Attack on Titan: Shingeki no Kyojin

[Pandadice]

Hold on, what parts of Mikasa constitues as psychopathy for you?

I thought it was the "I'll serve Eren even if it means destroying humanity" line of thought. She doesn't seem vengence-driven.

Yeah, my use of vengeance there was misleading. I consider Mikasa a psychopath because of her complete absence of emotion outside of her relationship with Eren. If anything, her relationship with Eren is the one thing holding her back from complete psychopathy, in a way, and in more of a quasi-psychopathic state. Again, I'm sorry I can't be more specific with details without just going back and rewatching it, but her cold, calculated, emotionless intellectual nature is the main reason I would say she's a psychopath. the show just sort of comes off saying, as I interpreted it, "hey look how awesome you can be if you eliminate your emotions!" She's all about being a nietzschean eagle and eating some sheep. But then also, I guess you could consider her devotion to Eren as excessively self-interested, so maybe that obsession adds to her psychopathy. Yeah, it's like you said.

1) There's no reason to force you to watch any anime if you find some aspects of it too annoying. In the past I used to struggle through a lot of shows but these days I drop them like a rock if I don't find them entertaining enough. Because they are meant to be just entertainment. This is related to an opinion I have developed: An excellent story will please some immeasurably but annoy the rest just as much. You can't please everybody. If you try, you will only produce gray matter that's forgettable for everybody.

haha, my bad, I guess I got a little too into dissecting your post.

Trust me, I try not to struggle through anything anymore. I don't watch very much anime anymore, and the little Tv anime I try to watch I often quit watching. I learned my lesson years ago about struggling through poor anime. I mostly just consume anime through sakuga MADs, indie shorts, and an occasional feature film. And I'm not trying to be rude or condescending here, but do you really consider this to be an "excellent story"? I know (from experience) that the bar for an anime story line is pretty low, but honestly SnK comes across as pretty straightforward stuff. The settings unique and it's more gutsy with killing off characters, but besides such idiosyncrasies the story seemed pretty standard. I dunno, I have trouble watching anything these days that's not from HBO. But that said, there's gotta be something (probably the awesome sky-surfing) in SnK that kept me watching it for 13 episodes.

2. It's science fiction... I'm really not sure why you're so annoyed by all of these things. Do you get annoyed by Gundam Seed because everyone knows that hyper-particle beams of that size clearly need at least 4.2 seconds to power up and the beam should be red, not blue?

This is really interesting. Here I thought I could point to people criticizing piss-poor science in anime as a way to legitimize my moral complaints, but you've flipped it so that to complain about dubious, dues ex machina science is somehow beneath any true "anime" fan. Your "it's science fiction" argument might as well be "it's a tv show dude." In this way, really, you're eliminating the possibility to complain about anything within the series (beyond, perhaps, "oh no my favorite character died" or something). You've totally just severed any expectation of realism within the series.

However, as literature and film are mediums which actively influence the spectator's worldview, I think, even disregarding the poor science point, it is entirely legitimate to complain about the types of morals being presented within a series.

3. I still don't understand what sort of "message" you think is trying to be pushed through here, as well as why you find it in poor taste considering most adult anime does have at least some sort of message to some degree. Which is why I recommended Pokemon... Or maybe teletubbies. Although the Ukrainian government believes teletubbies, too, is pushing its own hidden agenda and has banned it so perhaps maybe just Pokemon. Or those chibi specials.

See, it is not merely that it has a message (any literature or series has a message--regardless of the authors intent--because it's all about how the viewer reacts or interprets what the text is saying), but my issue with the series stems from the fact that I feel like I'm watching nazi propaganda when I try to watch this.

And if it was just me watching it, who cares. But I watch this and see nazi propaganda, and then I see it being the most popular and highest praised series of the year. That's when I get concerned, because it seems to be promoting a fascistic, all-the-bad-parts-of-Nietzsche worldview.

But, after discussing it with the fellows here at gotwoot, I see that it's almost expected that I'm disgusted with what I'm watching. It's been flipped around so that rather than a glorification of violence, it's actually a critique and examination of such violence. But honestly, even such a reading of it is subjective and equally
valid either way. It's like This trailer for the Cobra Special Forces movie. I see that trailer as a harsh critique of the US military, calling it out as "the bad guys." While this is one way of looking at it, it can also be interpreted as a patriotic celebration of militarism (and given the website devoted to signing up for and promoting the whole thing, I think that's more what the ad campaign was going for). See? The moral ambiguity of the thing makes it all subjectively determined by the viewer. In this sense, I was watching SnK as a celebration of violence, while others are considering it a critique. There's no right way to read into it, but I gotta say I like the way you guys are approaching it.

Further, as I said previously, maybe you can just "turn your brain off" so to speak when you're watching this stuff, but I just sort of naturally react to and critique what I'm being presented with in films/tv shows. To form a raw intellectual reaction is the same as experiencing a basic emotional response. I feel like I'm just repeating myself. You guys are free to enjoy the series, it's whatever. I think I might watch some more in a new mindset; hopefully i get to see a lot more grappling hook action.