Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Attack on Titan
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Merida
 Posts: 1946 |
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The reviews have been mentioning the allegedly "questionable" or "controversial" content of the coming arc for a while now and while i'm reading the manga, i've honestly got no clue what it's refering to (and it's getting a bit annoying to be honest...). I'm not really following discussions of this series, so there might be interpretations i'm not aware of, but from just reading the manga, nothing seemed any more questionable than usual... If anything is going to be questionable, it will be spoiler[next weeks's episode...] |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Yes, he did. At the moment, both the inner and outer gates are sealed shut. Which means that so long as an Intelligent Titan doesn't somehow break it, Wall Maria is once again intact, and all the people inside the Walls need to do is kill off the titans that remain between the outer two walls and they can reclaim their lost territory. |
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Lord Dcast
 Posts: 644 Location: 'Straiya |
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Looks like it. He killed two birds with one stone, so to speak. |
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danpmss
 Posts: 777 |
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spoiler[ You mean like, the big discussion the fanbase had years ago about who should be saved, for literally a whole month? If it's about that, since the conflict will likely be solved in a single episode, I don't think it will get as much heated, but that's just my opinion.] In any case, tho... It has been an overall consensus in the SnK manga community that ever since the big finale twist for this season, the series actually only got exponentially better and better, so I'm not sure if these are just friends of the reviewer who find it "questionable" or "controversial" in any way. Maybe quite a few of the later developments are shocking, but by no means they aren't really fitting and properly built in an overview. The series from that point on really shows all what it's capable of doing with its premise and its extremely well established foreshadowing from the very first chapter of the manga, so yeah, I don't think controversial or questionable are the right words at all when a vast majority of the readers really liked every single shocking twist and turn thus far, after this currently airing arc (there's A LOT incoming). And that's counting just how positive or negative these twists may have been for the poor characters, and knowing the series, you guys already know which is more likely to be. (Also memes, we will gain so many memes once the next arc starts) ------------------ Now as for the episode per se, what a great adaptation, I must say, really captures every single detail of this portion of the manga nearly perfectly. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2894 |
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Regarding the controversial things, maybe is when SPOILER says something super racist. knowing the current climate it's obviously that.
spoiler for manga spoilers spoiler[SPOILER says "look, that guy has black skin ] I mean, it does not get any more racist than that. |
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danpmss
Posts: 777 |
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Honestly, I don't think so. Like, something that minor and totally justifiable in that given context? lol I don't even remember that being subject to any controversy in general. Then again you must be just joking around and here I am missing it completely 
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2894 |
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Yeah, it's a joke... or so I to say now, but it would not surprise me if someone actually complains about that in 1-2 years when the anime gets to that part, considering what happened witht he rape combo ingoblin slayer and shield hero (and I never even saw the shield hero slavery complains coming).
So, who knows. |
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BodaciousSpacePirate
 Subscriber Posts: 3018 |
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(I figured it was a joke, because I couldn't imagine anyone ever getting offended by it if they were aware of its context.)
Also, why did you put the word "SPOILER" inside of a spoiler tag? Is it a super-secret double spoiler? 
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Eddy564
Posts: 340 |
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I agree with both you and Merida. There’s been an exponential amount of praise towards the current events and twists of the manga, so anytime I see a slight jab towards the quality of future events, I kind of just roll my eyes. Perhaps a friend of James who is privy of manga events isn’t satisfied with the execution. Which is fine, but that’s not indicative of any sort of “controversy”. In my opinion, what the anime is covering is my second favorite arc of the entire series. The current arc of the manga however is my all-time favorite. |
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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Funny how isolated online communities can be from each other - I'm content with reading the manga quietly on my own and don't purposefully seek out any discourse about it, negative or otherwise, but whenever something AoT beyond the current anime does slip onto my Twitter timeline it's invariably connected to the backlash against the manga, either with tweets propagating criticisms of the direction it's taken and/or its overall worldview, or tweets arguing against such criticisms. Can't really talk about it without throwing out major spoilers though..
