Survey Corps leads a successful operation to recapture Shiganshina, fighting the Beast, Colossal, Armored, and Cart Titans, but suffering massive casualties, including Eren's best friend Armin, who is nearly killed by the Colossal Titan. But Armin is turned into a Titan himself and acquires ownership of the Colossal Titan by eating Bertholdt. While Erwin dies in a suicide run against the Beast Titan, and is then at least partially avenged by Levi being the absolute biggest badass of badasses.

Then Eren and his comrades return to the ruins of his childhood home, where they learn the truth about their world: that they are Eldians, sworn opponents of the imperialist Marleyans, and were imprisoned within the walls after the original King Fritz fled the conflict. They are not, as they were informed, the 'last people alive', but rather a small sect of Eldians on an isolated island called Paradis.

Over the course of the next year, the Survey Corps kill all the remaining Pure Titans on the island and, for the first time in their lifetimes, make it to the sea, where Eren resolves to wipe out the enemies across the water.

Season 4, Part 1: the "What happened to my favorite character?" season.

Across the sea, Marley continues to oppress their Eldian population, treating them like dirt, turning them into mindless Titans and sending them to fight wars of expansion for them, and brainwashing most of them into thinking that they're evil, and can only be redeemed by becoming a Titan and fighting for them.

Three years after killing off the last of the Titans on Paradis, the Survey Corps attacked Marley's Capital, Liberia, led by Eren and his half-brother Zeke, the Beast Titan. Eren kills Willy Tybur, an Eldian who had been controlling Marley from the shadows, and takes custody of the until now unseen War Titan. After eating its former owner, Willy's sister Lara.

Eren had infiltrated Marley and gained the trust of several of its citizens before this, leaving his friends in the dark as to where he was or what he was doing. So once the attack is over and Eren is back home, he is imprisoned but escapes with the help of a group of fanatical soldiers who have dedicated themselves to Eren, known as the Yeagerists.

Zeke, who is revealed to have Royal Blood and therefore special Titan abilities, is imprisoned by Levi, but manages to escape, but not before Levi does some serious damage to him. Meanwhile, Marley's air fleet, led by Reiner, launches an attack on Paradis.

Season 4, Part 2: the "exposition" season.

Eren and Zeke managed to come together, which takes them to the Paths, an interconnected set of gateways connecting all the subjects of Ymir through time and space, where they encounter the mind of Ymir, the original Titan.

[Briefly not filtered]: (Not the lesbian Ymir, a different one.)

Whose tortured past has kept her in prison for thousands of years within the Paths, building the world's Titans out of sand, one-by-one. Zeke tries to persuade Ymir to grant his request of sterilizing all the subjects of Ymir, her descendants, therefore ending the Titan threat forever, and ending the suffering of all Eldians. However, Eren persuades Ymir instead to unleash the Rumbling, letting loose those thousands of colossal-like Titans held within the walls of Paradis and guiding them on a genocidal march to slaughter everyone outside the island.

To stop Eren's maniacal mission, the former leadership of the Survey Corps joins forces with the remaining Marleyan forces, including Reiner and a decrystallized Annie.

Season 4, part 3: the "manga ending and maybe anime ending?" season.

After an apocalyptic battle atop Eren's eldritch horror of a final form, Levi kills Zeke and a mysterious monster that is the source of all the Titan's powers, leaving Mikasa to kill Eren, causing the Titans' power to vanish and release every person who had been transformed into a Titan. It's revealed that what happened was part of Eren's plan all along, because he could see the future and the past, and was basically omniscient there for a bit.

As the rest of the world is rebuilding, Armin and his comrades begin peace talks, led by Queen Historia. Mikasa buries Eren beneath a tree on a hill in Shiganshina District, but, over time, the world does not see peace. Instead only new forms of warfare, as is the nature of humankind. Their home District of Shiganshina is turned to rubble in one such conflict, and the series concludes with a boy approaching the giant tree that has grown around Eren's grave, which bears a striking resemblance to the tree in which Ymir connected with the progenitor of the Titan's power millennia ago.

[End radio-like audio filtering]

All right, clear as mud? Makes a lot more sense while you're watching or reading it. If you're interested in a breakdown that focuses more on the emotional beats of the story, check out Totally Not Mark's Colossal Titan Review video. It's long but totally worth the watch.

Okay... now let's talk about the drama.

To a large extent, people started feeling uneasy about Attack on Titan once the manga explained the Titan's origins, finally answering the series spanning question "what is in Eren's family's House's basement?"

Eren's father Grisha left behind a journal outlining that the outside world isn't uninhabited at all. That there is a wide world out beyond the walls. The people of Paradis are of a race called Eldians. All of whom have the ability to transform into Titans under certain circumstances. Who are the descendants of the first Titan, Ymir. And in this outside world, Eldians are corralled into ghettos and forced to wear armbands to distinguish them.

They spend their lives being told how their Titan ancestors ruled the world with an Iron Fist and that they must atone for the sins of their tyrannical ancestors, regardless of the fact that there isn't really any proof that said Eldian empire ever actually existed. Its existence is only spoken of by people who would have been told about it via anti-Eldian propaganda. Regardless the people of Marley, the continent across the shores from Paradis, constantly fear the reprisal of this mythical Eldian war machine, where the wicked Eldians from Paradis will rise up and use the power of the Titans to rule or destroy the world once more. So Eldians in Marley, who live inside ghettos, must toil in labor to prove that they aren't like the devils from within the walls of Paradis.

