In defense of "Attack on Titan"
This is the verbatim version of the video essay from my Youtube channel of the same name.
Have you heard that journalists and content creators, mostly American, have denounced "Attack on Titan" for promoting or justifying fascism and militarism?
Yes, unfortunately, that has happened. A work that has managed to captivate so many people by exposing the horror of what fascist regimes and genocide do is denounced for supposedly promoting or even approving what it is justly condemning. Therefore, that is why I decided to do this essay. To respond to all those criticisms. Not because I love the work – which I do – but because I feel that by responding to and refuting all these criticisms and denunciations we are going to deal with many very interesting topics to which I would like to offer my own opinion and personal contribution.
1. Why I think "Attack on Titan" is a great work
Before I start with my responses to the criticisms and denunciations, I think it is something basic to clarify why I think "Attack on Titan" is a great work. However, before that, let us define what kind of work it is.
"Attack on Titan" is a war shonen. For those who still do not know what shonen are, they are practically the most famous and lucrative mangas and anime of the last decades. Their main demographic is mostly teenagers and that is understandable from the typical themes that shonen deal with: adventures, action, friendship, rivalry and personal growth. Famous examples of ancient and contemporary shonen are "Dragon Ball", "Evangelion", "One Piece", "Bleach", "Naruto" and "Demon Slayer", among many others.
If you were born in the last forty years, you have probably seen or heard of a shonen at least once in your life.
"Attack on Titan" meets these requirements by including all these themes within its narrative. But something that separates this one from the examples I have mentioned, and brings it closer to the genre of Seinen -which are like Shonen but more serious and for more adult audiences-, is that it is set in a post-apocalyptic war scenario and how it uses this to explore the various character arcs that occur in its story.
It is precisely in this aspect that the greatest artistic achievements of "Attack on Titan" lie: the dramas and dilemmas that can happen to human beings during a war are treated here and not in a simple way or to be easily forgotten. All this with an optic that gives dignity and humanism as I have not seen before in other animated series.
In its first part, the work explores war from almost all human facets. Courage, fear, sacrifice, cruelty, betrayal, maturity, self-denial, loss and repentance. We even have a bit of political intrigue.
The titans and the mystery behind their origins are, in my opinion, a secondary aspect that keeps the plot and interest alive but, at the end of the day, it is in these arcs in which these themes are explored where the true dramatic weight of the series lies.
That is why many have been captured by it; not because of the battles, the lore, the mystery or what is going to happen in the next chapter but because of the emotional impact of what these characters go through, for whom we feel a real emotional attachment. We can recognize ourselves in their reactions to the events and the decisions they make. That is the real power the work has.
And that's what I can say about the first part, because as you all know "Attack on Titan" has two quite different parts that have their point of division in the big reveal of chapter 86 in the manga or episode 57 in the anime. That is, in the episode in which they discover what is in the basement.
From there, as we all know, the series gives a massive plot twist that re-contextualizes the theme of the war against the titans and their own origin. From this point in the story, the work tackles a new set of themes.
The second part of "Attack on Titan" is the one that has caused the most controversy and denunciations and it is not very difficult to realize why. Isayama grapples with themes that clearly echo terrible well-documented historical events like the Jewish holocaust.
One may feel a little doubtful or uneasy about the fact that a work mostly aimed at teenagers deals with these issues in the format of a manga or anime. Nevertheless, what I felt reading the manga and watching the series is that Isayama really strives to show that the only way to go among so many cycles of hate is understanding and compassion. Or else the whole of humanity will simply go to hell. This is made clear by one of its characters at the end of the series.
Likewise, the themes of harsh repression and discrimination against minorities, brainwashing and the dehumanization of child soldiers by an authoritarian regime, redemption and reconciliation are themes that, like those of the first part, are treated with humanity and care.
And, of course, as you all may already know, the issue that has undoubtedly caused the most controversy is that of how to end the hatred and repression of one ethnicity and the cycles of hatred between nations.
Two of the main characters, Zeke and Eren, use their power to implement a plan that according to them in their different ideologies could solve this problem forever. This is, perhaps, the most controversial topic of the series due to the misunderstandings it has caused. We will have time to explain this controversy later. For now, I just want to make it clear that the narrative at no time justifies any of these plans.
The topic of the end of the series is a complex one that I will talk about later but since we are at this point, I would like to admit something: I have disagreements with the ending but I will also make it clear why this, at the end of the day, is not so important.
Well, these are the reasons why I think "Attack on Titan" is a great work. Now let us move on to criticism and cut it off like the back of a titan's nape.
2. Rubem Ferdinand
The first criticism that we are going to deal with is that of one Ruben Ferdinand and his criticism that he published on his Medium blog. I have decided to start with this blogger because in my opinion the criticism he wrote manages to summarize or condense in large part most of the denunciations and opinions against the work received regarding its alleged promotion of fascism in its narrative.
It should be noted that despite the fact that the essay was published in March 2018, that is, two years after the big revelation and the beginning of the second part of the story, Ferdinand does not refer to anything that happens after it and decides instead to focus on everything that happens in the first part of the narrative.
Ferdinand begins his critique by explaining that the framework in which the story is set, i.e. a post-apocalyptic narrative in which monsters suddenly invade a once-fortified world and troops try to annihilate them, represents a means of "emotionally affecting" viewers. This emotional affect, according to him, will be used by Isayama along with the aesthetics of "horror and militarism" of the story to be "instrumentalized" towards a goal that, according to him, is not good at all.
He then begins to emphasize the monstrous "aesthetics" of the Titans and how it serves as a narrative device with which Isayama outlines the concept of a faceless enemy attacking a humanity under siege.
Establishing and exposing these monsters as truly mindless, violent, and abhorrent gives the narrative an impenetrable excuse: the extermination of Titans is indubitably a good thing. This is reified in Eren’s endearing character trait: yelling in a shrill voice “I’ll kill them all” before getting owned super hard. Titans embody no political message, nor do they hold any agency; they are a canvas on which a faceless antagonism can be smeared and heroic sacrifice can be made. It’s not about the zombie menace, it never has been, it’s about humanity’s reaction to it. It is a narrative device that is both the cause and the excuse for nationalism (or worse). This brings us to more problematic parts of Attack on Titan’s aesthetics: its military.
