Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga series both written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama, it was first published in September 2009 and it ended with its 139th chapter in April 2021. In 2013 it was adapted into an anime series which is still ongoing but is nearing its conclusion. This blog post will contain major spoilers!

Background

The story is complicated so I will try to keep it as simple as possible! When you are first introduced to the world Isayama created, you are made to believe that humanity has mostly died. The story goes that man-eating titans mysteriously appeared hundreds of years ago and wiped out a majority of the human race, with the remaining survivors constructing enormous walls to survive within. However, it is revealed that the titans, as well as the people within the walls, are actually humans who descend from the King of a small tribe, Karl Fritz. Fritz married a girl that gained the power to transform into a titan, forcing her to help in his conquest and create the Eldian Empire. The titan power was split into nine different titans with unique abilities, each noble family within the kingdom having its own family member with the power of one of the nine. The 145th King of Eldia chose to make the houses fight with each other, thus starting a huge war. In the end, one of the nations conquered by Eldia, Marley, took advantage of the situation and usurped a majority of the unique titans and became the new world superpower. This led the Eldian King and many Eldians to flee inside the walls they constructed, those that did not flee were forced to live through the oppression of the Marleyan Empire. Marley forced all Eldians to wear armbands, signifying that their race was ‘inferior’. Any Eldian who was ‘out of line’ would be transformed into a mindless titan and sent to kill the humans inside the walls.

Real World Themes

While the story is complicated and fictional, it holds a lot of real-world connections. The world outside the walls resembles that of the real world 1900s with similar old-fashioned cars, architecture, fashion, and technology. However, the biggest real-world connection you hopefully already picked up on by now is the 1930s-1940s Nazi Germany’s oppression and persecution of Jewish people. The armbands Eldians have to wear are directly influenced by the same armbands Jewish people were forced to wear. The Eldians are also forced to live inside internment zones, which you could argue is influenced by America’s oppression of Japanese people during the 1940s when Japanese people were forced to live inside internment camps in America.

History Repeating Itself

One of the core messages of Attack on Titan is the idea that history repeats itself. Not only does Attack on Titan’s fictional history repeat itself when Marley takes over and oppresses Eldians for oppressing them, but it happens again with our main protagonist Eren Jaeger. For the sake of keeping this blog from being too long, I won’t get into Eren’s whole story but know that he does possess the power of one of the nine titans, meaning he can transform at will. Eren grew up inside the walls, believing just like everyone else that humanity perished and the humans in the walls are the only survivors. When he learned the truth of his situation, he flipped the script again and sent an army of enormous titans, hoping to completely eradicate the entire global population outside of the walls. While you might not agree with the message, allow me to offer a different perspective on the phrase, ‘History repeats itself’. It is not to say that the same historical events will repeat over and over in the same form, but that this cycle of war, violence, death, and oppression continues in one form or another. Whether it be the oppression of minorities throughout history, the war-torn countries around the globe, or the fact the world has only been at peace for a total of 268 years in the past 3,400 years (that is 8%!), the cycle of violence seems to be everlasting in many different forms.

Works Cited

Attack on Titan (anime). Attack on Titan Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://attackontitan.fandom.com/wiki/Attack_on_Titan_(Anime)