Eren's father held different philosophy, that the founding Titan Ymir was actually a benevolent goddess. She used her Titan blood to carve roads, erect grand buildings, and defend her people from the interloping forces. And that it was the people of Marley who jealously seized the power of the Titans, cast Ymir's descendants away, and forged a false history of propaganda to suppress those Eldians who did not flee to Paradis. Grisha Yeager believed that the Eldians were not devils, but the chosen people of God, which in Euro-American rhetoric, "chosen people of God" carries a very specific meaning. And in conjunction with the ghettos and armbands, there seems to be a direct comparison.

This leads some viewers who interpret this storyline as being too similar to anti-semitic conspiracies which typically assert the Jewish people govern the world via some sort of ancient illuminati-esque cabal. For instance there is a well-respected Eldian family in Marley, the Tyburs, who owe their honorary Marleyan and status to their role in driving the Eldian royalty away from the continent a hundred years ago. And though they may be Eldian, the Tybur family has, for generations, used their wealth and influence to manipulate global politics. Which may mirror real-world conspiracies that say that secret Jewish organizations already secretly run the world.

This facet of the show has helped others, such as Dot Pixis's character, to stand out. The creator and writer, Hajime Isayama, has said that the character of Pixis, a military general, was based on the real life World War II General Akiyama Yoshifuru, who Isayama said he respected and is revered by many in Japan, despite having committed war crimes, particularly in Korea.

Isayama's statement about this, which came from a 2010 blog post before Attack on Titan was published, led to death threats against the author. Because everything leads to death threats these days. Which ends up delegitimizing your argument, because no matter what he believes, you threatened to kill him, so now he's the victim.

And before you turn around and say "how dare he commit war crimes", please examine how we white westerners prop up the likes of Winston Churchill, who ignored the deaths of three million East Indians, then British subjects, and other figures like... American president Teddy Roosevelt, who said

[Quote shown on screen]:

"I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians... but I believe nine out of every 10 are. And I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth."

We take for granted that they're pillars of our culture, because they gave a speech or something, regardless that they were privy to massacres and genocide. In our own culture, there is such an air of veneration around these figures, the criticism is almost a cultural taboo. it's not uncommon for creators to have problematic views, ones which are rooted in their own cultural upbringing. even leftists give a pass to FDR as being a great president, and ignore the fact that he locked up hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, but nobody calls him a fascist. (Well, Republicans might, but not for the right reasons.)

Some have even gone so far as to call Attack on Titan itself fascist and anti-semitic. Because while Attack on Titan does have a large fandom of... normal people, it also has a notable and Loud right-wing fan base. The New Republic even dubbed it "the alt-right's favorite manga".

Anime fans have gotten themselves into a tangle trying to decipher where Isayama draws the line between the metaphors he engages in and his own personal convictions. But Attack on Titan contradicts Isayama's apparent nationalism.

Would Armin not be as put off by the alt-right adopting the anime as he is by the actually very fascist Yeagerists? Bearing in mind that all the main characters in the show end up fighting against Eren's imperialist march across the world in the end. To me, this raises an important question: if the alt-right is under the impression that a piece of media is for them... are we just gonna roll over and let them have it?

With content like... say Fight Club, should we just relinquish this media because the right famously has such poor media literacy that they do not realize it's actually making a mockery of them? The novel on which the film is based was written by Chuck Palahniuk, a gay author whose career is marked by satire and subversion. He sought to criticize toxic masculinity by first pointing out how inherently gay masculinity and firming rituals actually are. And secondly by highlighting that the boys will go to any lengths to prove their masculinity.

The message of Fight Club is not that boys should not talk about Fight Club. It's that maybe boys should talk about their feelings, or else they might be persuaded to commit domestic terrorism. Instead of fighting for this media's direct subtextual meaning and holding on to it in spite of the right wing following, we just roll over and let them add another piece of media to their library. The problem being... the larger this collection of "lib-owning" content grows, the more credible they feel.

Alternately, and this concerns me, I've begun to wonder if the left also lacks the media literacy needed to properly gauge that Fight Club is specifically subverting the values and sensibilities that the protagonists represent. An unfortunate trend I've noticed, specifically in American film criticism, is that analysts don't seem to understand that they're not always meant to identify with the values of the main character just because they're the main character. Sometimes, the protagonist is the villain. As is the case with the nameless protagonist of Fight Club.

But is this the case with Eren Jaeger? Especially, as the series reaches its apocalyptic conclusion. As Attack on Titan comes to a close, the question becomes how to interact with it. And also whether or not a show can handle fascist ideas in the manner with which it does without being fascist and anti-semitic itself. Isayama declined to comment on the topic, saying

[Quote shown on screen]:

"Being a writer, I believe it is impolite to instruct your readers the way of how to read your story."

A large portion of the anime community, as a generic group, hold Attack on Titan with very high regard. You've probably seen some of the show's recognizable symbols, especially its military insignia, even if you haven't seen the anime or read the manga it's based on. If anything, you've probably heard portions of the iconic first season theme song, which is a banger.