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2894 |
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For the next episode I am expecting sasha to come and take a bite off armin. KFA.
Yeah, it's because the person who says the superracist is (manga spoiler) spoiler[either armin or erwin, so saying his/her name means unecesarily spoiling who survives this episode too.] |
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#896599
Posts: 2 |
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I think the controversy James is talking about is obviously MANGA SPOILERS spoiler[the accusations of the story being fascist/pro-imperialist/nazi propaganda and anti-semitic because the Eldians (who are the only people who can turn into titans) are persecuted in the same ways the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis.
Because of the fact that they are the only ones who can turn into titans, some people have interpreted it as a "what if the persecutions against the Jews were justified" scenario, which is not really the case. Their persecution are never shown as justified even if they can turn into titans and even if their ancestors commited crimes in the past and oppressed the world. Of course, those unjust persecutions lead some of the characters to become radicalized which is not shown in a very good light as they are portrayed as fanatics who deny any bad side of their history but it's made very clear and understandable why they became that way and some of them do eventually come to realize the errors of their ways even if they still have to fight for their people. The story Isayama is basically trying to convey is about the endless circle of hatred and war and how the line between victim and agressor can sometimes get blurred. There's also been some misinformation being spread around by people who haven't read the manga that the ennemies of our main characters are the Eldians/Titans (who they think are an analogy of the jews) when our main characters are actually Eldians themselves. For some people, the simple fact that Eldians are the only ones who can turn into titan and that they share some similarities with the Jews is what's antisemitic, and it's not up to me to decide if it is or not. But I'll just say that from reading Attack on Titan, I think that the issues of these representations are rather the products of a lack of sensitivity (which is sadly a thing in Japan) rather than any ill intention and I don't think the story passes any commentary on the Eldians that isn't also applied to other human beings. But that is just my own personnal opinion forged from my reading experience.] With all this, I hope James will be open-minded enough to not be too influenced by what he must have read about those reveals and to not assume that anything a character says or does in the story means that the story is supporting that character's ideology even if it isn't explicitely telling you "This is bad!". Isayama said in an interview that he's not interested by passing judgement on what's right or what's wrong, but rather to consider the roots of the issues he tackles in his story. And I personnaly think that considering and understanding the roots of those issues with an open mind is a good way to learn how to stop them. |
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Merida
Posts: 1946 |
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^Okay, that sounds bloody ridiculous and reminds me again why i avoid anime/manga discussion outside of this forum...but we should probably leave this discussion for if/when the anime actually gets to that part.
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danpmss
Posts: 777 |
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"Obviously"? I'm sorry, but I follow even /a/ discussion threads for SnK (yes, the toxic ones are numerous), but that's a first that I heard of this and it's quite the most ridiculously far-fetched connection of those plot points to spoiler[political propaganda in general thus far, and this discourse of everything being the new symbol/a new representation of fascism or whatever is getting way out of hand lately, everywhere], I'm not sure where you read this, but this is just silly. Let's enter dem big spoilers to dismantle a bit of why this reasoning it is even incoherent story-wise. spoiler[First of all, there are far more interesting political themes in the story that are explicitly discussed by the characters and that are major recurring themes ever since the basement reveal and the introduction of the vastly more expanded world building, and those are actually very subverted to the point of making both sides of the conflict particularly gray towards their approach of any of their advances. This connection doesn't even makes any sense if one would consider the situation as a whole and each side of the conflict's envisionment. There's no actual political instance that would make be the Marleyans, some of the other countries of the world which came in contact to the Eldian including the Japanese, and the Eldians themselves a nazi and anti-semitic representation of any sort (even if racial prejudice inflicted by an opressive history is a major theme ever since a certain reveal, and mind you, it's pretty much in reverse if put in comparison and then it repeats itself with the forcibly uncultured and walled-in Eldians). They all share quite the considerable amount