After this paragraph, he immediately moves on to a section in which he presents the reader with a series of alleged evidences that prove that Hajime Isayama is a Japanese ultranationalist. These evidences proposes that "Attack on Titan" is, in fact, a vehicle to convey his ideas which include the glorification of the army, the reasons for an authoritarian or fascist state and sacrificing oneself for a nation.
Ferdinand mentions a 2010 interview in which Isayama admitted that Commander Dot Pixis is based on a real Japanese general who was accused of war crimes in Korea. He also mentions alleged tweets attributed to Isayama in which he downplayed the war crimes committed by Japan during its occupation of Korea.
He also mentions a South Korean newspaper that in 2013 accused the manga of having a militaristic message influenced by the ultranationalist and warmongering political campaign of then-President Shinzo Abe. Finally, he states that the work is part of a trend in series and video games that, according to him, "invoke the aesthetics of the powerful Japanese imperial war machine." such as "Strike Witches", "Girls und Panzer", "Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress" or the video game "Kantai Collection".
Now, I would like to make one thing clear, if Isayama does turn out to be a Japanese ultranationalist who uses his social networks to minimize or relativize the mountain of war crimes that Japan carried out in Korea or in other parts of the world, this is regrettable and completely deplorable. There is no way that anyone should be allowed to justify this, whether they are a citizen of Japan or not.
It should also be noted that it is true that at the beginning of the last decade the Abe government did promote a controversial warmongering campaign, particularly directed against China. He also implemented a series of ultra-nationalist measures such as the revision of the constitution so that Japan would declare war again and glorify the role of the imperial army.
It is entirely plausible that an artist could have been influenced by this wave of toxic nationalism and transmitted some of it to his work.
However, it is worth mentioning, too, that the population met Abe’s policies with considerable rejection. Even Hayao Miyazaki himself criticized the policies of Shinzo Abe's government in 2015.
You must probably be thinking that what is happening here is the typical case of an artist being "cancelled" for having said something deplorable or because he turned his work into propaganda for the worst possible causes. However, the issue I want to deal with here is another. We are going to talk about authors and their relationships with their political beliefs, we are going to talk about intentionalism and we are going to talk about how artistic works should not be interpreted.
So let us go back to what Ferdinand has to say about what, according to him, is the only relevant aspect of the series.
Through the Titans, the series introduces an absolute morality that constructs its military forces as a literal ‘army for humanity’, making all its actions seem tragic and cataclysmic, but ultimately justified against the onslaught of monsters.
We have drawn a conclusion from the gravitas of fighting the Titans (as a means to save humanity) and the only available resources of doing so (the risky 3D maneuver gear): to fight means to be ready to sacrifice yourself.
He then argues that although the narrative presents scenes and images that make clear the terrible cost of war, it also makes clear that most deaths (including those of civilians) must be taken as sacrifices. In other words, inevitable but necessary losses in the pursuit of the ultimate good, which, He indicates that, within the context of the narrative, it would be about the "nation."
There is a pro-war narrative that exhibits soldiers as (self-)righteous, honourable, and ‘the only ones doing anything about this mess’. Considering Japan’s history with military conquest and Attack on Titan’s echoing of early 20th century Germany, the premise of a nation militarising to defend itself ends up a ultranationalist one, one that keeps snowballing itself.
He supports this conclusion by demonstrating how "Attack on Titan" fits perfectly into the fascist ideology of creating an external enemy not only to justify invasions and territorial conquests but also to glorify the role of the army, which defends the most important thing, which is, of course, the nation.
Through the very invention of the horrific Titans and the exclusively-military option of fighting them, Hajime Isayama has placed the emotional and emotive emphasis on a dubious foundation. Its violent images invoke a sense of dread that leads to sympathy and frustration, the ones you could rally behind because your gut tells you what you’re seeing isn’t just. Characters give up everything to ensure that humanity, imagined as a single nation, survives the onslaught. Put differently, everything about the series justifies and promotes war as a means to preservation.
One could imagine that anyone who has never read the manga or seen the anime would think, after reading this review, that the only theme that exists in “Attack on Titan” is that of sacrifice for the common good, call it "nation" or "humanity."
Now, it is not false that the theme of "sacrificing yourself for a common good" is in the work. As I mentioned a few moments ago, that issue is there along with others. And that's my point. It is just one of them. It's not the only topic that revolves around it, as Ferdinand and others apparently want us to believe.
If "Attack on Titan" were a work that only and incessantly showed the themes of sacrifice for a nation or the glory of serving in an army it would be a pedantic work and simply unbearable to watch. It would simply not have the millions of fans it has around the world because no one would like to be forced to gobble up war propaganda, not even of a fictional nation in a fantastic world.
However, as we all know, the story is not only about that. As I explained a few moments ago, the real power of the narrative in its first part is how it dramatizes the different war experiences of these young soldiers.
But for Ferdinand and others this simply doesn't matter. And why? Well, although he does not mention it in his critique, the deliberately one-sided and narrow approach he takes is because he has drawn his conclusions about Isayama's alleged true intentions using the conclusion elaborated through a syllogism. A syllogism built through false arguments and without much basis.
The syllogism is as follows:
Premise 1: All authors use their artistic works as propaganda for their political beliefs or ideologies.
Premise 2: Hajime Isayama, author of the manga "Attack on Titan", is a Japanese ultranationalist and supporter of fascism.
Conclusion: "Attack on Titan" is a propaganda work of Japanese ultra nationalism and fascism.
What is the problem with this syllogism? That the premise number one is simply false and the premise number two is presented as true from the alleged evidence of Isayama's comments and his tweets attributed to him. But this is no absolute proof. It is circumstantial evidence. It does not directly prove that Isayama is really a supporter of fascism or ultra-nationalism. They simply raise the possibility that Isayama at best has an idealized view of his country's past or at worst is a true denier of its crimes. How this transforms someone into an individual who consciously accepts all the precepts of fascist ideology is unclear, at least to me.