[Plays portion of theme song]

The show introduced many people to anime and manga, which is what makes criticism so tricky. It's hard to criticize one's first love. However being unable or unwilling to address the problems in Attack on Titan's fictional world has caused a... long simmering unresolved conflict within the anime fandom.

At first sight, Attack on Titan seems like it could be easily written off as plainly pro-fascist. The central character is a pro-military fanatic who uses his pariah status to justify mass extinction. The militarism of the story is reflected in the opening sequence of the anime's first season, with the lyric "I am a soldier"

Granted, when it comes to all things fashy^{[eg, fascist-like]} in Attack on Titan, viewers always have to read into it. Characters never specifically come out and talk about fascism, either methods or ideology. In specific terms, this may include discussion about oppression, indoctrination, propaganda, and dehumanization of a national enemy. And while all of these elements may be deployed in a fascist regime, they are not exclusive to fascism.

In fact not all fascism is the same. The term is often deployed against things that specifically draw from the posturing and methodology of the Third Reich. Though, while it is true to say that all Nazis were fascist, not all fascists were Nazis. That said, when it comes to the specific elements of Attack on Titan that are implicitly drawn from the Third Reich, these elements are mostly visual. The Eldian ghettos in Marley are never called "ghettos", for instance. We pick up on that from the way they directly resemble ghettos from the 30s and 40s.

When it comes to what is written, the depiction of fascism is much more generalized. Routinely dialogue leans toward valuing people based on how they can serve the military. This is present in both the forces of Paradis and Marley. What good you are to society is dependent upon how you can advance the agenda of the state. However the bulk of the show's latent fascist moralization is focused on Erin Yeager.

And especially his cult of personality, the Yeagerists. This is a group that grew out of a branch of the military, specifically the branch that had been depicted heroically from the first three seasons, the Survey Corps. The scouts themselves were depicted as plucky, desperate dreamers. They reached for the impossible and they kept getting up no matter how bad they got beaten down, time and time again. This is a common an underdog trope in itself, and is not out of place among contemporary pop culture.

However, as Eren became a more pivotal figure to the Survey Corps' victories, even though Eren himself was often ancillary, many within the Survey Corps and Paradis as a whole come to venerate him and his agenda. Just as season 4 doubles down on fascistic undertones, it perhaps begins to explore the finer points of fascistic ideology.

Within fascism, there is typically a belief that death is the most significant contribution that one can make to society. Which is brought up multiple times throughout seasons one, two, and three. In many fascist states, there is a warrior mythology around seeking out a worthy death. A worthy death is almost always a death which is of assistance to the reigning leadership.

This is a component of why white nationalists often lean into Norse mythology. As it goes, entry into Valhalla is earned through a warrior's death, dying in battle. The most common way to die in battle was to be in an army.

[Meme cutaway to Mad Max characters shouting "Witness me!!!!!"]

This isn't to say that all Nordic culture itself was fascist. The concept of a good death was a religious one that spanned across the whole culture, rather than in service to a single ruler. That isn't to say that rulers would not exploit this, but the purpose of a good death was intrinsic rather than appealing to a concept of the greater good. Rhetoric around "the greater good" itself is a pivotal element of Attack on Titan. And especially in season 4, we see otherwise identifiable characters committing atrocities in the name of "the greater good"; such as the once relatively innocent Arman.

Eren himself befits a mythological warrior status, a figure who is^{[sic: has]} seemingly supernatural powers, and whose objectives are unwaveringly aligned with the defense or expansion of the homeland. The warrior must possess the characteristics that the state wants the collective to embody. However, the discourse on "deathworthiness" is not limited to one side of this fictional conflict. And an interpretation of Eren depends on whether the series is depicting him sympathetically or critically.

Some may interpret Eren as a heroic figure, who is making the tough but necessary decision to do what needs to be done. Some interpret him as a national figure who is returning a persecuted nation to its former glory. To others... he is super Hitler!

These viewpoints are represented by different characters in the story and they can be found on very different sides of the conflict. But there's very little framing to moralize this specifically. It seems to be taken for granted that Eren's actions are evil? or necessary.

While Eren himself is fascist-coded, and while his cult the Yeagerists are brazenly fascist, does that mean the show itself is fascist? Eren was, after all, the POV character who is more or less the audience's cipher for the beginning of the series. But it's important to remember that the protagonist of a story is not necessarily the hero.

Literarily speaking, a protagonist is simply the character for whom the narrative follows. Given that Eren is committing a literal genocide, I think it's safe to reason that he is the series's principal villain. This narrative device isn't uncommon. A hero who uses their power to become a monster is a plot device from Frank Herbert's Dune. It's present in the Star Wars prequels, and can even be seen in ancient myths like Heracles.

When gauging weather Attack on Titan itself is fascist, it comes down to how these characters are framed. And the consensus in Attack on Titan from literally every other main character is that Eren... maybe needs to chill. Bearing in mind that detractors of the series point out that the principal characters of Armin and Mikasa, Eren's childhood friends, attempt to justify his actions at the end of the series.

That said, we don't have to look at them as heroic either. Armin had been dropping fascist-adjacent lines since season one.

...which itself almost sounds like a direct quote from a beer hall speech.

