Disclaimer; I'm never going to watch or read the rest of Attack on Titan. I think it's a gross, misanthropic story. So if I'm completely wrong about the conclusion let me know n the comments
Since "media literacy" and "How could you say my blorbo is a fascist?" are constant and inescapable on the net, I was once again drawn in to the "Is AoT fascist?" discourse.
I stopped watching AoT during the first season because it's a story of a bunch of valiant heroes grimly marching to their deaths in a war of annihilation against a teeming swarm of sub-humans who exist for no other purpose than to crush the light of civilization in an orgy of mindless violence.
Which is to say, the straightest possible portrayal of the fascist world view.
But many in the discourse argue that this isn't fair, the author clearly shows that the protagonist is the bad guy, people are dumb and media illiterate. Well, I don't want to watch four seasons of gorn just to weigh in on weird anime discourse, so let's just look at a summary of the conclusion of the story.
Let's see... minority with tainted blood who once ruled the world with an iron fist gains control over superweapons and immediately uses them to exterminate all of pure blooded humanity, even though he didn't have to, as human history is a zero-sum clash of civilizations in which there is no possible alternative but an inevitable war of annihilation between those of pure blood and those of tainted blood. Also apparently ~~The Jews~~ The Marleyan Royal Family secretly set the whole thing in motion.
No fascism detected! What a relief! It's a good thing the author expressed his view that racial war of annihilation is the only possible conclusion to the inevitable clash of civilizations! I was afraid he'd look directly at the camera and say "Everything that Hitler believed is correct and I have written a story reflecting that".
Like, seriously, the story starts with the ~~Jews~~ Eldians engaged in an auto-cannibalistic war of annihilation, and the story ends with the protagonist, once noble and heroic, revealing his true ~~Jewish~~ Eldian nature by annihilating humanity for basically no reason. "Eren is the bad guy!" Yeah no shit, that's exactly what the author said; The Jew cannot overcome his nature and will inevitably destroy the world no matter what. He set up a story where we sympathize with the hero, and then in the end the hero is shown to have inevitably turned in to a monster as the power of his tainted blood leads him to destroy real humans. It's Race Realism: The Motion Picture
Or maybe I'm totally wrong. idk, because I don't want to watch 40 hours of miserably nihilist murder porn written by someone who pretty obviously hates humanity.
Final thought; Isayama is Zach Snyder if Zach Snyder hated humanity.
For my next trick I will explain why Fullmetal Alchemist; Brotherhood is apologia for the crimes of Imperial Japan
Edit: I have observed that a lot of people are assessing AoT's message based on what the characters say or do. I was recently introduced to the idea of "Diegetic Essentialism", an emerging, often unconscious, belief among many people that media can only assessed within the context of the story, with the characters treated as though they were real people instead of puppets of the authors. Thus, "Isayama depicted all sides as miserable fascists" is considered important, rather than examining the world the author created and what that says about the author's beliefs about humanity and life.
Here's the post that introduced me to Diegetic Essentialism. From our buds over at /r/Sigmarxism, of course. I'd been struggling to articulate something I saw for a long time and this gave me a name for what I had seen.
I had a completely different reading, even before the end of the first season.
The Titans were a kind of environmental threat, but they were held back by the walls of the city. Humanity's chronic impulse to expand beyond the borders brought the wrath of the Titans into the city. And their chronic need to expand was driven by the aristocratic government, which exploited and abused and cannibalized it's own people by way of the state police force.
Titans were only a problem because the people within the city could not coexist peacefully. And as these people grew strong enough to face the Titans, what they discovered was only more war and more betrayal and more destruction.
The promise of an exploitable frontier was an illusion, because they would never be satisfied no matter how much they consumed.
Not unlike the Titans themselves.
the thing is the first season is pretty okay on everything
but that's how fascism introduces itself, as your friend
from the second season onward the show grows in fascist logic and apologia concluding with the final arc that literally is trying to make a race war the only solution
the author also said the axis should have won ww2 so like
Japanese nationalists are always saying the dumbest shit. They’ll never understand they’re not going to convince anyone but other Japanese nationalists.
No. You don't get to say "I only saw the first episode but I can tell you it's Hitler" and then come back with "Hitler was pretty good in his first season".
The second season is mostly filler. Lots of long run combats and Top 10 Anime Betrayals. Relatively thin on politics, outside the triumphalism of the expansionists over the aristocrats.
By the third season, you're into the island civil war and the collapse of the monarchists.
Season 4 is the real fascist turn, and by then everyone hates Eren and is fighting to stop him.
Care to link that?
i've watched the whole show bruv
and I was making a reference to the famous quote about fascism. Framing it as me saying something pro Hitler is deeply unserious.
god I'm not going to have some few hours long argument about some shitty anime especially when you begin with such a dumb tone
Then you are in the wrong thread.
That's a cool interpretation, thank you for sharing it.