There's been considerable pushback in recent years to fiction using the Holocaust for cheap imagery and signifiers, so the "other media does it" defense doesn't mean much.
Attack on Titan has characters analogous to the Jewish and that annoys me (massive manga spoilers)
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
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I don't think the problem is that the Jews in this story are "bad" - they're our protagonists, they aren't framed as evil. The issue is that this backstory is something the author imported from history to add some "grey area" to his world - the Jews in this have a monstrous power and some use it for tremendously violent and reprehensible acts.
The author's writing about the tragic cycle of war between two powers and golly isn't it all so grey? When that trite point is totally inappropriate given that in the history the author is drawing from, the Jewish people were powerless and brutalized for no justifiable reason whatsoever. The real world history of the holocaust is NOT one about the cycle of war and the atrocities committed by all actors in a conflict, but AoT reframed it as such.
The author's writing about the tragic cycle of war between two powers and golly isn't it all so grey? When that trite point is totally inappropriate given that in the history the author is drawing from, the Jewish people were powerless and brutalized for no justifiable reason whatsoever. The real world history of the holocaust is NOT one about the cycle of war and the atrocities committed by all actors in a conflict, but AoT reframed it as such.
IMO noting as long as it teaches and explain clear why its fucked up and should never happen again. But this is Japan, where they still denied their past war crimes. So I can't really see an analogy of the holocaust being appropriately used.
And Japan does have some kinda of weird love for Nazi Germany. Well other parts of Asia does the same as well.
Has a SW avatar which uses WW2 Nazi party parallels for its story
It's literally nothing like Terra Formers. Just try to come to your own conclusions here, don't take everything OP (or even anyone else in this thread tbh) at face value. Gotta think for yourself.
The parallels are clearly intentional but what the OP is claiming is false. "The jews" in this story are oppressed and experimented on, they are used as biologocal weapons against their will by "the germans" who are more than willing to kill them all.
This isn't an anti semitic story, the stories heroes are "jews" and we see them fighting for their lifes, they are obviously portrayed as sympathetic.
The whole point of the attack for the Eldians was to draw out and consume the warhammer titan. The point of the ceremony for the Marleyans was to use the warhammer as bait to lure out the Eldians.
The children and civilians were casualties caught up in a much bigger conflict. The Marleyans knew there would be carnage there when they brought people to watch, so I'm not sure how you're making the point of the attack from the Eldians side as a "terror attack to murder children."
But it's not like I'd expect you to appreciate the subtlety with accusations like this.
I don't know how anyone can view Marley in a positive light, based on what we've seen so far.
OP
OP
Look if you want to talk about Japanese brushing away or ignoring their own fucked up WW2 era war crimes and can find quotes of Isayama doing so then we can have that conversation, but thats not the parallel the OP is trying to make.
"The only reason Eldians haven't been exterminated is because Marley is willing to take them in and put them inside camps."
We literally went through multiple chapters where the tybur family explained why they did what they did and why it was good.
Literally the only saving throw here is that the Marleyians are just making shit up vis a vis the history of the world. If it turns out that they really are just doing unto the Eldians as they did unto them, that's fuckin' that, frankly.
That's my reading too, as someone who hasn't read past the basement.
The manga doesn't make the statement that bigotry is rooted in rationality. There are other themes that the Eldian's possibly bloody past tie into, but that "racism is rational" isn't one of them. Look at Reiner's interaction with his family members. He has to deal with cariacatures of the Eldians on Paradis Island, seeing them be demonized, described as devils, etc., etc., while having a very different truth in his mind. Look at Eren's grandfather, who felt obligated to spread racist gibberish for the sake of survival.
I can understand your specific take, to an extent, but I don't feel that the thrust of the story at all adds up to a message that bigotry is caused by rational things.
From what we've seen the only ones who know how to use titan powers from the getgo are the bad guys and the King.
We're shown that if you're not part of the King's bloodline you can't even properly use your power and up to season 2 all titan shifters were bad guys except for the protagonist (who is shown to clearly have issues btw).
There's no such a thing as both sides in this story, it's just dickheads trying to get more weapons to enslave the world and other people who were living in peace and who even made an oath to never fight back even on the face of annihilation.
I mean if there's a both side argument it's not from the text.
Good post.
OP has misread some themes and gone off on a tangent.