And Mikasa is so obsessed with Eren, to the point of being completely incapable of escaping him. At the end of the manga, Isayama punctuated that by having a bird land on her shoulder and lift her scarf over her neck, just as Eren said he would always be there to do. She is trapped for the rest of her life by the very memory of him.

That should not excuse these characters for sure. They are letting personal feelings cloud their judgment of someone who is very obviously willing and able to commit genocide. With so many main characters joining into these sentiments (which if they are not fascists, they are certainly violent ones) does the audience have a character with whom their viewpoints are meant to be reflected? Except maybe Jean; he doesn't really do anything horrible during the series.

Even Historia, while inclined towards acts of kindness, is indicative of the rightful ruler trope in fiction, which ends up itself amounting to royalist propaganda. And while fascism is not defined by the lack of democracy, monarchy and oligarchy aren't really that much better. And while the day is saved from the bad monarch, a good monarch is still totalitarian nevertheless.

How do we read that? How do we read any of this? Because especially when it comes to the aforementioned fascistic coding, there seems to be no clear pattern for how these coded messages play out in the plot.

Sometimes a character's death yields opportunity. Other times it's just a pointless slaughter. Sometimes military decorum and discipline holds the line and keeps the group together. Other times it functions as cultish indoctrination. These themes are so fast and loose in the series that I can see the evidence for where some people could read it as fascist, and others could read it as specifically anti-fascist.

And it's not like fascist-esque imagery and Anime and manga is rare. On the subject, anime YouTuber Joe Yang said:

"It's important to note that the use of fascistic, war, or even Nazi imagery is not necessarily an endorsement of these ideas or regimes, as strange as it may sound."

The fascist and anti-semitic elements in Attack on Titan shouldn't be controversial to bring up. The question the audience and the critics need to answer is whether or not the series is actively harmful because of them. That is, whether the audience is directed to sympathize with characters and themes that represent and are represented by these elements.

Some media commentators even admitted to not watching Attack on Titan because they were afraid of the backlash they would receive for discussing the show's political undertones. YouTuber Geoff Thew argues:

"It's because this discussion keeps happening, but it's also not. There's some really good criticism of Attack on Titan, and I think it's important to criticise it, but a lot of people come at it strong and condemn it.

That does as much to kill the conversation as people being like, 'shut the hell up about politics,' because it reinforces the argument that people are just trying to cancel this good show that you like."

For a long time, anime fans had no way of knowing what their favorite writers and artists even looked like, let alone what they thought about the world. Anime fans have generally avoided discussing the political content of their favorite shows because the art form was, until recently, a niche that was sometimes wrongly characterized as being obscene and dangerous. Given the cultural status in Japan of animation as a medium and not a genre, there are venues for animation to receive prestigious acclaim that is typically denied to animation in America. The equivalent of rejecting all anime due to sweeping generalizations is like shunning all live-action movies because porn is also live action.

Andrea Horbinski, a scholar with a doctorate in New Media studies and history, said:

"Some Anglophone and American anime fans say that politics in anime is too foreign to comprehend.

A lot more people these days seem to have some accurate knowledge about the socio-cultural politics in Japan,

but in my experience they're equally likely to combine a dollop of knowledge about current circumstances in Japan with their own preconceptions about Japan and Japanese Society.

Ironically, while it's never been easier to access cultural and political discussions directly from Japan thanks to the internet, relying on their own preconceptions,

and only taking on board information that supports them, definitely does keep anime fans in this position from appreciating the range of views in anime generally."

This may color certain anime viewers perceptions of shows with feminist or queer themes, as well as shows like Attack on Titan. Right-wing anime viewers, according to Horbinski, demand the inclusion of western-style political themes. As they put it:

"These fans insist that feminism and LGBTQ people don't exist in Japan and that any anime depicting either is woke garbage or similar.

These fans are extremely angry at attempts to discuss the depictions of female characters in anime as something that could often use improvement, or the inclusion of LGBT characters period.

They may cite 'evidence' to support their views that is wholly out of context. Attempts by Japanese feminists and LGBTQ activists to provide corrective information online do not go down well, particularly on Twitter."

Which is funny, because these kinds of regressionists praise anime for its narrative complexity, but at the same time deny the presence of political complexity. At least when it's politics that challenges their preconceptions. Again we're in a situation where media "being political" only really applies to media that promotes opinions outside the viewer's comfort zone. Regardless if that media, as Attack on Titan does, borrows heavily from real world politics and historical references. There is a contingent of the audience who is so over-accustomed to having their viewpoints unchallenged that they will default to an assumption that the media they enjoy is simple and uncomplicated.

But the question remains: does media owe you simplicity?

Huh... Why am I suddenly wearing different clothes... and in a whole other setting for part four? That seems a bit jarring doesn't it? Oh well.

You can't really say that Attack on Titan is overly simple or about nothing. There are innumerous instances where characters go out of their way to specifically outline what the audience should be taking away from a given Arc, at least in the English dub. Which may not be the best way to convey messaging across to your audience. If you treat people like they're too dumb to pick up on what's going on they won't develop the tools needed to read into messaging in other media.

People become how you treat them. Which, in itself, could be a theme within Attack on Titan, ironically. Probably the greatest challenge in the field of literary analysis is how to gauge whether there even is intended subtext in a literary work. And this isn't necessarily limited to genre either. Jane Austen wrote what is ostensibly Chick-Lit, in terms of plot beats and characters. However, it is fairly clear in her work that she was very consciously writing commentary and criticism of the English Gentry.

