Anonymous asked:

Why do you think Attack on Titan isn’t nazi propaganda?

1) So I run a Ouija board blog, right? And one of my main arguments for them not being dangerous is that, if they were, why are they sold in toy stores? Why are they made by a toy company? Why are they marked for children ages 8 and up? If it truly were dangerous to own, it wouldn’t be that easily accessible. If a comic book was real, true, genuine Nazi propaganda, it wouldn’t be for sale on the mass market. Its anime wouldn’t be in the premiere night time anime block in America. It would have been taken down. Why would a form of media be genuine Nazi propaganda and not have been completely boycotted already? 

2) The main argument is that Hajime Isayama, the author of Attack of Titan, had a secret Twitter that had a LOT of racist stuff on it. However, there is literally zero proof that it was really him. Isayama rarely uses social media, hasn’t updated his Twitter in two years, and only communicates through his blog that he updates a handful of times per year. He’s a very private person and just doesn’t have the time to post on social media. This New Years, he did an update post where he mentioned offhand that he had gotten married this year. Again, there is zero evidence that the secret Twitter actually belonged to him, and that rumor was pretty much spread by anti-fans (which is a) where the whole Nazi argument came from, and b) is a whole other issue that I won’t get into).

3) The other main argument is that one of the character’s facial features was based off of a WWII Japanese general. Which is actually true. Isayama’s artwork in his early days of publishing was genuinely Not Great, and when he wanted to get details right, he copied faces and bodies. The Attack Titan and Armored Titan are both based on MMA fighters. Erwin Smith (my hero) was based off of a background model in Paris Hilton’s music video, Paris For President. He drew inspiration from all kinds of places. Thankfully his art has greatly improved so he doesn’t copy faces as much, except there are some Easter egg Titans who have the faces of the anime voice actors. There’s also the idea that Mikasa is named after a WWII battleship, which is also true, because in the mangaka community there’s apparently a rumor that naming a character after a ship is good luck. There’s also a soccer ball company called Mikasa, does that make them Nazis?

4) People argue that Titans symbolize Jews or whatever. The whole argument falls apart when you realize you can make anything a symbol for anything. Attack on Titan is unique in that it’s a combination of a zombie story, a kaiju story (a kaiju being a giant monster, like Godzilla) and a mecha story (which is a story that involves people piloting giant robots, like in the Gundam series, or Power Rangers). Zombies, kaiju, and mechas are all symbolic of different things in their different mediums. That’s a whole essay in an of itself that I won’t get into here. What Titans represent has shifted throughout the story as we learn more about the monsters themselves. Typically the people who point out Nazi parallels are only basing their arguments on stuff from season 1 of the anime, and since that has come out, a lot of plot points have changed and veered, to the point where you realize a lot more stuff is going on than meets the eye throughout that season. It makes people making comparisons look like idiots to people who have intensely studied and followed the plot. 

5) I won’t go too deep into this last point because of some intense spoilers. But let me use Harry Potter as an example. Voldemort and the Death Eaters are straight up meant to be Nazi symbols, right? It’s like if someone had read maybe one book, and heard that there was Nazi symbolism in the plot, and then they rush online and be like, “Harry Potter is about Nazis!! Harry Potter is Nazi propaganda!!’ when it’s in fact the total opposite. And at this point in the Attack on Titan story, beyond what the anime has covered, that’s what these people sound like. In what will be Season 4, there are going to be a LOT of parallels to the Holocaust, Jewish ghettos, and straight up Nazis. But the message is very clear that NAZIS ARE BAD, THIS IS A BAD. The story becomes rife with WWI and WWII references, but none of it is promoting Nazism whatsoever.