People shouldn't be jumping to dogpile the author/series without any context or knowledge of the current arc. Heck, even people following the series don't have a clear idea of the finer themes/motives going on right now.
It's a riveting series at the moment, the best I'm following regularly. Don't let this OP put you off.
The characters in this picture, aside from 2 and 4, are all from the "jewish" race, and most of the main cast.
The manga has mostly european people, and nearly all of them from that race. Aside from the girl with glasses, *none* of them have unusually big noses. Nor do most people in the book.
What caricatures? What racist imagery?
At least wrt racist imagery, terra formars this is not.
OP fell for the "fake news" made up history propaganda and proceeded to make a thread about it.
I am fairly up to date on the manga and while the OP is correct in the imagery (WW2) being used, I don't see how his interpretation of events matches what's actually happening.
The Marleysians (Nazis) are clearly the bad guys, Eldians (Jewish/ incl our heroes) the good guys whose population have been brainwashed into submission - with the complicity of their own leaders to avoid being exterminated), and even in the latest chapter, Eren gives the Marleysian king a chance to cool things down and make peace with the race of people they have beaten and who self exiled, but instead of that he declares War until extinction on Eldians, which is the signal for Eren's brutal attack (which they did to them at the beginning of AoT) in the hope of stopping the war before it begins.
Beyond that, the manga deals with the cycle of hatred, indoctrination of entire generations to hate Others and the importance of a preserved history and FACTS to avoid continually repeating the horrors of the past.
I do see where the Jewish armband and ghetto imagery could upset some people, but I do not see anti semitism here, more like a fascination for a certain time/ setting (and many Japanese do seem to have a strange fascination for WW2) to tell a very different story.
The Marleysians (Nazis) are clearly the bad guys, Eldians (Jewish/ incl our heroes) the good guys whose population have been brainwashed into submission - with the complicity of their own leaders to avoid being exterminated), and even in the latest chapter, Eren gives the Marleysian king a chance to cool things down and make peace with the race of people they have beaten and who self exiled, but instead of that he declares War until extinction on Eldians, which is the signal for Eren's brutal attack (which they did to them at the beginning of AoT) in the hope of stopping the war before it begins.
Beyond that, the manga deals with the cycle of hatred, indoctrination of entire generations to hate Others and the importance of a preserved history and FACTS to avoid continually repeating the horrors of the past.
I do see where the Jewish armband and ghetto imagery could upset some people, but I do not see anti semitism here, more like a fascination for a certain time/ setting (and many Japanese do seem to have a strange fascination for WW2) to tell a very different story.
I DO find it interesting how we have another topic where instead of trying to come to understand why a person might be offended by this manga (I'm not, but I can easily understand why), people tell the person that what they feel isn't real.
How hard is it to just say "I understand why you believe that, but here's why I think it isn't that."
How hard is it to just say "I understand why you believe that, but here's why I think it isn't that."
I just felt like they were giving them a reason to hate them.
They were always still the good guys but doesn't the Father in the flashback become more extreme/terrorist and rally the others and basically uncaringly send his son to work with the bad guys(as a spy) even though he didn't want to go which is what caused the his betrayal because his dad didn't care about him? Then he goes on to be bad. It's been a while. When it ended, It felt like there was the group that are the heroes, the King across the sea who is bad and also a group of the oppressed Jewish people who are not the good guys.
...The children were alongside lots of key war targets. Including what appeared to bet he de-facto leader of the Nazi equiv and as far as they knew, had one of the titan powers. As well as various leaders of different army sections including at least the marines and army, all other 4 warriors in the possession of the Marleyans, and numerous soldiers. This was all stated well in advance of the attack by at least a chapter.
I don't know what you're imagining a better military target to look like.
This manga is full of metaphors and allegories, you know that right? Or do you only read manga for the surface level fun and need those words explained?
What? No we didn't see that.
We saw the rationalization of the people who were doing the experimentation.
Thats history from 1,800 years ago, if you choose to believe its all as crystal clear as written. Marleyans are the colonialists now. They occupy large swathes of the world we don't see. They're essentially the British Empire in size with the German Empire in ideals.
Yeah I'm not like this thread at all. So much misinformation. Next OP is going to be saying Promised Neverland is anti-Semitic.