Sometimes, there is social commentary that is overlooked because of genre. Take Edgar Allan Poe, for instance, who during his lifetime was dismissed by American literary canon for writing Gothic horror pulp. The gothic genre was seen as being far too rooted in sensationalist European sensibilities. And at the time, the American literary scene was rooted in the idea that to be legitimate, one must be as serious and boring as possible. Indeed, Poe had an avid French fan base and was a significant source of inspiration for Jules Verne. Relocation to Europe may have turned him into a respected author. Instead, Poe remained in America, and died nearly destitute, apologizing for being such a bad writer. And it was not until another generation rediscovered his work and began to see a great deal of poignant and relevant commentary within it.

The same could be said of Stan Lee, who longed to write the Great American novel. While comic books are often criticized by literary Scholars as barely more valuable than the pulp that they're historically printed on, it was not until the end of his life that Lee realized that through his contributions to Marvel, Spider-Man in particular, he had created a significant contribution to American Literature.

Generally speaking though, anytime it comes to populous media (that is media that is popular), there is a tendency among the media Illuminati to dismiss it. The thought process being 'if many people see the value of this media, then it must be relying on cheap thrills to collect its audience'. Yes, because Homer rhyming off the ancestors of rich patrons reimagined as heroes of the Trojan War is absolutely... not... that.

However it can also work the opposite way, where audiences, learned scholars especially, can read meaning into something where it was not intended. Does Homer's "wine dark sea" actually function as a grand and poetic description of the sea in a particular light? Or is it just something he had to throw in to flush out the extra syllable to keep up the meter? Unfortunately, it's difficult to really gauge instances of this.

Oftentimes, authors are open about fans reading unintended meanings into their books, though will welcome the additional analysis. Artists themselves exist in this world, and there are any number of unknown biases they may manifest in their work. It's unlikely, for instance, that Stephanie Meyer, a Mormon, intended to write a book about a girl who has sex once, gets pregnant, and dies, but...! Here we are.

But in many cases, I can see authors leaning into unintended analysis of their media, whether it's subliminally or not. It came from them, so they can take the credit. Suffice to say, it's almost unheard of that the creator of a celebrated and acclaimed work of academic art will come forward and say "you're full of shit!" Almost unheard of.

For those of you who have endured an English Lit 101 class, or did any kind of digging into modernist poetry, you've probably heard of Ern Malley. With classic lines such as,

I am still the black swan
of trespass on alien waters.

That rabbit's foot
I carried in my left pocket

Has worn a hemorrhage
in the lining

The pond-lilies could not stifle
The green descent of frogs.

Sounds deep, right? For a very brief time, Ern Malley's poems were the toast of Australian modernism. However, there was a problem: Ern Malley didn't exist. The radical shifting landscape of art and culture after the first world war gave rise to different artistic movements, and while these new formats were embraced quite widely, not everyone was on board.

Enter Australian writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart, who set out to prove that all this new poetry was much ado about nothing. They edited a couple of existing poems and wrote a couple of new ones to be what they consider to be bad writing. And developed a tragic backstory for the late Ern Mali, and mailed off the poems.

But even after they were revealed to be a hoax, Ern Malley remained a celebrity poet, even though people knew he was fake. Poets, especially in America and England, believe that Stuart and McAuley had outsmarted themselves. And that in the process of trying to create nonsense, they somehow managed to reach down and tap into true genius. Genius that they never could reach in their own poetry. In other words, imagine your head is so far up your ass that you would literally rather claim that your pranker is too stupid to write bad poetry then admit that you suck at analyzing it.

But am I saying that Attack on Titan is a modern day Ern Malley? No, because from what we can gather about it it's not trying to troll conventions in manga or anime. It's very earnestly trying to talk about trauma, grief, group think, war, and terrorism. The series will very deliberately orate what a viewer could simply observe. The series very much wants you to know that it's talking about specific things, to the point of coming out and just telling you. This happens so often, I think, that if the series was trying to make a statement about fascism and military culture, it would have the characters actively engage in that discussion. Analyzing literature is about looking for patterns, and this is clearly the pattern that Attack on Titan uses.

But when it comes to everything else that isn't directly stated? See, the relevance of the Ern Malley hoax doesn't just demonstrate that it is possible to convince an audience to read meaning into nonsense. The hoax shows us that if an audience already believes there is meaning in a piece of media, there is little to nothing that can be done to convince them... that the meaning they read into it isn't there. This fascist messaging in Attack on Titan almost exclusively is presented in visual cues. But Isayama was horribly critical of his own artistic abilities and may have simply borrowed the established fascist looks instead of creating his own.

So other than that, what's specifically about Attack on Titan implores the audience to feel that there's anything that needs to be read into it in the first place? Why read into this media in a way that you would not look at... What We Do in the Shadows as a complex commentary about generational gaslighting, entitlement, and exploitation? Why do we look at one and say "no, that's just pansexual vampires." And then go to such lengths to justify a fascist or non-fascist reading of the other.

