Now that all of us anime only watchers of Attack on Titan are up to the relevant parts I feel there is a need to discuss the anti-Semitism present in the show. I did not write this essay to say that Isayama or the show are actively anti-Semitic but rather by clearly making a parallel between the Eldians and Jews the show inadvertently affirms many anti-Semitic stereotypes. This accidental anti-Semitism is, however, still inexcusable considering that avoiding such offensive parallels is easily done with some basic research. So, let’s just start with the base facts:
Eldians are clearly positioned as a parallel for the Jews, with there being really obvious comparisons to the Holocaust.
These Jewish stand-ins are a separate species from the rest of humanity.
These Jewish stand-ins can turn into literally man-eating monsters, many of whom have exaggerated facial features.
We’re just going to stick to these three general points in this thread so as to keep things clear. Let’s start with the positioning of Eldians as Jews. We see two main elements to this in the show: the use of Holocaust/Ghetto imagery and references to the Madagascar Plan. With the former we see Grisha Jaeger and his sister sporting armbands with yellow stars, that look incredibly similar to those worn by Jews in some parts of Nazi occupied Europe, and living in a Ghetto. This is a fairly obvious reference to the ones that Jews had to wear in Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, the map of the world we have been shown shows that our lead characters live on an island that looks suspiciously like Madagascar. For those of you who do not know, there was at one point a plan to exile all Jews to Madagascar, that was at one point heavily by British & Polish anti-Semites as well as the Nazis, and I believe this is the allusion that is trying to be made here. Both of these are quite specific references that squarely equates the Eldians to the Jews, more specifically the Jews under the Nazi regime.
I don't really see it as anti-semitic. I see it as showing that any group of people can be treated horribly for any arbitrary reason. Isayama just picked the most obvious allegory he could.
Isaiah Hill
Jews are outsiders that kill any Culture that admits at least one Jew in its borders. Anti semitism is bad, but you have to ponder reasons why all the nations and cultures that kept Jew outside of their empires thousand of years before Adolf hitler/Joseph Stalin committed the last Jewish extermination.
Shingeki no Kyojin's Eldians are just not that fleshed out Jewish horror clone to be honest. I think subplots of Eden has better clones.
Read more literature outside Japanese anime, while jap manga is entertaining, they better manga authors still study non fiction accounts.
Imagine watching Floch fix his stupid haircut at the barber's.
Nicholas Evans
the "eugenics" you're referring to is the Eldians taking women from other nations and breeding with them to increase their own population. The Nazis were obsessed with racial purity (like the Marleyans) while Jewish populations all over the world took wives from the local populace.
Angel Butler
>OH BOO HOO, """"6 BILLION"""" TITANCAUST OVER 1700 YEARS!! >We wuz bridge builders! >The fall of Lagos, the Ackerman science expiriments, and the Ackerman & Hizuru extermination inside the walls was a joke! >HEIL YUMIR >Yeah, cry m*rley boi >She devoured ya, cause you wanted to be inside her >The Titancaust didn't happen but it should have. Crush em all with the Colossal Titans.
I was just dusting all my figures and when I went to put it back up on the shelf, the blade in the left hand wasn't there. It's gotta be somewhere, r-right?
No you simply do not understand what Hitler meant when he used the word Aryan. He appropriated the term and now you are playing equivocation and hoping nobody notices.
>Anti-Semitism Maybe I'm being too picky, but the preferred term is anti-jewish. Not all jews have a semitic background, and not all semitic groups are jewish. Still, I get the point. *** If we were to dislike or "cancel" a fictional work just because the author's ideology is unpleasant for us, then we wouldn't be able to read Céline, Sartre, García Márquez... Attack on Titan is brilliant regardless of the Isayama's believes.
That being said, I really do think that SNK isn't anti-Semitic, and anyone who thinks that hasn't been paying attention since day one. The whole point of the series is that of the horror or war and opression. Back when the focus of the series was to get rid of the titans, the central theme was that of the nature of mankind, and how the "last humans" would react against their "natural predator". Prior to the introduction of Reiner, Zeke, Berthold and Annie as the antagonist of the series (they are not villians, they are only antagonist because they face the protagonist, Eren), the focus and theme was different.
Eldians are fictional and the whole setting of the series is fictional as well. Even though they were meant to the represent Jews to some extent (I don't really think so), they are still better characters that the typical depiction of them being innocent souls that are only in the story to suffer. Reiner ans Zeke are both brilliant characters because they both hate themselves ans their race for the sins of their ancestors. They are utterly broken men who ended up like that because of the systematic oppression. To write characters like that isn't because of "racist" believes as an author, but because they are way more complex characters that the "sufferers" ones. Still, I cannot fathom how some say that SNK is "antesemitic" when is clearly not the case. The theme of the series is closer to that of the "banality of evil"