As for the premise number one, the fact that it is true that many political artists use their artistic works to promote the ideas they support does not mean that they all do so. There are many artists whose political ideas are wholly separated from their works and therefore this statement is not a universal truth that applies at all times. To give you an example, Herge was a Belgian comic book writer who almost a century ago created "Tin-Tin". He, like Isayama, was accused of being a supporter of fascism. But unlike the latter, Herge himself eventually admitted to having sympathies for fascism during its rise in Europe.
Still, the question is: Did Herge use his "Tin-Tin" cartoon to promote his support for fascism? The answer is obviously no. There is none of that there. Millions have admired his work and in 2011 the most famous Jewish film director in the world, Steven Spielberg, made an animated version. I suppose he did not care much what Herge thought in the end.
Now that we have proved that this conclusion is, in fact, a fallacy, it can be inferred that Ferdinand has not only used it as an evidentiary argument against Isayama but as a basis on which he can give all his arbitrary and subjective accusations the appearance of being on a solid footing when in fact it is not.
I will explain it this way. Why does Ferdinand argue that choosing to portray the Titans as horrendous beings without intelligence who deserve to be mercilessly annihilated is tantamount to creating an anonymous enemy under which a narrative can be created that justifies and glorifies the army? Because "Attack on Titan" is a propaganda work of Japanese ultranationalism and fascism.
Why does he propose that the threat and invasion of the titans and the isolation of the walled cities is a metaphor for Japan's history and its deliberate isolation as it became an imperialist force? Because "Attack on Titan" is a propaganda work of Japanese ultra-nationalism and fascism.
(As a side note, I would like to indicate the origin of these two ideas: before becoming a mangaka, Isayama worked in an internet café. One night a large drunk foreigner entered his premises and began to behave in a bizarre manner. This is when he came up with the idea of the Titans as the main enemies of his story. As for the walled cities, his main inspiration was his hometown, Oyama, which is "walled" by a mountain range).
Why does Ferdinand focus so much on the theme of military sacrifice by young soldiers and show complete indifference to the other themes of the work? Because "Attack on Titan" is a propaganda work of Japanese ultranationalism and fascism.
And so I could go on and on.
And Ferdinand is not the only one. Most criticisms of "Attack on Titan" fall into totally subjective reflections that arise from the arbitrary and fallacious conclusion that it is propaganda by the ultranationalist and fascist Isayama.
This argumentative "method" or "tactic" of elaborating extremely subjective interpretations of the work and passing them off as solid arguments will be used by many critics in the second part of the narrative... but to the nth degree, as we will see later.
And before you criticize me for being against interpreting a work of art freely or subjectively, I would like to clarify that I have nothing against that. However, if you are going to make subjective interpretations in order to transform them into a denunciation of an artist, at least support them in solid and proven arguments without the slightest doubt.
To end this section, I would like to mention that I find quite revealing that most content creators who have denounced "Attack on Titan" as war propaganda in the service of the Japanese government haven’t said anything about the endless list of movies, series and video games that are 100% confirmed to be war propaganda requested by the United States government.
Unlike Japan, which stopped committing war crimes in 1945, the U.S. has been doing that on a daily basis for several decades.
None of this really bothers them? Or are they only offended when war propaganda is supposedly produced by an individual mangaka?
3. Intentions and intentionalism
Well, we are finished with the criticism about the first part of "Attack on Titan". In the next section, we will analyze the different complaints, accusations and criticisms that the second part of the manga and the series received.
But before we begin, let's leave the work for a moment and talk about something else. Let's talk about the context in which the second part appeared. I know you must be wondering why I consider this so important and the answer is very simple: because understanding the context in which the second part was published and released will help explain the reason for many of the criticisms it received.
The start of publication of the second part began in November 2016. Specifically on November 9 of that year when the chapter "That Day" was published, which narrates and explains the origin of Grisha, the father of the protagonist Eren. This happened just one day after the first election of Donald Trump. Why am I mentioning this? Because Trump's election and first administration, as we all know, saw an increase in hate and fascist movements around the world. This, in turn, provoked a justified repudiation by a large part of the population in the U.S. who wondered: "How did we get to this? How is it possible that a fascist has come to power? What kind of world are we living in now?"
And this is how, together with a large part of the population, many journalists and art critics had a kind of "sensitization" to the issue of fascism and political incorrectness in the media and in works of art. This led to a campaign to denounce popular films or series that had leanings in favor of far-right policies.
The goal of this campaign was to try to de-energize or even completely cancel artists or their works or anything in pop culture that could support Trump or his far-right policies, directly or indirectly. All of this, as many of you will remember, from a perspective that can be labeled as woke.
And well, denouncing works of art that promote hatred and authoritarianism is nothing wrong. On the contrary, I think it is good. However, these critics and commentators were neither very objective nor very careful in their denunciations and criticisms, many of which were petulant and self-righteous.
In other words, they went too far and fell into extremely subjective and honestly hysterical interpretations of everything they perceived as politically incorrect. I am completely sure that you must have come across these allegations that even continue to this day. Such as saying that Batman is a fascist or arguing that the rejection of the new little mermaid being played by a black actress is a symptom of white supremacy.
And so it was that in the midst of all this woke crusade to purge pop culture of what a good part of journalists and content creators considered as support for far-right policies that the second part of "Attack on Titan" appeared.
It was simply inevitable that controversies, negative interpretations and many, many misunderstandings would arise about the second part because it explores the themes of discrimination and repression of minorities, the inevitable cycles of hatred and, as we know, genocide and euthanasia as a solution to end the hatred and persecution of an ethnic group. All this in a narrative framework that refers to the repression of Jews during Nazi Germany.
The denunciations and criticisms of the second part are quite similar to the first, in the sense that in almost all cases they take their starting point from the fallacy that I wrote above. Nevertheless, this is where things get worse.