I spoke about this before, but tragedy is almost universally held up as superior forms of dramatic expression, next to comedy. This is almost entirely thanks to writings by Aristotle, who felt the drama was superior because it had the emotional ammunition capable of imparting political and social messages onto the audience. Some may call that propaganda. But they risk having a black bag pulled over their head by the hit squad of academics and taken away into an unmarked van. So, we're not going to say that, because I have more to do.

My simple rationale for why people may, specifically Scholars and intellectuals, hold drama to be so significant is because... smart people tend to be sad. It's a dull cruel world when you can rationalize all the ways that society is constructed to beat you down. Defaulting to the self-evident truth that life is suffering, we hold media that reflects this suffering to be closer to a truth about The Human Experience. A simpler assessment would be the tragic media is emotionally exhausting, to see your heroes best laid plans fail, and to see beloved characters meet their end, and to see possibly hours of emotional investment end in sadness, this takes its toll. Perhaps we feel the need to read meaning into these things to justify the emotional fatigue.

And Attack on Titan is certainly emotionally draining. Entire episode arcs are spent to establish characters and within minutes not only are they devoured alive, but they are denied any satisfaction or dignity. Time after time after time, plans fail, heroes fall, and good people have everything taken away from them. Even victories in Attack on Titan feel hollow and disappointing. Everything is so gratuitously bleak that at times it reaches this kind of... Lemony Snicket absurdity where anything that could possibly go wrong somehow does go wrong. Where the plot is twisted to scrape every shred of dignity away from these characters who fought for the greater good.

Tragedy and heartbreak seem to be the only narrative beat it's willing to explore. For the first three seasons, the day is only really saved because the main characters fail upwards almost by accident. For all the secret hidden abilities enemies have, there's almost always a trump card that the heroes couldn't have possibly foreseen, resulting in a lot of dead secondary characters. In fact, it's not until the fourth season where we see the main characters essentially framed as the villains, that they become competent, and that their plans are successful. The series does have a pattern of characters becoming alarmingly competent and death proof the second they become villains.

These tragedies implore us to feel that there must be something to be said about it. That the audience is being pulled through this bleakness in order to get some kind of human truth out of it. Or is tragedy using trauma in the way that comedy use is levity? That the dying and the suffering are merely present to give the audience an outlet? And keep them engaged in the series?

Attack on Titan presents the message that war is senseless, and has no meaning. This is something the characters actually do talk about. However, if we try to extract meaning from this conflict, when we are told that conflict is meaningless, are we not giving meaning to those fictional tragedies? And if we can read meaning into fictitious war, what's stopping us from reading meaning into actual meaningless war?

There is a lot of stuff in Attack on Titan, and yes, there is the possibility that it's not saying anything at all. Beyond the textual messaging of "war is bad". But when it comes to the rampant discourse about whether this media supports fascist ideology or whether it's subverting it, there's a lot of strong evidence to point in either direction. As we've discussed. The problem here is that messaging is broadly applied and that there seems to be multiple different interpretations of each character, event, and symbol.

The Eldian people contain elements of a Jewish analogy, as per the discrimination they face in Marley and the rhetoric around being the "chosen people of God". However, if Marley is seen as a Third Reich analogy, then the Nazis never used Elite Jewish combat units. Nor was there any widespread success at fostering a sense of internalized self-loathing amongst the Jewish people/ They were meant to be removed from Aryan Society, not give any use, and even made honorary Aryans like, Eldians can be made honorary Marleyans by becoming one of the nine Elite Titans.

Conversely, if Eldians living in Marley are meant to be Jewish, then what are Paradisian Eldians meant to be? If Paradis was meant to be an allegorical ghetto, then how does that symbol function... when we are exposed to literal ghettos at the end of season 3? Is Paradis a ghetto, or is it Israel? You can make that argument, but it also falls apart pretty quickly because you don't have foreign Jews trying to come kill Israelis. It's either an incredibly messy allegory or it's not an allegory at all.

The problem with any reading of Attack on Titan is allegory itself. There's no clear one-to-one comparison. Any comparison that can be drawn has counter evidence. But just because there isn't any clear messaging through allegory, symbolism, nor illusion, does that mean there is no messaging at all? As it happens, there is an alternative to allegory and that is the much less commonly employed "applicability", which is the driving force behind none other than The Lord of the Rings.

Author J.R.R Tolkien developed The Lord of the Rings as a substitution for the English mythology that was erased during the Norman occupation of Great Britain in 1066. During this period, through the 11th century, invaders from what is modern day France brought an end to what was the Anglo-Saxon era of England. Come to think of it, even this could be read as an allegory for Attack on Titan, an island nation dominated by a foreign continental power that shook off its oppressors to then go on and conquer the entire world. So maybe Eren is actually King George III...

Anyway this period of British history was marked by a cultural adjustment away from the local Germanic and Pagan roots of the island's post-Roman independence. This included not only the introduction of Latin and Greek grammatical conventions into a Germanic language system (if you ever wondered why English has so many silent letters, this is why) but the complete erasure of English mythological cycles.

Pre-Norman English heroes of myth would have resembled a cross between the Germanic likes of Siegfried and the Celtic likes of Cú Chulainn. Beowulf was one of these figures, but is believed to be a later addition and far from the only one. Instead, the Normans replace that with French derivative heroes like King Arthur.

