Attack on Dystopia

It is no mystery that the hit anime series Attack on Titan is a reflection of the fears and hopes, or hopelessness, of society when met with a seemingly never-ending doom. At the beginning of the manga, Eren Jaeger is introduced. His community of people is surrounded by 3 walls: Wall Sina (the innermost), Wall Rose (the middle), and Wall Maria (the outermost). The walls protect his community from giant humanoid human-eating creatures called "Titans". As a young boy, Titans end up destroying Wall Maria, the wall that protects Eren’s district, and he sees his mother get eaten by one as he’s being evacuated. From that day forth, he promises himself that he will enlist in the military, named the "Scouting Legion" or the "Scouts", to avenge his mother and free his people from the Titans, (“Wall: Raid on Stohess”). It is later revealed that Eren possesses a power; he can transform into what he hates most: a Titan.

As the manga continues, it starts to become much more than just Titans roaming their civilization. Past the ocean that Eren and the Scouts manage to eventually arrive at is an entirely different civilization named Marley. And it just so happens that Marley is behind the Titans roaming and destroying their land. It becomes a story about the oppressors (Marley) and the oppressed (Eren’s people who are called Eldians). Marley plans to invade Eldia and take over their land, destroying their people in the process, claiming that thousands of years prior, the Eldians were the ones oppressing them. Attack on Titan is a post-apocalyptic dystopian manga series that reflects the hope, fear, and doom of the real world when faced with war, or the prospect of it, by discussing politics, hope (or hopelessness), and identity.

The beginning of the series may just sound like a military corps trying to free their people from the doom of Titans, however, once the manga truly begins to unfold later on in the series, politics play a large role. It is well understood that the politics of the Marleyans and Eldians, more specifically the Marleyans, lead to the corruption of their communities. In Marley, from a very young age, children are exposed to the government’s propaganda against the Eldians. “While it isn’t always used for malicious reasons, if utilized incorrectly, propaganda can lead to a distrustful and ignorant population that knows nothing but the art of war,” (Tefft). Marley’s children are spoon-fed lies and manipulated by the government to believe that war is great and that invading their enemies to kill not only soldiers but innocent civilians is normal. Their system is so flawed that they have 12-year-olds enlisted in the war, believing that the death of an entire population of people is morally right, even if they are of the same descent as the Eldians. The only war that exists in Eldia is the war against Titans whereas the war that exists in Marley is the killing of other humans.

In the real world, propaganda isn’t always negative. It is used to promote objectives of the community and make choices for it, (Kallis 9). This is also known as a “pseudo-environment” where “people live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones,” (Finch). People are fed information to live in a certain environment and construct a fantasy that fits those stereotypes that they are given. This information that they’re fed is typically in the form of propaganda, whether positive or negative. In this case, Marley chooses negative propaganda to feed their citizens to make them hate the Eldians and craft a fantasy where Eldians are the ultimate evil and deserve to be wiped out.

Not only are their people only fed this negative information, but they don’t have a choice on whether they want to escape their pseudo-environment and oppose the government’s decisions because they are immediately deemed as traitors and are sent off to be turned into Titans (the ones that roam the land of the Eldians). This is similar to the Holocaust as “Nazi Education” was inserted into the school’s learning agendas. Children were being taught that Jewish people were inferior and deserved to be eliminated at such young ages so they could be groomed into becoming Nazis. And if anyone chose to go against Germany and fight for Jewish rights, they were immediately deemed a traitor and executed, (Mahmood 5051). Both the Nazis and Marleyans used their propaganda and power for evil. Not only that, but they also divide their races by using pieces of clothing to establish their differences.

In Marley, the Eldians are marked with a red armband, even those who are in the Marleyan military. The Eldians with higher rankings get different colored armbands to establish their status. During the Holocaust, Jewish people wore armbands with the Star of David on them. Both had to wear the armbands whether they were mingling with “normal” society or if they were in the internment camps. It was a way to label their identities as “different” and let the others know that they didn’t belong.

In Eldia, the different social hierarchies wear clothing to showcase their status. The people inside Wall Sina are wealthy and flaunt expensive clothing and jewelry to represent it, those behind Wall Rose wear normal clothing as they aren’t rich nor poor, and the people behind Wall Maria wear fairly normal clothes but they are a bit more worn out as they tend to have the poorer residents. Unlike Marley, they don’t have any armbands or articles of clothing to alienate a group of people.

In the Eldian military, they have uniforms that differentiate the Regiments. They all have the same general attire: white pants with a cropped tan jacket and occasionally a short green cape with a hood, but each uniform has a different crest that adorned it. For those who are still in training, their uniforms have two swords crossed over each other and signify the “future of humanity, (Isayama). The Military Regime has a green unicorn and deals with all inner conflict behind Wall Sina, mainly to help the royal family as their sign signified, “His Majesty and the King,” (Isayama). The Garrison Regime has roses and dealt with the monitoring of the outermost wall and signified, “Order and Peace,” (Isayama). The Scouting Legion has the “Wings of Freedom” which is a white wing overlapped by a blue wing signifying “Glory of Humanity,” (Isayama). They are the ones who engage in combat with the Titans. The clothing gives each group of people their own identity which also creates a bit of conflict. Most Eldians at the beginning of the series aren’t very supportive of the Scouting Regiment, claiming what they do is a waste of time. This sets them apart from the other two Regiments and they’re often heard having negative opinions about the Military Police who don’t do anything besides sit behind the safety of the innermost wall. It creates a bit of an “us” and “them” grouping, but it’s not nearly as large of a conflict as the Marleyans and Eldians have.