While the criticisms we have seen so far are subjective and arbitrary interpretations of Isayama's alleged intentions, the criticisms of the second part blur the line between simply interpreting a work of art and making completely deliberate false representations, distortions, and misrepresentations of it.
There is a youtuber called SCOPE, whose video we will analyze later, who in his own research concluded something similar. He says at the beginning of his video:
As a fan of 'Attack on Titan', I have seen all the online criticisim directed at the work and its creator, Hajime Isayama. Some are fair, some of it is plain lazy, and some of it tries to warp the narrative in a way that aligns with their preconceived notions.
The last sentence is what, in my opinion, perfectly defines the procedure of a good part of the critics of the second part.
I'll give an example: Tom Speelman wrote an article for Polygon.com in 2021 titled: "The fascist subtext of 'Attack on Titan' cannot be ignored." In the article, after giving a brief summary, he states that beneath the surface of the narrative are "anti-Korean, nationalist and pro-Japanese subtexts," which we have already seen is the accusation against the work that arises from the fallacy I have already explained. However, he adds: "parallels with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and indirect references to Nazi Germany."
What does he mean by the latter? To give an example, he mentions that the Rumble, Eren's plan to "save" the Eldians by annihilating the rest of humanity, echoes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that are propagated today by fascists:
Then there’s the ultimate goal of the Yeagerists (who, incidentally, have a very fascist uniform sensibility) being to reestablish the Eldian Empire and take their bloody revenge on the world. Given the unavoidable implied parallels between Eldians in Marley and the Jews in Nazi Germany, the eventual apocalypse that the manga seems to be building towards is, subtextually, like something out of Alex Jones’ darkest ravings. That is, to say, it’s not hard to draw the line between the Yeagerists’ (who Eren, incidentally, seems to tacitly endorse) plan of laying waste to the world and the much-beloved right-wing talking point that the Jews (or as they dog-whistle, “Globalists”) either are already secretly controlling the world or are plotting to through finances, Hollywood, or whatever BS that leaks out of their demented heads this week.
This paragraph proves several things: Speelman either never read the manga or watched the series or simply did not understand it. Eren does not "tacitly" support the Yeagerists, he is their leader and relies on them to carry out the Rumble, which is his own idea. In addition, the Rumble is not a plan to control the world but to "save" Eldia by carrying out a global ethnic cleansing.
As you can see, Speelman interpreted the work in a very subjective way to make a direct link with theories that have nothing to do with it. He, at the end of his article, probably indicating that he is aware that his interpretations are too exaggerated, states that:
Now, no one can clearly say what Isayama’s true intentions are except for him. But it’s hard to ignore the underpinnings of dystopian fiction when it stares you in the face. It looms over you like the Colossal Titan, serving as a reminder that, even in fiction (maybe especially in fiction), we have a responsibility as consumers to fully engage with what a story might be trying to say. And to consider whether that’s a message we want to hear.
At the heart of the criticism of Isayama certainly lies efforts to show what his true intentions were when he wrote "Attack on Titan." That’s why I decided to read this academic article: "The Role of Intention in Artistic Interpretation" by Sixto J. Castro.
This article strives to summarize the different positions that exist regarding the question: "what role does the author's intention play in the constitution of the meaning of the work?”
Much of the aesthetic richness of a work of art derives from its interpretive openness. To say that the work of art, like the text, has an inexhaustible reserve of meanings implies that it can always be interpreted anew and that neither the authorial intention nor the literal meaning (if it exists) of it obliges us to accept a final closure. In this way, the works and texts would respond to more than one admissible interpretation. If this is so, what role does the author's intention play in the constitution of the meaning of the work?
There are two camps in academia with different answers to this last question. These camps are the "intentionalists" and the "anti-intentionalists".
Intentionalists believe "that the (unique) meaning of a text is obtained by following the meaning intended by the author and this intention provides the 'discriminatory norm.' For intentionalists, 'intention' suggests that the meaning that the author intends is in the object, determined by his will, a 'determining will'. 'There is in principle one and only one correct interpretation of a work', so that authorial intention is a perfect means of eliminating ambiguity from literary works".
On the other hand, anti-intentionalists assert that the interpretation of a work does not end with the meanings intended by the author within the work and that "considerations about authorial intentions are irrelevant or inadmissible for the purpose of the interpretation." The author's true intentions, according to them, can be found by bringing to light "external evidence" that would provide a new interpretation of what the author is truly trying to express in his work. I think you could already see which side Isayama's critics belong to.
The article explains that anti-intentionalists believe in two types of intention: an intention that possesses "internal evidence" and another that possesses "external evidence." He writes:
Internal evidence is public: it is discovered by the semantics and syntax of the language of the work, by means of our habitual knowledge of the language, grammars, dictionaries, and in general through everything that constitutes a language and a culture; external evidence, on the other hand, is private, it is not a part of the work as a linguistic fact. rather, it consists of revelations (in magazines, letters, or conversations) about how or why the author wrote the work.
As we have seen, critics of the first part take Isayama's statements and the tweets attributed to him as "external evidence" – even though none of these explain the intentions of why he wrote the manga – and use them to reinterpret the work as fascist propaganda.
However, what the critics of the second part have done is something much worse. As we have seen in the example of Tom Speelman, the "external evidence" they present is not exactly statements said or written by Isayama, but their own subjective interpretations of the work.
The next critic we are going to deal with does exactly the same thing but to the nth degree. He does not treat "Attack on Titan" as a manga or anime or even a work of art, but as a piece of political propaganda that is replete with secret and hidden messages that must be found like Easter eggs.
4. Lost Futures and its Easter egg hunt
Lost Futures is a YouTube channel whose catalog includes, on the one hand, videos on various political topics from a left-wing perspective. On the other hand, you can also find reviews and analyses of anime from this point of view as well. He has more than one video praising "One Piece" because, according to him, it has within its narrative the themes of the liberation of oppressed peoples and the fight against fascism. Likewise, it also has criticism, for example it has a video claiming that "My Hero Academia" is “copaganda”.