Tolkien was not at all a fan of this, and his creation of Middle Earth was developed over a lifetime of researching scraps of surviving documents, relics, and anthropological discoveries. The objective was to create the closest approximation to a mythological cycle that would not have felt out of place among the Anglo-Saxons. Famously, Tolkien loathed the concept of allegory. I can imagine he felt it was a cheap way to beat direct moral messages into the readers.

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and worry enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history -- true or feigned -- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

And compared to his contemporaries, he wasn't altogether wrong. C.S Lewis, a good friend of his, by contrast was going to personally come to your house and beat your parents with a cricket bat if you didn't understand that the lion is literally Jesus. Allegory is closed off. This fake thing is this real thing. In the case of allegory, there is an intended meaning. And there are wrong interpretations, Furthermore, if allegory is referencing something specific, then there is a point at which this media loses its relevance, or when people start interpreting it the wrong way.

Look at the Book of Revelations, which is not prophesying the end of the world, it's prophesying the fall of the Roman Empire, which was currently taking place upon its writing. Suffice to say, if a myth does not speak to the ongoing culture of a nation, then it is not a myth that will be remembered. Because the nation cannot continue using it for a sense of ongoing cultural identity.

And Tolkien's going to roll over in his grave when I say this, but... there are allegorical parallels between Middle Earth and the United Kingdom of the early 20th century. First of all, it's shaped like Wales, for starters.

There's also strong overtones of axis-themed villains and allusions to environmental destroying industrialization of the blackened land in the southeast. Tolkien existed within the culture of the day, so it's nearly impossible for him to not draw inspiration from real world events, aware or not. However, these are details that aren't crucial to the plot. But the symbols the plot does revolve around were, intendedly universal and intendedly vague.

The most famous among them is the One Ring itself. Many felt that it was an allegory for the nuclear bomb, which frustrated Tolkien to no end. Others felt it could be wealth, influence, drugs, politics, power, or even the temptation of power. It's all of these things, and none of them. What the ring represents is something much closer to a human universal: the ring represents something that is coveted and coveted for different reasons. It can't be a bomb or a weapon because it does not give total power to all those who use it. It can't be wealth because it has no utility. It can't be power because its users are not invulnerable. It can't be a drug because drugs don't make you functionally immortal. Talking about what the One Ring could be is a video all on its own, but it's a symbol that speaks to the cyclical corrupting elements that reside in all people. That not one person is invulnerable to the Ring's call, whether they have the ability to use it or not.

Applicability helps The Lord of the Rings function as a retroactive mythology, because the pivotal symbols can be reapplied to as many circumstances as needed. There will always be an analogy for the One Ring. Because there is always something that will corrupt even the best of us. Even if the thing changes over time and from culture to culture.

But is this what's going on in Attack on Titan? And if it is what is being made applicable? There are direct allegories to real world events, such as the ghettos and the armbands, but are these meant to be symbols that draw the audience's attention to whatever the applicability is? Bear in mind that the running of internment camps was not limited to Germans. And here in North America, both Canadian and American internal security pushed Japanese people into camps just like these. Are the allusions to Jewish ghettos meant to implore the audience to observe this kind of ethnic persecution rather than being a specific reference to the Holocaust?

And instead the Eldians can possibly represent persecuted people of all types rather than specifically European Jews. And especially when you begin to broaden the definition of "internment camps" and the imagery of ghettos to a broader sense of ethnic isolation. This theme could also include native internment during colonial periods and later reservations and residential schools. But there is a great deal of debate in literary criticism if characters in fiction can function as symbols at all. After all, the more a character needs to function as a symbol the less agency they appear to have. Can a fictional ethnic group appropriately function as a symbol? Especially provided that the ethnic group in question actually does the thing that their persecutors use to justify their institutional discrimination? One of them does try to use the power of the Titans to destroy the world.

Other applicable symbols such as totalitarian rule, militarization, despotism, sacrifice, propaganda, humanity, and consumption, again, are moralized contextually. These are concepts and themes, not necessarily symbols, but applicable nevertheless. Hell, the imagery of fascism itself falls under applicability. When we think of soldiers goose-stepping down a street, our brains immediately go to the German fascists. But look at the Soviets, the Chinese, the North Koreans... these countries adopted the look and pomp of Nazi fascism for their own brand because it worked.

But those are all examples of bad things. Problem with applicability in Attack on Titan is that these applicable concepts are good and/or bad, depending on the circumstance. Applicability functions so well in The lord of the Rings because the moralization around the applied symbol is universal. The ring is always bad, and those who intend to use it for good either become bad or have a very selfish definition of what "good" is. If you use ultimate power to bring about world peace, you still have a lot of ultimate power left over, just lying around. Those that want the Ring's power cannot be trusted with it, and those who do not want the Ring's power aren't immune to it either.

One could argue that the same line of thinking can be applied to the power of the Titans. That even under the best intentions, those with the Power of the Nine universally resort to evil. And that Eren and Zeke especially fall prey to the godly power of the Founding Titan. But Zeke and Eren were flawed from the beginning, and they had intentions for the power of the founder even before they had a plan to use it. Furthermore, Eren had the power of the Founding Titan for almost the entire duration of the series, and yet his personality made no shift from before and after he received it. Even his ability to transform into the Attack Titan did not "corrupt" him. And he used both the Attack Titan and the Founding Titan to help the civilians and soldiers of Paradis survive the Titan Onslaught.