Well, Japan has a history of trouble in acknowledging some of their actions in WWII as a whole, but so do most countries, can you really be surprised they'd rather not address that type of stuff? Easier to channel it through a foreign lenses but Japan isn't alone in doing that with their media.
It'd be cool to see more stuff on things inspired by events of 2nd Sino Japanese war etc. however. For all we know those might already exist but are hard to find.
It sounds like several members have already addressed both of these points in the thread and you might've skipped over them :S
My only beef with the current arc is that the main characters are currently slaughtering many of their own people, who are also oppressed heavily by the Marleyans. I hope theres a good story reason for why Eren and co decided to head down this road.
That said, I wish the story didn't go this route. I wish it was still a post-apocalyptic story like many assumed years ago. I think the current direction makes the story more unique but I think it loses some of the wonder of being alone in this vast, dangerous world.
That said, I wish the story didn't go this route. I wish it was still a post-apocalyptic story like many assumed years ago. I think the current direction makes the story more unique but I think it loses some of the wonder of being alone in this vast, dangerous world.
First Recovery of an MMO Junkie and now this? I swear, if Ms. Koizumi Loves Ramen Noodles ends up being anti-semitic somehow, then I'm done with anime.
This is all just getting started and it seems like even Mikasa doesn't agree with Eren's attack.
It's fun to cast dispersions on entire forms of media and their consumers rather than debate the topic at hand.
I asked you earlier, what about this portrayal offends you?
we also went through multiple chapters of Marley waging war on other nations by using titan powers, and remarking how the age of titans was coming to an end, so they had to capture more titan powers ASAP to take over the world because they were in no condition to develop their regular weapon tech fast enough to counter the advanced weaponry of other nations.
So you missed the flashback with the terrorist eldians, the tybur family explaining why they betrayed the king, sacrificed the eldians into oppression, and worked with the exiled king to create a false narrative. Or how it was justifiable to attack paradis because they access to what is essentially a world ender.
I realize this.
Just thought I would point out that post wasn't adressing the op's problems, which seems to be the current narrative history of the eldians being the nazis first.
Disinformation is a main and consistent aspect of the story, so I guess we'll see where the rabbit hole goes.
I suppose we'll have to wait and see if the Eldian backstory of their nine titans ruling the world is true or instead a fabrication by AoT-Germany. If there's any historical precedent to why they'd be victimized it's a pretty inappropriate import of history.
And either way it's pretty tasteless to use the real-life imagery and context of the slaughter of millions of people to add some colour to a giant battle shonen.
1) Many people in the thread did exactly that
2) People don't want bullshit spread about a series they and many others like
It's okay to be wrong, but OP also ignores every other post that told him that he misread everything
Since when were the Taybars the good guys? They're portrayed in story throughly as pieces of shit that sold out other Eldians for their own gains. There was no threat of an attack by the island and the head of taybar litterally tried to start an ethnic cleasing that would lead to another world war.
Good. Particularly if it's anti-hyper capitalism. You know, the one where mega-conglomerates can influence countries to artificially fix their own currency rates to suppress pay for workers there for materials that go into cheap products we enjoy everyday. Hell I might read One Piece for a change if that's the case!
You've not once attempted to engage people in this thread telling you the OP's reading of the manga is way off base. Nor have you read the series.
So stop with this bs.
People have said they understand where the OP's reading is coming from, they've also told him he's wrong about the things causing him outrage. The OP has also not engaged with anyone and is just spewing stuff with very little of a base.
The problem is OP is flat out making things up and changing the entire narrative on how someone who doesn't read the manga can perceive its messages. That's why I said point 1, I can at least see his point. Point 2 is just writing a bunch of crazy nonsense to fit his narrative. When you make things up that are factually incorrect, you're bound to not have sympathy or want someone to understand your POV.
Noone even on Eren's side seems know WTF he's doing and why he's going to such extreme measures. Even Mikasa is shook. There's way too much to unpack that hasn't been revealed yet.
OP
OP
I don't want Holocaust imagery to be used for a story where the people in the ghettos can transform into giant zombies.
Especially when there's so fucking much Jews in Nazi Germany imagery.
Cut it out.
I was so confused until I read this post. I stopped watching the show half-way through the first season. Maybe someone could add this to the OP?
That user isn't planning to engage in good-faith discussion, just report them and move on.