In July 2022 he uploaded to Youtube a one-hour and ten-minute video entitled "'Attack on Titan' and the Road to Fascism". Then in November 2023 he uploaded another video, which was a continuation of the first one in which he also responded to the criticism he received. It is entitled: "Media literacy is dead: 'Attack on Titan' is still fascist".
What does he try to explain in both videos?
My goal is to illustrate the origin of Japanese fascism and explain the bewildered fans how and why "Attack on Titan" has been adopted by online fascists, white supremacists, and also by the far right. How will I do it? I will show you how "Attack on Titan" works, first, as militaristic propaganda and, second, as a fascist work. I also want to show that if writers don't denounce these ideas, they can be dangerous, because there are words that can kill. (00:52 - Attack on Titan and the Road to Fascism)
I would like to make it clear that I see nothing wrong with someone trying to expose and denounce fascism. On the contrary, I think it is something praiseworthy. However, having watched and analyzed both videos I have to admit that Lost Futures did not do any of that this time around. What he has actually done is upload to YouTube two disastrous analyses riddled with ultra-subjective interpretations, lies about the narrative and deliberate misrepresentations. But, above all, "warp the narrative so that it fits their preconceived ideas."
He begins his first video by detailing the origins of Japanese fascism and explaining the particularities it has unlike the Italian and German variants. Although he does not say it explicitly, he does this because, according to him, finding the particularity of Japanese fascism will help to understand the decisions of the narrative. To emphasize this, he talks for ten minutes about three rather horrific war crimes committed by the empire of Japan because they are "relevant" and are "presented" in the narrative of "Attack on Titan."
This historical analysis that lasts half an hour he presents it as the context that will serve to find the "fascism" in the work. Therefore, as you can see, he immediately announces that he will support his arguments based on the fallacy that we analyzed in the previous section. He bases himself on this fallacy to create an arbitrary and unfounded link that, in reality, will serve give him to support any argument he wants in the future.
Finally, it is in the 34th minute of his video that he finally begins to give his opinions on the work. And... To my surprise he decides to do exactly what I described above:
When I finished watching 'Attack on Titan' I reviewed the 14 points of Umberto Eco's essay* and compared those points with the series and they did not coincide. So, I said to myself, 'Okay, let's see what Jun Tosaka** has to say and what he wrote about Japan's relationship with fascism,' and I said to myself, 'Well, this is getting closer, but it's not hitting the nail.' That's when I discovered Emilio Gentile and his article from 2000 where he summarized his points and his discoveries. The article is called 'Fascism and the Italian Road to Totalitarianism' and one has to understand that fascism in 'Attack on Titan' is difficult to pin down because it is a type of Japanese fascism. A type of fascism that is flexible and works almost installed [?] and to discover it one has to read it critically and deconstruct it as if it were propaganda. So I had to lean on these three academics because the fascism of 'Attack on Titan' includes multiple forms of fascism that includes modern and neo-fascism. (45:56 - Attack on Titan and the Road to Fascism) *He is talking about an essay by Eco titled "Ur-fascism". **Jun Tosaka was a Japanese Marxist who analyzed fascism in Japan in the 1920s.
As you can see, I wasn't exaggerating when I said that what he did was not treat the work as a manga or an anime but as a piece of propaganda whose message has to be "deconstructed" or rather "decoded". And who better to do it than a guy who had to read three different sources because the first two did not "match" his preconceived ideas.
And that's how he embarks on his quest for fascist Easter eggs in the narrative, or rather, propaganda piece that is "Attack on Titan."
Some of these Easter eggs are: Erwin's attack on the Beast Titan is a reference to a kamikaze attack; Erwin is based on a Nazi!; the Hizuru, the eastern clan that helps Paradis, is a reference to how Nazi Germany viewed the Japanese as "honorary Aryans"; the experiments that Marley does on the Eldians are a reference to the horrendous biological experiments of Unit 731; the Eldian mythological past is a reference to the mythology of the Japanese god Yamato that was used by Japanese imperialism to justify its colonialism.
I could go on with the list but I have a more important goal in this section: to explain how it reinterprets and, in some cases, distorts the logic of the narrative to demonstrate that the actions of the antagonists are justified.
Until the end of the first part, things are simple in "Attack on Titan", the series is about a group of soldiers who try to protect and save their nation while searching for the truth of the world in which they live. There is no room for moral ambiguities. You can clearly notice that the protagonists are the heroes of the story.
In the second half, things get complicated. The heroes of the first part are forced, by the circumstances of the war, to stain their hands with blood. Eren, the protagonist becomes the antagonist; He becomes the literal obstacle to overcome and the reason why the protagonists of the first part along with those who were the antagonists have to unite. Oh and the antagonists of the first part are humanized in the second and even one of them is granted a memorable moment of redemption.
As you can see in the second part, the dividing line between heroes and villains simply disappears. Or, rather, we discover that it never existed since the story shows us that the villains of the first part were, in reality, children forced on a war mission. Nevertheless, what really makes the second part so rich and complex is not only the introduction of a strong amount of moral ambiguity into the plot, but also showing how reasonable the plans of its two main villains are within the context of the narrative.
One of the great debates and controversies that arose after the second part was published is the question of whether the work justifies Eren's Rumble plan or Zeke's euthanasia plan or even the Marley government's repression of the Eldians.
Now, I know you must be wondering how the hell someone can think that the work justifies the Rumble if the narrative makes it clear that it is not the way to go because both sides of the war decide to unite to stop it. Are not things clear?
Well, it turns out that Lost Futures and other content creators have said "No. The logic of the narrative expresses that Eren and Zeke's actions are totally justified and, therefore, Isayama's intention is to show support for them."