Applicability in Attack on Titan loses a lot of the finesse and nuances meant to drive drama in the plot. Even once held truths of "Titan's bad" is turned on its head when the gallant heroes learned that Titans are or once were humans. Which does fit into a rhetoric around militarization practices, where soldiers are conditioned to see the enemy as sub-human. Between seasons 1, 2, and the first half of season 3, Titans themselves function as an incredibly applicable symbol.

For instance, I first read the Titans as a symbol for capitalist hoarding/ You have a collection of large people indifferently consuming everything without discrimination. It's not a stretch to see this as a criticism for a handful of aged capitalists hoarding an abundance of wealth and making life miserable for everybody else. The small people do their best to resist, but most will be consumed regardless. Especially since this media was developed by someone who lived through the Japanese depression of the 1990s, there is contextual evidence to support this.

But there are other readings of them, such as the aforementioned dehumanized militant enemy. But they could also refer to the process of gentrification, as they seek to push locals out of their communities, or even the military powers of Asia, such as China, that bear down on the relatively militarily weak Japan.

So they could mean anything you want them to mean. Even if we can dig through the source material to find scraps of meaning that point one way or the other, is there any way to actually discern what intended meaning, if any, there was?

Take the aforementioned quote from Hajime Isayama:

"Being a writer, I believe it is impolite to instruct your readers the way of how to read your story."

I spend a lot of time following movie creators: press tours, commentaries, interviews... Take the simplest slasher movie, and fans and interviewers will inquire as to what possible interpretations were intended. Filmmakers, especially, get a particular kind of question: "is your Blockbuster movie about X?" The answer almost always runs along the lines of being reluctant to tell their audience how to watch their movie.

In some instances, yes, there is a deliberate social commentary. Scream highlights the facade of suburban safety and comfort. Alien speaks to the threat of venereal infection in a society that had abandoned condoms for the pill. But a lot of the time filmmakers just want to make a fun movie. It's inevitable, as mentioned, for real world events to inspire plot beats, but that doesn't mean that social commentary is what the movie is for. Believe it or not, but most entertainers just want to entertain. That isn't to say they aren't methodical, insightful, or elegant people. It just means that sometimes they just want to push the boundaries of how many ways they can use artificial blood.

Provided that Isayama offered a similar answer about art being in the eye of the beholder, maybe all the tragedy and militarism in Attack on Titan is just meant for spectacle. Maybe all the imagery is meant to have no deeper significance than to set the stage for a world that only really seems to function because of war. And to allow the audience to understand how these characters interact with trauma the way they do. Maybe there is no statement about the nature of military regime, doctrine, and the manifestations of martial law. Maybe it's just about a bunch of sad people who don't know anything but war because that's what they grew up in. That doesn't mean Attack on Titan has no value.

With or without fascistic messaging, there are plenty of reasons to like it, and there are plenty of reasons to dislike it. Personal taste is enough of a justification. Media needs to neither be grand nor demonic to facilitate an opinion. You don't need to dig into the subtext to either hail it as genius or the root of all evil. Being entertaining is enough.

And I feel that the divisive nature of this anime results from people having a conflict over messaging that may or may not even be there. To justify that their interpretation is the correct one, and that if everyone else could just see like they do it would either be the masterpiece or pariah that it ought to be. Arguing that it's the greatest piece of art ever created or the most destructive or two extremes that refuse to see the shades of gray in between.

Attack on Titan is good because I say so. Attack on Titan is dangerous because I say so. All Eldians are evil because I say so. All Marleyans are evil because I say so. We don't live in a black and white world of perfection and inferiority, where nothing is okay, where things can only be great or horrible. In this world, good and evil rarely exist as absolutes. A world of absolutes can't really exist. The only truly absolute thing is death itself.

Which a component of fascist ideology is this cult of death, that how one dies is more significant than how one lives. Perhaps all these characters are meant to be cautionary tales. So many of them let single-minded devotion to the greater good lead them to their deaths. And in that process, did they ever truly live? Were they ever truly free? Death as an absolute shouldn't lock us into fatalistic paths, but should allow us to realize what freedoms we do have while we are alive. If death is the absolute then all other things exist as nuances in shades of gray.

Ascribing absolute values of good or evil is to reject the range of experience that life has to offer. The more we cling to absolutes in anything in life, the more we consign ourselves to a path with no way to turn around or change course. That's what Eren did. He decided that the greater good was worth trapping himself on a doomed road that would only end in his premature death. That's what hatred does to people.

Hatred traps you. Hatred removes your options. Hatred takes away your freedom, and it tricks you into thinking those you hate are the ones who have taken your freedom away. And, like the characters in Attack on Titan, we exist in a world so full of hatred that it's hard not to get mired in it sometimes. It's our job to reject hate and those who propagate it, not to hate them in return but to pity them. They've let their intolerance control their lives. Don't let it control yours.

Fly free, and when the fascists and bigots and hate mongers of the world try to demonize you, know that it's because they see your freedom. They see you being yourself, not trapped inside a cage and they hate that you can be free... and they can't. You have strength they can't even imagine and it horrifies them.

Because there is nothing more horrifying to a fascist... than someone they hate... who refuses to die.