Furthermore, the Marleyans have a reliance on the Titan Shifters that are in their military. The reliance is so strong that it ultimately harms them in the end and is the reason for their defeat. Unlike the Eldians who use their resources to create advanced technology that helps them overcome the threat of the Titans, the Marleyans rely heavily upon their Titan Shifting soldiers and don’t focus on advancing their technology as much as they should if they want to be successful. And once those Titan shifters are sent to the home of the Eldians to join their military and destroy their population from the inside out, this lack of advancement in their technology begins to show. Their undercover soldiers realize that the Eldians aren’t acting how the government portrayed them and their feelings towards the race begin to change drastically.

This harsh realization leads to an identity crisis within the soldiers. Individual identities are similar to the territory that the individual resides in, but it is not completely the same, (Ringmar 453). Most of the Marleyan population believes that death should come to the Eldians because, without it, they would never be able to live their lives normally. That is what the government, the territory, wants them to believe. But it can be seen through the three soldiers who were ordered to live with the Eldians that the individual identity won’t always be the same. They may have also thought that Eldians deserved death at first, but once they are exposed to the people for a long period, they start to realize how wrong that thought is. This is also reflected in the 12-year-old girl named Gabi. She sneaks away with Marleyan soldiers who are infiltrating the Eldians, and tries to fight alongside her people, thinking she’s doing what’s right. But just like her comrades, she quickly figures out that she’s been lied to.

This identity is not just seen in the Marleyans, however. As the war begins, many Eldians lose hope that there will be a happy ending for them. So, they turn to Eren, who’s made it his mission to free his people and develop an unhealthy idolization. They become devoted to him, viewing him as a sort of God and the only one who can truly save them, by committing mass genocide against Marley and wiping out most of their population. The people establish themselves as Jaegerists, wholly devoted to Eren Jaeger. They don’t think for themselves, Eren essentially thinks for them.

After reviewing the similarities this manga has with the real world, it’s easier to understand just how ingrained individualism, hope, and politics are in society. With politics, there is a fear of corruption. In Marley, the government essentially works as a dictatorship, having complete power over their people. Eldia works as a monarchy with the king residing behind Wall Sina.

Without identity, there is a fear of losing a sense of individualism. Everyone in Marley has to follow the same strict rules and think the same thoughts to stay alive and they often lose who they are in the process. Reiner, one of the soldiers who was sent to be undercover in Eldia, develops Split Personality Disorder. One personality is his Scout self and the other is a Marley soldier. He developed this split personality after wanting to distance himself from the sins he committed when one of his own sacrificed his life to save Reiner. This split completely erases his individual self.

Without hope, there is a fear of never being free and not having anything to live for. Most people who lived in Eldia lost hope that they would be free from the Titans as time went on and the walls were ambushed and destroyed. And because of this constant destruction, even the soldiers were losing hope. The only time they start to feel a sense of hope is when Eren chooses to fight back against Marley and destroy their population so they can’t come after Eldia anymore.

It’s important for the media to sometimes be a reflection of historical, or current events because it allows the reader an opportunity to think more heavily about the message of the media and how that can be applied to life. Oftentimes, media that is a reflection of real-world issues helps to offer different/opposing perspectives that may help the future of society. An example of this is Eren Jaeger’s character arc throughout the series. The reason why Eren starts to fight back more aggressively in the first place, going from being lawfully good at the beginning of the series to more chaotic towards the end is because he is on the “losing side” and needs to take drastic measures to ensure his people would be free. Some people follow him without question but some question his morality and believe him to be more bad than good, creating the perfect anti-hero.

This is an excellent parallel to how the media portrays social justice leaders and how they are forced to do more outrageous things to bring about change. Dystopia also opens the audience’s eyes to real-world issues that may not even have a solution. An example of this is the fear of humanity never finding a way to be at peace; people will always hate each other and war will continue to break out all around the world. The only solution to erase this fear would be to erase war as a whole, but the manga is trying to say that that’s asking for too much; people will always end up hating each other no matter how hard others try to bring peace.

With more dystopias addressing this issue, it can help de-normalize this behavior and spark conversation about change. There’s already a war going on in society that, in some ways, resembles part of the manga, so with more dystopias speaking on the issue of the devastation of war, more conversations can begin and lead to changes being made. It’s already being seen on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok about the wars that have broken out in other countries. If this type of behavior continues, change can be made. Even though there may not always be true peace between all, the fact that people are aware of the issues in society and at least trying to make a change is enough of a start. Attack on Titan may not have a happy ending, but that does not mean the real world cannot.

Finch, Lyneyve. “Psychological Propaganda: The War of Ideas on Ideas during the First Half of the Twentieth Century.” Armed Forces & Society, vol. 26, no. 3, 2000,     pp. 367–386., https://doi.org/10.1177/0095327x0002600302.
Isayama, Hajime, et al. Attack on Titan. Kodansha Comics, an Imprint of Kodansha     USA Publishing, LLC, 2009.
Kallis, Aristotle A. Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan,     2008.
Mahmood, Salam Abbas. “Political Representation in Animation: Attack on Titan as a     Sample.”
Ilkogretim Online - Elementary Education Online, vol. 19, no. 4, 2020, pp. 5048–5065.,     https://doi.org/10.17051/ilkonline.2020.04.764913.
Ringmar, Erik. “Russia: Territory and Identity Crises.” Nations and Nationalism, vol. 2,     no. 3, 1996, pp. 453–460., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8219.1996.tb00013.x.
Shahid, Umair. “AOT: Does Reiner Have Split Personality?” Fiction Horizon, 14 Oct.     2022, https://fictionhorizon.com/aot-does-reiner-have-split-personality/.
Tefft, Andrew. “Attack on Titan: 10 Harsh Realities of Being a Marleyan.” CBR, 23     Sept. 2021, https://www.cbr.com/attack-on-titan-marleyan-harsh-realities/.