Anime August - What Attack on Titan says about Civilisation
An entry-level anime that is deeper than it really is.
Welcome to Anime August, where I will dedicate this month to three pieces of anime and manga. This piece will bring plot details of Attack on Titan into the mix. If you think it’s a spoiler, come back once you’ve seen enough of it.
People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.
- Kenneth Clark, Civilisation The Skin of Our Teeth (1964)
To say that Attack on Titan is a worldwide phenomenon would be a massive understatement. When people think of the recent state of anime, Attack on Titan would be the first thing they think of. By sheer ratings alone, it is referred to as the Game of Thrones of anime, with the first part of its final season being the most-watched television program of all time, only to be beaten by the release of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Watching the show, you become quite patriotic for a fictional character (its opening sequences are essentially anthemic call to arms that would have easily fit in an army recruitment ad). The David vs Goliath sequences are what makes it unique, but more importantly, it’s the puzzle of a narrative that is Attack on Titan’s most rewarding aspect.
Attack on Titan could be anybody’s first anime. For me, it was the first anime that made me interested in the culture the medium spawned. It has a lot of familiar tropes if you have encountered shonen anime before, from its intense lore to a young boy being the world’s most central character and his development into the greatest man in his world. and certainly, its broad appeal makes it slightly above entry-level as your Studio Ghiblis or your Cowboy Bebops.
The premise of Attack on Titan - human soldiers from the Island of Paradis fight against a mob of giant humanoids called Titans - is certainly a draw for many viewers but it’s not that simple. But the show is ultimately interested in the mystery shrouding the Titans and why they are who they are. And the moment they realise that the Titans are more than mindless monsters threatening humanity, the themes of Attack on Titan slowly shift from a dichotomous expression of what civilisation is to a critique of what it had become when it goes to war, perpetuating a cycle of oppression and tyranny that goes beyond centuries.
This is the profound message that Isayama brings to his effort, having been inspired by bleak works featuring morally ambiguous characters such as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Berserk and Watchmen. Attack on Titan is a complex show, thickly woven in numerous plot twists and intersecting narratives. For instance, characters who broke ranks with the Survey Corps - the army’s front that fights the Titans - because they are actually soldiers from an opposing kingdom - make their motivations to be spoken in an understated manner, before letting that revelation simmer into something explosive.
The show, as I already noted in the introduction to Anime August, is more well-received compared to the original manga by Hajime Isayama, with some outlets listing it as one of the best anime of the 2010s. The criticisms of the manga still persist on the show. While the energetic and intense animation did break the obstacle into enjoying the show smoothly, there is another barrier that turns some people off. Namely, its central protagonist (and eventually) antagonist Eren Yeager. He wants to be humanity’s greatest soldier and defeat all possible Titans, after witnessing his mother being eaten by one.
Yeager has proven to be a polarising character in anime fans. Compared with most Shonen heroes, he’s least likeable due to his hot-headed nature. Whereas most characters grow as a person by triumphing over personal challenges and landing on that one goal to become the very best, Eren doesn’t. Instead, he almost died on his mission to protect the Titans from breaking into Wall Maria, until it turns out that he can transform into a Titan himself and annihilate them. That’s his endgame - to kill all Titans.
Isayama is well aware of that critique, marking several hints that Eren was never made to be seen as a hero. Levi often makes notes of Eren’s capability of becoming a danger to others. His absolutist philosophy is self-centred and destructive. He is often a damsel in distress and is frequently outlasted by other soldiers, which includes his friends, the loyal Mikasa Ackerman and the intelligent Armin Arlert, along with his Captains Levi Ackermann and Erwin Smith. It’s only when the Survey Corps succeed that people tend to forget that the weaponisation of Eren’s powers could be an asset, rather than a liability, so long as he’s restrained. Ultimately, what he yearns for is freedom and anyone who sets to be an obstacle to that is his target. “If we finally kill our enemies,” Eren says. “Will we be free?”
Eren became the anime’s villain, once he sets his eyes on Marley, the nation that actively oppresses the people of Paradis, who happened to be Eldians that initially dominated the world with their Titan powers. However justified his motivations are to stop its evils, Eren’s plan to erase them from the Earth makes him a hypocrite. He became colder, yet laser-focused on destroying the Titans so that which clouds much of his judgement.
Attack on Titan hits some notes from other films like the trauma from All Quiet on the Western Front or the post-World War II anxieties in Godzilla, but the transformation of its central character is reminiscent of American Sniper. In that film, Clint Eastwood depicts the real-life story of a highly decorated, but flawed SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. Both Eren and Kyle share the same trauma that transforms their destinies in the military, with the latter being external and the former being internal.
But both works have also proven to be controversial. Eastwood was accused of glorifying a murderous soldier, whereas Isayama is accused by some critics of glorifying militarism and fascism. Western publications like Polygon and The New Republic alleged that the Eldians embodied gross Jewish stereotypes, which includes them wearing an armband, much like the Holocaust victims, while Korean and Chinese outlets alleged that one of its characters resembles the Akiyama Yoshifuru, a Japanese General that caused war crimes on them, including the Port Arthur Massacre on 21 November 1894, resulting in Isayama receiving numerous death threats (The Chinese government has also banned the series as a result).
Sensationalized criticisms that arrive at that outcome are less serious than its beholder. Attack on Titan does not embellish its characters while utilizing these tropes in the same way that American Sniper doesn’t take Kyle’s anecdotes of war for granted. We see characters experience traumas that only war could allow, but it also acknowledges that it’s an event that remains perpetual, whether or not the Titans are involved.
The political theorist Arnold Kling recognizes that barbarism and civilisation are two things in conflicts that conservative-oriented people care a lot about. But while this isn’t Kling’s intent, it would be too simple to suggest that these people, along with their other political opponents, view things like this. The progressives see the oppressed up against the oppressor and libertarians rely on freedom to push back on tyranny, yet we combine these aspects in shaping our most pragmatic worldview. The same can be said with Eren: he yearns for, not just the freedom of humanity, but of his. He is also angry at his Eldian oppressors who throw Titans that can annihilate society at the drop of the hat. There is barbarism within the civilisation that he fights for.
Ultimately, the series has a final say in the inflammatory controversies, where Hange, the Survey Corps’ remaining commander, reminds us that genocide is wrong. But the aftermath of Eren’s annihilation won’t be a happy one, since the Eldians and the Marleyans will look back at that with no ease. Coleman Hughes says that this conflict reminds him of the long and infinite tensions between the Arabs and the Israelis, yet as the series begins to modernise, it borrows elements from World War I and II, moving past its primitive, David and Goliath battle that was the simple essence of the show.
Once the series finish by the fall of this year (and I hope this doesn’t mean that there’s a part three of the Final Chapters of the Final Season of Attack on Titan, as it’s called), industry insiders and influencers will try to find a show that could match the success of Attack on Titan, as well as its complicated characters, which include the Eldians that have become honourary Marleyans and enduring self-hatred. But its runaway success will remain unmatched for a generation, and rarely does a show represent the true nature of civilisation greatly than this one.
Extra Supplements - This Video Will Change How You View Eren
This insanely long video from invaderzz goes into detail about Eren’s tragic nature, as well as how he is able to pull off his plans, view his father’s memories and why he managed to claim the Founding Titan that will determine the fate of the world. What I like about this is how it is a full-throated defense of Eren, even defending the polarising ending that should have brought home his false facade of freedom. Watch it, once you indulge most of the series.
Next up: How to Get Started With Berserk.