of diversity in their own ways of dealing with their respective obstacles in the post-basement portion of the story, and their decision making. And that's not to mention that big "story made by the winners" plot device from the Marleyan arc. If anything, for both sides, this is actually a story of twisted liberation and their battle against the opression caused by the choices that a leader of a certain nation made in order to bring equilibrium and peace in a time where people were dominated by the fear of the once almighty people of Ymir... which went geniusly both ways in quite the great "the story repeats itself" paralel (since the titans caused the brainwashed inside the walls Eldians just as much suffering, without them even knowing about what came before that until much later), which is also one of the most interesting aspects to come from Eren and Reiner's character arcs. Even if it doesn't make sense, if you really want to go in real history paralels, more than Eldians being Jews, an actual comparison would be them being the Nazis, in a case in which they were expelled from their higher pedestal and sent to be forever isolated and haunted inside the Walls, while the remaining citizens would then become basically slaves towards the Marleyan people in order to repay their historical debt during their period of opression from their position of power by their own Leader choices. And with all twists and turns, imagine now Zeke's plan being a mass euthanasia of his people in order for them not to interfer with a probability of world peace if the higher power of the subjects of Ymir existed no more. Hell, there are a LOT of particularities to point out him as being the Hitler of the series, since he wants to extiguish forever Eldians lives for the sake of world prosperity, if you follow the "Hitler was a jew" reasoning, but that's only if you completely ignore every single point I just mentioned above and how the situation is so mixed that you can't really point out "oh look, that's THE side they are picking regarding how we binarily view the world nowadays as left and right, liberal and conservative". The political depth of each side and their motivations and old history that brought those populations to that point are not black and white like that by any means. There are some very interesting political topics EVERYWERE later on, and if you go to the bigger discord servers, 4chan, animesuki forums and heck, even MAL may have some people actually discussing about the political themes (instead of creating threads regarding the popularity and how the series is overrated compared to SAO or *insert very popular series that make fanboys attack anime/manga/novel that are just as popular solely for the sake of popularity competition*), but even the historical paralels could only go so far for a multitude of reasons and thematic justifications for each in the given context of the manga's current worldbuilding. This one "controversial" example you just told us right here is quite the big assumption to make about the story overall, and actually quite inconsistent with how Eldians and Marleyans, heck, the world outside the walls was portrayed thus far. ] I tried to be as simple and objective as possible, but I can enter in far bigger detail and mention chapter pages and such if you guys prefer, but I will say now that it will get too big, detailed and boring if I do (because the latest parts of this manga really covered quite the amazing ground within these elements in the story). The TL;DR is that if this "obvious" controversy exist, I've never heard of it and it really doesn't fit at all the content and how it was presented. Last edited by danpmss on Fri May 31, 2019 5:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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#896599
Posts: 2 |
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Well, then I guess maybe we don't frequent the same corners of the internet or we have a very different perception of how out of hand this controversy grew. No problem! I envy you for having been spared from experiencing that. All I can say is that it first blew-up on Tumblr and then it more recently blew-up on Twitter around the the month of February, when the trailer for Part 2 came out. And from time to time, when I look the comments in some SnK posts, I still stumble on some people claming that it is spoiler[nazi/pro-war/fascist propaganda]. For me it's the biggest, most recent controversy that involves SnK so my guess is that it must be how it has reached him and I don't really know of any other controversy he could be reffering to in the context of what he wrote in this review and the past 2 reviews ("I hear the show's handling of its allegorical politics might be getting messy before long" and "messy revelations of future chapters"). But if it's not actually that, then good!
That being said, I agree with all your points of course. I think these interpretations come from a place of misunderstanding and ignorance, but also as I said, misinformation being spread by those very same people who grossly oversimplify the context and the way the story portrays things, leaving out all nuance, when they are not outright saying things that are completely wrong because they haven't bothered reading past the anime and just repeating things they read somewhere else. |
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