I interpret the Rumble as a fascist final solution, where for Eren the only way to eliminate those who hate the Eldians on Paradis Island is to kill them all. For Eren, the inhabitants of the rest of the world are not human beings, but animals that deserve to be trampled on. (…) This fascist plan is like reading a nightmare and if you're sane there's no way Eren is right. However, it is in this of death and violence that readers will see the ideal freedom that Isayama desires and it is a freedom that comes with the mass murder of those who pose a threat and hate the Eldians. This freedom is tied to having supreme power and crushing any life with the boot. Right-wing readers claim that this manga is about freedom and independence, but this kind of freedom is disgusting, it's a freedom from responsibility, a freedom to kill anyone who opposes you, to kill anyone who despises you, to kill and kill without problems. This fascist freedom is absolutely repugnant and the fact that for Isayama true or pure freedom can only come from the supreme power only highlights my point that this is a piece of fascist propaganda. (58:18 - Attack on Titan and the Road to Fascism)
Here we have perhaps the key to understanding the heart of the matter: the thought or reasoning of the protagonist (or, in this case, antagonist) must also be that of the author. Here Eren's conception of freedom is also Isayama's and from that false argument, he makes a whole reflection on how "disgusting" and "fascist" he is in order to denounce the author.
Apparently, the fact that the narrative provides the antagonists with the reasons to conclude that their plans are the only "solution" to the Eldians' problems and that nothing else could work translates as a justification for their actions that Isayama himself approves of.
I have heard countless debates about how there are only two options: fight or die and that Armin's plan to form an alliance and seek peace is too idealistic, but the option of peace is never really explored, instead Isayama continues to present in the narrative that there are no alternatives. (…) The Survey Corps does not travel the world or meet with different nations explaining that the threat of the Rumble is a boogeyman created by Marley and that they too have been invaded and oppressed by Marley. Rather, what we are given is a singular panel from a conference where the world considers all Eldians to be a threat and this cements in Eren's mind that there is no alternative and that the only way to achieve world peace and Liberation is mass murder. (…) At the end of "Attack on Titan," readers have two choices: either they follow Zeke's plan, which is total eugenics, or Eren's; the mass murder of the world. (39:41 - Media literacy is dead: 'Attack on Titan' is still fascist)
As you can see, Lost Futures and others claim that Isayama's intention is to prove that both Eren and Zeke are justified in their two destructive plans. Now, as I pondered this point, I discovered something interesting. The character of Magneto from Xmen comics is virtually in the same dilemma as both of them and despite the fact that the idea of human genocide has been raised more than once to save his race, no one has condemned its creators for agreeing with what he thinks.
Curiously, in Magneto's last animated appearance, the destruction of an attack on an island that served as a refuge for his own race ends up convincing him that there is no other solution than human genocide. This has many parallels with the story of "Attack on Titan".
So why has no one denounced Stan Lee or Jack Kirby or all the writers of the comics and movies in which Magneto wants to eradicate humans from agreeing with his ideas and goals? After all, according to them, if an author gives the fairest reasons to a villain, he is clearly justifying his actions, right?
Well, the reason why I don't think anyone has criticized the creators of Magneto but Isayama has been criticized for agreeing with the plans of his villains has to do with the accusations of him being a supporter of fascism. What else could it be?
The logic of those who claim that the narrative justifies Eren's Rumble is: "since Isayama uses his manga as a means to promote fascism then the Rumble must be reinterpreted within that context." And the way they reinterpret it is: "The Rumble is not an evil plan but a hard decision that its protagonist has to make to save his people." Eren becomes something of a tragic hero, a role model for those who want to defend and see their nation triumph.
Lost Futures itself confirms this:
I think this whole 'Attack on Titan' manga is focused on Japan and what we're reading here is Isayama's fear that the Koreans and Chinese will one day retaliate for the crimes Japan has committed against them, so Isayama is showing the Japanese a solution: they must and can be remilitarized and cause a rumble to trample on those who hate them" (01:00:44 - Attack on Titan and the Road to Fascism)
This is all nonsense. As I have shown before, to conclude that Isayama uses his sleeve to promote fascism or militarism is a fallacy. But I would like to show you what the intentionalists say about these kinds of harmful interpretations:
For Hirsch*, the identification of the meaning of a work with the original authorial meaning is not a matter of logical necessity, but of ethical, almost Kantian courtesy. Hirsch points out that when we use the words of others for our own purposes and neglect their intentions, that is no different from using the other person instrumentally, for our own purposes, neglecting theirs. *J.D. Hirsch, intellectual supporter of intentionalism
Authors do not endorse the actions of their antagonists when they give them legitimate motives or reasons for their actions. To me, Eren is an excellent villain. Part of what makes him so terrifying is contemplating how rational his descent into a genocidal villain is. Having been traumatized by seeing his mother die, he discovers that the whole world hates them for reasons of which they are totally innocent. His hatred is totally justified and remember, he is only 19 years old during the Rumble. That is, he gets the power of a god at a very young age. What would you do if you were 19 years old, all the power in the world and those responsible for your mother's horrible death still want you and your entire nation dead and declare war on you?
Eren and Magneto come to the same conclusion: the final solution for all of humanity to end the cycles of hatred and the threat of extermination of the Eldians and mutants, respectively. And that would certainly solve those problems in a simple way, but just because it solves them does not mean that there are no reasons to oppose it. Reasons that are ethical.
This dilemma is explored in one of the best scenes of the second part. The scene where Hanji convinces Jean to stop Eren. First we see Jean dreaming and idealizing what her life will be like after the Rumble but then Hanji arrives and convinces her that the Rumble is simply unjustifiable and they must try even though Eren is practically unstoppable. Jean breaks down when he remembers Marco and accepts the mission.
This scene alone would be enough to make it clear that the work does not justify the Rumble at all. But this means nothing to Lost Futures. He has to keep finding his Easter eggs and that means not paying attention to the dramatic charge of a scene in which one of the main characters literally says that what Eren does is unacceptable.
And well, these attempts to link Isayama to the worst intentions of his antagonists reach their apogee in the finale, of course. But before explaining that I have to admit that I didn't like the ending but I would also like to make something clear: just because the ending is bad doesn't ruin the whole work.
Well, yes, the reasons that Eren gives Armin and Mikasa about their reasons for performing the Rumble are quite poor from a narrative point of view. Yes, the cycle of hatred never ends, and Paradis adopts the Jaegerists as a special defense force and is tragically wiped off the face of the earth in the same way.
And yet...
