The Surprising Reason Why China Banned Attack On Titan

“Attack on Titan” has been a target for scrutiny and criticism in South Korea, where it has been accused of promoting right-wing Japanese politics. In 2018, Korean singer Kang Hye Won, a former member of the girl band IZ*One, came under criticism after publicly encouraging people to watch “Attack on Titan.”

History lesson: Korea was colonized by Japan in 1910 and lived under its oppressive rule for 35 years. The Imperial Japanese army was notably brutal towards its neighbors, Korea included. (For one example, many Japanese soldiers abducted and enslaved Korean women, forcing them to become “comfort women.”) Japan’s mixed track record on apologizing for its imperial past, and on educating its children about their country’s true history, means there’s still enduring tension between Japan and Korea today.

You can see this lingering scar in Korean pop culture. Park Chan-wook’s film “The Handmaiden” is set in Korea during Japanese rule. Based on Sarah Waters’ novel “Fingersmith” (which is set in Victorian England), the film reworks the book’s themes about the English class system into Japan’s claimed cultural superiority over Korea. The recent horror film “Exhuma,” which centers on Korean exorcists, also includes a ghost who dates back to the time of imperial Japanese rule. In that film, the ghosts of that era are literally still haunting Korea.

“Attack on Titan” comes in here. Isayama has confirmed that he modeled the character Dot Pixis, a heroic general, on Japanese General Akiyama Yoshifuru. While Yoshifuru has a positive reputation in Japan, Isayama’s comments got him and “Attack on Titan” a lot of backlash for supposedly valorizing imperial Japan.

The final season of “Attack on Titan” shows these criticisms may not have been wrong. “Attack on Titan” totally upends its story at this point, revealing the main characters are not the last of humanity. They are Eldians, whose ancestors could turn into Titans and who brutally ruled the world for centuries. The last Eldian king, Fritz, was so disgusted by his people’s history that he dissolved the empire, locking his people behind walls on Paradis Island, rewriting their memories, and making a vow that Eldians would never again fight a war. Now, the world is run by one of Eldia’s former subjects — Marley — and they’ve been dumping the Titans on the island to keep the Eldians locked in.

And so all along,“Attack on Titan” has been an allegory for post-imperial Japan. The Eldians are the Japanese, a once powerful and monstrous empire now confined to an island. Marley embodies all of Imperial Japan’s former victims, Korea and China included.