Charles Synyard on Nostr: Finished watching Attack on Titan. Definite masterpiece, though harder to be enthused ...
Finished watching Attack on Titan. Definite masterpiece, though harder to be enthused about as it concludes. Did not end as I had hoped. This is by some measures the most popular anime of all time, but note, some spoilers ahead, so watch first if you have not yet.
Attack on Titan definitely swipes the title of The Turner Diaries: The Animation from my previous pick (Shiki). Next to similar epics with the fate of the world at stake, the contrast is very stark. Recall the linear progress time lapse visual at the conclusion of Darling in the Franxx, and then how shockingly pessimistic this anime’s ending credits sequence is: it’s literally Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire, played out as usual beginning to end, AFTER all our heroes have ended their labors. Similarly, this anime is the definitive anti-Nausicaä. The march of an army of titans looks uncannily like the god warriors from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In Miyazaki’s telling, the god warriors were a manmade aberration that was destroying the natural order, which when restored is surprisingly peaceful and harmonious. Isayama’s titans, on the titans are part of a natural, perhaps parasitic phenomena. They appear to be caused by some organism that takes up residence in a human race, and not without benefits to the host, for centuries or millennia at a time. For another excellent recent treatment of a parasitic life form in anime, see Kill la Kill.
I will not soon forget the unparalleled scope and power of Attack on Titan up until our leads reach the sea. Yet, it is hard to keep up the idealism and sympathy for the characters when the enemy becomes the more part of mankind. So, is there still a moral to the story? Only this insight, that in what amounts to a planetary trolley problem. When an international coalition is calmly planning to murder one nation, with the calm deliberations of patrician patrons at Ascot watching the horses, or rather trolley cars, line up to get ready to move, that nation is more than justified in hijacking the trolley, filling it with high explosives, reversing its course, and detonating alongside the stands.
While concern for proportionality can become an excuse to do what is clearly wrong, I do think the onlooker has a duty to try to defuse the situation. Where with the trolley, one might try switching tracks simply in hopes the train derails, in anime, there are some key tropes that usually end up reconciling enemies and ending the killing. Strangely, and I think Attack on Titan’s biggest failing, the number one solution wasn’t tried and found unrealistic, it simply wasn’t tried. After a whole series of hinting and hoping, Mikasa... does not shout that she loves Eren. Mikasa-sama Wants to Confess? Or, Mikasa was shy, millions died? I really wanted the destined couple together. Come to think of it, wasn’t Eren rerunning the whole plot again and again? Is there a reason he and Mikasa didn’t marry and live as a couple during their long infiltration of Marley? Love might have found a way.
The popularity of Attack on Titan, a series where violence, ultimately, isn’t justified by a foolproof plan “to end all wars”, but is just something we humans resort to to protect our own, seems to show that the general public, in advance of promoted opinion, already understands that the imperative to secure the existence of our people, and a future for our children, needs no further reason, because it is itself the sufficient reason.
Suggestion: someone should make an Attack on Titan AMV set to Teknein’s “Totalen Krieg”, the first track here https://www.bitchute.com/video/TH6k1hETeuJQ
Dedicate your heart! #AnimeRight #AttackOnTitan #ethics #morals #love #anime
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Attack on Titan definitely swipes the title of The Turner Diaries: The Animation from my previous pick (Shiki). Next to similar epics with the fate of the world at stake, the contrast is very stark. Recall the linear progress time lapse visual at the conclusion of Darling in the Franxx, and then how shockingly pessimistic this anime’s ending credits sequence is: it’s literally Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire, played out as usual beginning to end, AFTER all our heroes have ended their labors. Similarly, this anime is the definitive anti-Nausicaä. The march of an army of titans looks uncannily like the god warriors from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In Miyazaki’s telling, the god warriors were a manmade aberration that was destroying the natural order, which when restored is surprisingly peaceful and harmonious. Isayama’s titans, on the titans are part of a natural, perhaps parasitic phenomena. They appear to be caused by some organism that takes up residence in a human race, and not without benefits to the host, for centuries or millennia at a time. For another excellent recent treatment of a parasitic life form in anime, see Kill la Kill.
I will not soon forget the unparalleled scope and power of Attack on Titan up until our leads reach the sea. Yet, it is hard to keep up the idealism and sympathy for the characters when the enemy becomes the more part of mankind. So, is there still a moral to the story? Only this insight, that in what amounts to a planetary trolley problem. When an international coalition is calmly planning to murder one nation, with the calm deliberations of patrician patrons at Ascot watching the horses, or rather trolley cars, line up to get ready to move, that nation is more than justified in hijacking the trolley, filling it with high explosives, reversing its course, and detonating alongside the stands.
While concern for proportionality can become an excuse to do what is clearly wrong, I do think the onlooker has a duty to try to defuse the situation. Where with the trolley, one might try switching tracks simply in hopes the train derails, in anime, there are some key tropes that usually end up reconciling enemies and ending the killing. Strangely, and I think Attack on Titan’s biggest failing, the number one solution wasn’t tried and found unrealistic, it simply wasn’t tried. After a whole series of hinting and hoping, Mikasa... does not shout that she loves Eren. Mikasa-sama Wants to Confess? Or, Mikasa was shy, millions died? I really wanted the destined couple together. Come to think of it, wasn’t Eren rerunning the whole plot again and again? Is there a reason he and Mikasa didn’t marry and live as a couple during their long infiltration of Marley? Love might have found a way.
The popularity of Attack on Titan, a series where violence, ultimately, isn’t justified by a foolproof plan “to end all wars”, but is just something we humans resort to to protect our own, seems to show that the general public, in advance of promoted opinion, already understands that the imperative to secure the existence of our people, and a future for our children, needs no further reason, because it is itself the sufficient reason.
Suggestion: someone should make an Attack on Titan AMV set to Teknein’s “Totalen Krieg”, the first track here https://www.bitchute.com/video/TH6k1hETeuJQ
Dedicate your heart! #AnimeRight #AttackOnTitan #ethics #morals #love #anime
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)[IMG_9638.png](
)[IMG_9641.png](
)[IMG_9650.png](
)[IMG_9651.png](
)[IMG_9652.png](
)[IMG_9653.png](
)[IMG_9654.png](
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