All the themes, conflicts and developments that are explored throughout the narrative are not undermined by what Isayama shows that happens at the end. That the cycle of hatred never ends does not take away the dramatic weight of Gabi or Reiner's redemption arc or the alliance pact and their commitment to stop Eren. Or that Eren's intentions are revealed to be quite confusing does not take away from how terrifying his conversion to a villain is.
One of the few things that all of humanity can agree on without killing each other is that the ending of "Game of Thrones" was crap. However, I do not think there are many people out there saying that because the finale was rubbish they don't like the show anymore and everything that happens throughout its 8 seasons.
And, obviously, the end for Lost Futures is nothing more than the culmination of the spread of Isayama's fascist message. For him, the end is nothing more than the confirmation of everything they have said.
"Attack on Titan" is a story where fascism triumphs. Although they annihilated eighty percent of the world, there is still fear and the war continues. This is connected to what Umberto Eco wrote: it is a permanent war. Therefore, for the fascists there is an endless war and peace is impossible. That's what Isayama presents in this finale. (…) My interpretation of the ending is that this is the Japan that Isayama imagines: a remilitarized Japan, where people devote their hearts to the struggle. (52:16 - Attack on Titan and the Road to Fascism)
I know you are probably tired of this guy. But, believe it or not, I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg of everything he has to say. His two videos last more than an hour each and almost all the time he does is repeat the same ideas or create variants of that or, as we have already seen, distort the narrative.
Isayama's pitch in the finale is a bit murky because it paints Eren as the bad guy, but the ending reveals that Eren defended his homeland as he gave them security and a militaristic advantage over the rest of the world. (21:39 – Media literacy is dead: 'Attack on Titan' is still fascist)
This logic of defending the "Homeland" is actually what allows the Rumble to to occur. Many people have told me that Armin, Mikasa, and Jean tried to stop Eren and kill him, but what they always omit is that they caused the Rumble by naively believing in Eren. Even after Armin and Mikasa heard Eren's promise that he wants to kill all his enemies beyond the sea, they still believe that he wants to defend the "Motherland" and protect the island. Instead of joining Marley and killing Eren on the spot, they interfere with the operation and cause the Rumble to occur. The blood of Eren's genocide is on his hands. (22:36 Media literacy is dead: 'Attack on Titan' is still fascist)
What else can one really say?
One last point, in the title of his second video he refers to "media literacy". He does this because when he uploaded his first video he received a lot of criticism that he had not "read" or "understood" the work well. The second video is a response to this criticism in which he shows that he has "understood" and "interpreted" the work well because he really has "media literacy".
Well, my friend, have you ever thought that you should have interpreted "Attack on Titan" through something called "aesthetic literacy"? It is a concept that would have allowed you to interpret the work as exactly that, a work of art. If you had done that, perhaps you would have been able to understand well the intentionalism within the narrative and be able to understand where Isayama focuses and highlights what he wants to say and where he does not.
5. The alt-right's favorite manga?
On November 16, 2020, an article appeared in the American magazine New Republic titled "Why 'Attack on Titan' is the favorite manga of the alternative right". In it, author Shaan Amin informed his readers that several far-right and white supremacist users on 4chan forums have praised "Attack on Titan" because they have found in Isayama's story parallels and interpretations that support certain points of his beliefs or ideology.
For those who do not know, 4chan is a megaforum whose most notorious distinction is the complete anonymity of users. It is precisely this characteristic that has made it a refuge for individuals whose opinions could not be expressed on other social networks without paying the price of responsibility. It's something like Reddit but where all users compete to be the most edgelord.
Since the rise of Trump, 4chan has become the hideout and favorite site of supporters of the "alt-right." A far-right movement whose main ideals are nationalism, identity, white supremacism and all the list of stupidities that Musk's bootlickers write every time he tweets something.
Amin, the author, explains that despite the fact that "most people consider 'Attack on Titan' a work that directly condemns the effects and racism of society" and "that behind the gore and violence lies an intelligent exploration of the legacies of violence"...
Not everyone sees Attack on Titan that way, however. On 4chan, a website now nearly synonymous with the alt-right, the rabid message board /pol/ has archived 57 distinct threads with Attack on Titan in the subject line since 2016 alone. And this is hardly an exhaustive list of racist threads citing or discussing the show. In 2014, a user with a Nazi flag described the series as “one of the most redpilled shows I have seen in a long time,” while people down the list said it was an endorsement of “the revival of National Socialism.” A more recent post from 2019, titled “Redpilling Propaganda in the Form of Movies, TV Programs,” used season three of Attack on Titan as its case study.
For white nationalist denizens of /pol/, Attack on Titan is a brilliant way of normalizing white supremacist ideology for a mainstream audience. In their eyes, the Eldians are a stand-in for white people in Western countries, punished for the crimes of their ancestors’ empires and besieged by subhuman monsters trying to enter their land. The Eldians, brainwashed by a state leader who renounced violence against non-Eldians, represent the white population indoctrinated by liberals to feel empathy for nonwhites. Marley, in this fevered telling, represents the Jews, convincing white people to hate themselves.
These interpretations are strong enough to withstand the actual themes of the show. Isayama takes pains to show that the Eldians are a deeply flawed people in their own right, but his alt-right fans still view the Eldians as members of a master race. Under this reading, the main characters’ heroism provides an example of white vitality and intelligence. The alt-right makes memes about Eren attacking Israel and joining Hitler, all while praising Isayama for including a protagonist who plans to ethnically cleanse the planet.
Well, the first thing that has to be said about this is that all of these individuals clearly and obviously represent an insignificant proportion of the entire "Attack on Titan" fandom, which must be counted by the millions worldwide.
The second thing that has to be said is that we live in a very politically polarized world. You can't write a political opinion or sometimes any opinion without someone else coming along to question what you've written. Social networks have become refuges or places where you look for like-minded people or find some means to confirm your beliefs. And this is something the author refers to when he says that: "The range of audience responses serves as a reminder of people’s tendencies to sift through stories to find the messages they expect. This is also known as the "confirmation bias."
