Why I Do Not Watch *Attack on Titan*: Addendum to Addendum.
In the first place, that first episode remains the single most egregious act of violence I’ve ever seen in any form of media. Considering that animation is supposed to be amusing, (this was made by “Funimation”) I was shocked by just how horrid the depictions were, as if to use the art form to exaggerate and to manipulate all human sensibility and agony. Yet that first episode was not enough to stop me from continuing to watch it. Why?
Because it was effective. All the blood did serve one function: that it drew a thick red line between the black and white. There was no ambiguity, no coming back from what I’d witnessed, and that was the point: I never would be capable of humanizing the aggressors nor dehumanizing those they victimized. It passed all human understanding, yet, by doing so, it reaffirmed it. I was hooked by force of sheer compassion. To this day, I’d use that scene to illustrate the possibility of Evil which was absolute and could not be reduced to the familiar.
As such, the story could amount to military propaganda, nothing more. Yet knowing that Japan was rich with military history, I came to understand this as an artifact of culture. I would watch the show to get my closure from the horror of that episode. I knew that there was nothing left but vengeance, but I could endure that, even if the cause felt hopeless, just to make some sense of utter chaos. I could tolerate even the horror of atrocity; the only horror I could not endure was that atrocity could be accepted without payback.
By the seventh episode, my cause was disappointed. It appeared as though the show was nothing but a “bait-and-switch” that sacrificed its main protagonist to elevate its female character. Yet other factors started to upset me and to trigger my suspicions.
Themes of class, of human power and corruption, started to creep in, as if to find a scapegoat in the very institutions which we hold most sacred. This, at least, I could endure, but only insofar as it was viewed from the perspective of the Hero, who was motivated not by status but by justice. Yet it did not sit with me that the creators would divert attention from the conflict to explore the theme of “class”; the closest work of media I’d seen in senseless bloodshed had been *Parasite*, and there a heavy-handed effort had been made to humanize the villainous protagonists by making “class” the topic of the film instead of their long list of senseless crimes. (Just for the record: really wanting to commit a crime because you’re poor does not make it okay, precisely owing to the impact that it has upon the rich, and only monsters can commit such crimes against their wealthy benefactors and their kids.)
Yet class was not the only issue. *Titan’s* world was brutal and depicted only what was harshest about human nature, even after its initial innocence was meant to tug the heartstrings. What was more: the theme of predators and prey pervaded it as though it were a vegan advertisement. Yet again, I felt manipulated, though I was redeemed by the conviction that Mikasa’s optimism would be useful as a tool… to win the war.
More recently, I’ve realized that this is the most shocking fact: they were not meant to win the war. No, something more insidious by far was at the “heart” of this repulsive program: Eren was to be a villain, his vendetta turned into a mockery, and we were to identify with those same monsters that had brutally devoured his own mother. Even this, perhaps the only Anime that could inspire pacifists to go to war, reduced the horrors of atrocity to human pride… and people bought it.
Oh, and clearly it was all the fault of those in power, all those lofty politicians with their sweets and fancy clothes. **Of course!!**
Now, I’ll come out and say it: that *Attack on Titan* is an *awful* Anime. I’ve only seen those seven episodes, yet that’s enough. It’s everything that’s wrong with *Parasite*, but stretched across a hellish runtime made to feel like one of Plato’s Hells. Just as that meaningless Korean film was written and directed by a wealthy hack who clearly saw the worst in people, so this Anime was written by some kid who’d never seen a battlefield; it was inspired by a drunkard that he saw outside of a café. If that’s enough to scare you, can you really judge of things like War??
Don’t get me wrong: a soldier can be just as prone to a political naïveté as can a pacifist civilian. The works of C.S. Lewis are a testament to that, just as the works of Heidegger will testify that growing up in poverty does not make you a decent judge of character in German politics, regardless of your brilliance in other matters. Yet just as the Christian soldier’s pessimism is misled by both his faith and his experience, just as the Nazi peasant’s thought is skewed by his allegiance to the German countryside, so too the Japanese civilian that’s terrified of drunks (my phone’s correction feature sympathizes, since I accidentally typed “drinks” and it corrected this) is biased in his pacifism. For the record: if you want me to lay down my arms, don’t make me root for what you’re fighting for with every fiber of my being.
I do love the innocent; that’s why I would avenge them. Once you’ve made that act of vengeance meaningless, you’ve brought them back from death to kill them twice. It’s something that made Ares such a perfect villain back in *God of War* — the real one. That’s the sort of thing that makes a peaceful man crave blood, precisely since it turns his love of peace against him. Try to justify it, even in the slightest, or to humanize the monsters that have done it, and you only will dehumanize yourself, debasing all of us and what we fight for just by being human.
**[({R.G.)}]**
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