Welcome To My Twisted Mind

One main arguments I’ve seen from non Jewish and poc snk Stan’s and that will have that one token Jewish person or friend who says they are not offended and snk isn’t anti Semitic or Nazi propaganda. Or say well isayama isn’t a anti Korean racist or Japanese imperialist that’s all been proven fake blah blah blah. Even if it’s fake the series is still problematic stop using that one Jewish person who isn’t offended they don’t speak for all Jewish people obviously-part 1

Oh Anon, you get me going here.

Yes, Mikasa is named after a very successful battleship (it’s supposedly certain success if your manga has a character named after a battleship). 

Pixis was inspired by a Japanese imperial general. He died before WW2 tho. Anyway that sparked huge controversy with the Japanese fans, leading to hate messages towards Yams for years. 

German SNK Wiki claims Erwin was inspired by Erwin Rommel, a general in WW1 and WW2 who later turned against Hitler (it’s fine cause he wasn’t REALLY a Nazi, right? no.). Erwin’s Birthday is the death day of Erwin Rommel. However, since I can’t find a source I’d take that one with a grain of salt. The main Inspiration for Erwin as a character is Ozymandias from Watchmen. So only fictional mass murder for Erwin here lol

These points are already kinda icky, but can be ignored I guess. Of course SNK searches inspiration in military. It’s a series about literal Child Soldiers (which somehow is never a critic point on any anime/manga?!). However it’s also full of dogwhistles and even more uncomfortable references. 

My main points are the portrayal of grey-morality on the case of genocide and the way Isayama clearly draws inspiration from Nazi Germany when he portrays Marley. The latter is not per say problematic. Fullmetal Alchemist is also inspired by The Third Reich and carries a strong anti-imperalist and anti-nazi message. SNK however falls short on that till now. I am not Jewish myself, so I can obviously not determine what is antisemitic and only point out the obvious. Plus my knowledge of things is obviously limited so feel free to correct or join in. 

Isayama pretty much paints the Eldians as the Jews of this “mirror world” World War we witness since the time skip. This is clear by the imagery of the Ghettos he shows, the armbands the Eldians have to wear and much more (Short images search should do the job here). The coding of the Eldians as Jewish equivalent is complete with the Marleyan myth of Eldians ruling the world if no one does anything to hold them in control (aka every antisemitic conspiracy ever). But it doesn’t end there. We know from the manga that Paradis island is basically Madagaskar. 

The Nazis planned to deport about 4 million Polish Jews to Madagaskar in the 1940′s. That plan was shortlived and obviously never put into action for various reasons. So in SNK we have the scenario that the Eldians fled to Paradis in order to get an advantage over the Marleyans. The Eldians who are not on Paradis live in Ghettos on the mainland. That’s a weird coincidence, considering how many islands our big blue planet has. 

What I think is pretty bizarre is that Isayama distorts this by pairing this imo pretty obvious real live inspiration with references to Norse mythology. This is fucked up in so far that Norse mythology is so heavily appropriated by the Nazis that many runes are outlawed in Germany till today and showing interest in Norse mythology is still often associated with white supremacy (have a look at Neo-Nazi signs and see the pattern). Like, this combination of Norse and early 20th century German imagery isn’t even a dogwhistle anymore, it’s yelling “I SUCK NAZI DICK AND I LIKE IT”.  The references he uses are  especially Ymir and the paths, that can then be seen as the world tree Yggdrasil:

The tree connects the Eldians and the nine titans which share their number with the nine realms that Yggdrasil holds. There’s some more, tiny stuff, like Erwin being easily interpreted as a reference to the God Tyr (God of battle, who loses his right arm in the mouth of a beast) and Hanji to the God Odin (Losing an eye in a well in the pursuit of gaining knowledge and wisdom). Both of these Gods are probably the most appropriated by white supremacists. When Ymir first turns into a titan it is at castle Utgard. In Norse mythology Utgard is a place in Jotunheim, the realm of the Jotun who the giant Ymir is the first ancestor of.

In general the pairing of clear WW2 imagery and references to Norse mythology is a mixture that is VERY sketchy and should always make you suspicious. Especially since these two are not going together (as in Marley using references to Norse mythology), but against each other. So we have both sides (Marley and Eldia) associated with white supremacy. Another thing that I will never be over is that Zeke and Eren are obviously named in reference to the German words Sieg und Ehre (Victory and Honor) referencing white supremacist buzzwords. 

Then we have the issue that the main conflict is not with the Marley people, who are basically our mirrorworld Nazis. The conflict is AMONG the Eldians. Liberating the Eldians form the Marleyans is not even a thing, because we’re busy keeping two Eldians from practicing genocide/euthanasia on their own kind. So in this aspect Eldians are painted basically just as bad as Marleyans (and we have that “everyone is wrong in a war” Issue again). 

I think in the end Eren’s will to kill everyone will lead to Eldians and Marley people accepting their differences or whatever and leading to unision in the shared enemy (kind of already happens in the manga) and while I think that’s a possibly interesting way to go it’s imo not when one of those parties has been subjected to centuries of genocide by the other. Assistant says a good closure to the Norse Mythology theme would be the manga going for Ragnarök, so everyone, Marleyan and Eldian, dies, except for two people who start the world anew. After all anisemitism or in this case anti-eldian sentiment doesn’t just stop after a world war. I don’t really fuck with this bullshit we got in one of the recent chapters where this one Marley general was like “Oh no, they were only people after all”. Bro, your whole society is built on them not being people and all of that is gone in one day of crisis? *doubt.png* 

There’s obviously more to it than that and especially my understanding of the manga might be a bit off, since I don’t read it as attentively as I used to anymore. At this point I’m so fucking suspicious of this manga tbh. I doubt that we can come out of this with an anti-imperialist or anti-fascist message. 

This does of course not mean no one should read or watch the manga or anime. I read/watch it too as you see. But it’s always good to be critical of the media you consume and take concerns from others serious, when it comes to stuff like this.