One might think that the fact that true neo-Nazis or white supremacists have interpreted "Attack on Titan" as a work that supports their beliefs confirms that it is, in fact, a work that promotes fascism. But things are not that simple. And this is precisely the third point I want to talk about in this section.
The key to understanding what has happened here is what usually happens with works that give a high load of abstraction and ambiguity to both the protagonists and the antagonists. And as I said before, "Attack on Titan" has a high charge of moral ambiguity in its second part.
The Titans and Marley's government, the two main villains of the narrative, are an abstract threat and an abstract authoritarianism under which different individuals can speculate and imagine their real enemies within them.
As for the Eldians, their tragic history of their oppression can be interpreted by white supremacists as "their" history because part of their stupid modern ideology is to present themselves as the victims of a conspiracy that wants to wipe out their race through mass immigration and other nonsense. As the author himself explains: "White nationalists, bereft of a conflict beyond grinding away the rights minority groups possess, must look to fiction—QAnon conspiracy theories, Attack on Titan, myths of white genocide—to invent a struggle in which they can participate.
"Attack on Titan" is not the only work that far-right supporters have seized on to claim that it supports their beliefs. When the first "Hunger Games" movie was released, some right-wing commentators in the U.S. claimed, unbelievably, that Katniss's fight was a conservative fight against an authoritarian statist government.
But the most interesting case of how the alt-right has tried to appropriate a work that at first glance has nothing to do with them is the case of "Black Panther".
In March 2018, just a month after it was released, the Washington Post published a report reluctantly revealing that alt-right and white supremacists have praised the film "Black Panther" because they say the film's messages and themes discreetly support their beliefs.
What do they see in the movie that they think supports their beliefs? Well, mainly the fact that it portrays in the most positive way possible that a nation is organized by a single ethnic group that seals its borders and denies access to foreigners, including refugees.
What? Didn't you know that "Black Panther" promotes the rejection of refugees?
According to the newspaper, white supremacists "claim that the superhero opposes immigration, diversity, and democracy, while favoring 'ethnonationalism,'" and that "Instead of avoiding a cultural phenomenon that conflicts with their ideology, they have sought to subvert and transform it in hopes of recruiting followers and normalizing their views on white supremacy.
Therefore, as you can see, "Attack on Titan" is far from being the first work that the ultra-right and white supremacism try to appropriate for their own evil goals. But what do you think? Are they right about "Black Panther"? I cannot comment on anything because I fell asleep when I went to see it at the cinema.
6. A reference that should have been abstract and not figurative
And well, we have reached the moment to talk about the only criticism I have of the work.
Throughout the essay, one of my main objections to the criticisms I have made has been that they are based on ultra-subjective interpretations of Isayama's narrative and intentions. Therefore, I think it is my obligation to be objective and not let my admiration for the work get in the way when I see that there is something wrong even if I don't like doing it.
"Attack on Titan" is not a perfect work nor is Hajime Isayama a perfect writer. What I want to get at is this: Isayama made a serious mistake by making references to the repression of Jews in Nazi Germany and thus stating that Eldians are like Jews.
The most controversial and uncomfortable debate surrounding the work lies in the question of whether "Attack on Titan" has anti-Semitic connotations. What this means within the context of the narrative is whether it opens the door to interpretations that can be considered anti-Semitic.
The first thing to make clear is to understand that the work is making explicit references to the tragic history of the Jews in Nazi Germany.
The use of graphic symbols such as bracelets, the ghetto, discrimination in broad daylight and the aesthetics of the forties is something figurative, literal. Isayama's intentionalism is clearly telling us, "Yes, I'm making a reference to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany."
So, why did he do it?
Unfortunately, Isayama has never given a clear explanation as to why he intended to make references to that particular historical event. But it should be noted that in an interview with Crunchyroll in 2023 he mentioned that he uses historical references because they add a basis of truth that makes the story more believable.
From this it can be deduced that the use of figurative references was simply practical. Isayama was not trying to make some kind of major allegory. He simply placed them in the manga so that the unjustified nature of the Eldians' oppression could be highlighted.
Nevertheless, what Isayama must have thought about before was to contemplate what the consequences of making this type of reference might be. He was just careless. Making references figurative was totally unnecessary.
The worst thing about posing a kind of direct resemblance between Eldians and Jews is that it opens the door to interpretations that misrepresent Isayama's intentions.
For example, Tom Speelman in his article indicates that the work is anti-Semitic because some of the pure titans that the Eldians transform into have "very big noses" like in anti-Semitic cartoons.
On the other hand, the youtuber SCOPE states that although the work is not explicitly anti-Semitic, it is implicitly. He explains that while Isayama takes pains to show that the oppression of the Eldians is unjustified and wants us to sympathize with them, on the other hand, within the logic of the work their oppression is justified, because the Eldians are not simply human like any other, they are beings who can be transformed into giant monsters. There is a reason why they are feared, and because of the history of the Eldian empire, resentment towards them is not entirely exaggerated.
Therefore, there is a strong and clear contradiction between what Isayama wants to say and what the logic of the work itself implicitly poses.
And all of this could have easily been avoided if Isayama had done something he didn't: make an abstract, non-figurative reference.
There was no need for bracelets, nor were ghettos or any other figurative reference necessary. Isayama could have emphasized the unjustifiability of his oppression using other narrative methods. He must have realized that before he started drawing the manga.
If you are an aspiring writer, take this as a lesson: before writing the first line of your work, always, always contemplate what the consequences of the references or themes you will use within it may be. Or else you will have some people making pernicious interpretations of your work.
7. Conclusions
Well, this has been a long essay but I think it was worth it. If you have come this far, I thank you.
I think I have been able to defend "Attack on Titan" in an efficient way and demonstrated the flaws and faults in most of its criticisms and denunciations.
We have talked about the relationship of an author with his political beliefs, fallacies, intentionalism and anti-intentionalism, why not interpret an artistic work as a piece of propaganda just because there are political themes, etc.
Still, I would like to make it clear that this essay is not perfect and if you have any comments or observations to make, please write them in the comments. I am open to any criticism.
