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Revisiting the Fascist Subtext of Attack on Titan : Some

Notes on a Modern Reactionary Anime

Tim Brinkhof

Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 51, Number 2, Winter


2021, pp. 21-29 (Article)

Published by Center for the Study of Film and History


DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/flm.2021.0005

For additional information about this article


https://muse.jhu.edu/article/842292

[ Access provided at 25 Jan 2022 03:11 GMT from University of Pittsburgh ]


FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

REVISITING THE FASCIST grotesque allure of his (eventual) drawings;


another, to the surprisingly sophisticated
SUBTEXT OF ATTACK ON TITAN: incorporation of Nazi ideology into his
SOME NOTES ON A MODERN narrative. But, in sum, the anime series poses
REACTIONARY ANIME1 disturbing questions for a society that has
drawn its economic and political strength from
Tim Brinkhof imperialism, especially, as with Japan, from a
New York University totalitarian past—or, as with the United States,
Film Comment (Film at Lincoln Center) from a periodic appetite for totalitarian
leadership.
Chapter one of Shingeki no Kyojin
debuted in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shōnen

A ttack on Titan is an ongoing Japanese Magazine on September 9, 2009. Better known


comic book series written and in the west as Attack on Titan, it tells the story
illustrated by Hajime Isayama, who, of a world in which humanity resides behind a
growing up in the countryside of Ōita series of three enormous walls that protect it
Prefecture, Japan,2 landed upon a simple but from giant, naked, man-eating humanoids
disturbing truth: Because all living organisms called Titans. They are, in essence, the principle
must feed on other living organisms to survive, of Life, reversing the dominance of humans,
the world is an inherently cruel place. Life, by who are now food. One fateful day, when the
definition, undermines ethical considerations. outermost wall is mysteriously breached and a
Or so it might seem. Unlike so many of the nearby town is overrun, a boy named Eren
powerful but problematic ideas that cement Yeager watches his mother as she is eaten alive
themselves into the minds of children, only to by the invading behemoths. After joining a sea
be abandoned upon the arrival of adulthood, of refugees past the middle wall, the
this one stuck around for Isayama, at least as a traumatized youth subsequently decides to join
problem to be addressed. His manga tells the the army in order to avenge his mother’s death
story of a world in which people live under the and retake their lost home. On the campaign,
constant threat of being eaten alive by naked, however, he learns that one of the young men
mindless, humanoid giants. The idea is not he befriended during military training was
original. Humans have, in science fiction, often responsible for the breach. Determined to kill
been flipped by circumstance into serving as his former brother-in-arms, Eren follows him
dinner for an alien species (even as we actually past the outermost wall, where he discovers
are for any number of terrestrial species, from that the real world is nothing like he imagined.
bacteria to bears and lions, if we’re unlucky). Without any prior experience, Isayama
But Isayama has connected this evolutionary struggled to find a publisher willing to take on
trope to a sociological concern toward the his work. Editors everywhere were impressed
growing attraction in the world for with his premise but disheartened by the—
autocratic—often sociopathic—forms of admittedly—poor quality of his original
governance. Published in 2009, the manga, drawings. Fortunately for Kodansha, their
alongside its anime adaptation, quickly grew blind faith in the 23-year-old’s still-developing
into a global pop-culture phenomenon. Part of talents paid off. By 2013, Attack on Titan was
Isayama’s success can be attributed to the selling almost sixteen million copies per year,

1 The title is a reference to a 2019 Polygon article written 2 BBC News, “Manga Artist Hajime Isayama Reveals
by Tom Speelman, “The Fascist Subtext of Attack on His Inspiration.”
Titan,” which more or less started the discussion this
essay joins.

21
FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

making it the second best-selling manga in the the medievalesque society within the walls.
country at the time, surpassed only by veteran Even more shocking was the truth behind the
mangaka Eiichiro Oda’s long-running series, Titans, which turn out to be genetically
One Piece.3 That same year, production mutated human beings belonging to a race
company WIT Studio released an anime called Eldians, who, persecuted by the
adaptation that, thanks to the leadership of Marleyan government, are ritualistically turned
Death Note director Tetsuro Araki and into cannibalistic monsters and sent towards
international distributors like Netflix and the walls in order to terrorize the people on the
Crunchyroll, turned into a massive hit with other side. Yet it was not so much these
younger viewers.4 With over 100 million copies groundbreaking plot twists but the imagery
sold worldwide as of 2019, Attack on Titan Isayama incorporated into his illustrations that
currently holds the title of eighteenth best- proved particularly difficult for western readers
selling manga of all time.5 to process. Discriminated against for their
Over the years, fans and critics have ability to turn into Titans—an ability that,
speculated extensively on the reasons behind Isayama tells us, is linked to their ancient and
Isayama’s explosive and, in many ways, mythological bloodline, and proclaimed by
unprecedented success. Theories range state propaganda to originate from their
anywhere from the series’ having spun a clever ancestor’s having once made a pact with the
twist on the now-oversaturated but once “devil of all-earth”—the Eldians are separated
feverishly popular dystopian fiction and from ordinary Marlyan society through
zombie-apocalypse genres, to the artist’s internment camps reminiscent of Jewish
supposedly unique ability to capture “the ghettos, and required by law to wear armbands
hopelessness felt by young people” in modern denoting their race, which are similar in design
society.6 But the most interesting—and to the Star of David.8
sinister—of these hypotheses, and one that has Of course, Isayama is far from the only
only gained in prominence as Attack on Titan artist to draw inspiration from Nazi Germany.
approaches its final episode (January 2022), can Many other fantasy writers, from J.R.R.
be traced back to the very moment of the Tolkien to J.K. Rowling, have worked—or are
manga’s inception: the insidious notion that believed to have worked—the visual footprint
our world is, fundamentally, cruel. of the Third Reich into their fictional worlds
In 2015, the Communist Party of China one way or another. Few, however, have done
added both the Attack on Titan manga and its so as comprehensively as the creator of Attack
anime adaptation to a list of banned foreign on Titan. Upon encountering the explicit
entertainment said to “encourage juvenile references to Nazi culture in the eighty-fifth
delinquency, glorify violence, and include chapter, readers were stimulated to reevaluate
sexual content.”7 Two years later, the question the series as a whole, a search that managed to
of censorship arrived to the west with the unearth other, subtler connections to fascism
release of the manga’s eighty-fifth chapter that are not merely aesthetic, but ideological,
detailing Eren’s discovery of Marley, a too. Indeed, a closer look at Isayama’s work
technologically-advanced nation-state whose reveals that totalitarian sentiment is not just a
sheer existence had been hitherto unknown to

3 Anime News, “Top-Selling Manga in Japan by Series: 6 Atsuhi Ohara and Yukiko Yamane, “Boosted by
2013.” anime version, ‘Attack on Titan’ manga sales top 22
4 Ryan Lambie, “What is Attack on Titan?” million.”
5 Anime News, “Roundup of Newly Revealed Print 7 Kotaku, “China Banned Attack on Titan, Death Note,
Counts for Manga, Light Novel Series - December and More.”
2018.” 8 See fig. A.

22
FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

stylistic influence on his world-building; it is an grotesque and insatiable appetite for the
integral part of the story he is trying to tell. present, the domination of each moment, of
each vulnerable life inside that moment.
Identifying the Enemy Arguably one of the most memorable
representations of the prototypical Nazi soldier
The Titans are by no means your and Reich citizen appeared in the 1921 classic
average monstrosities. Isayama took great care film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari under the name
in creating them, and the peculiarities of their Cesare, a mute and mindless slave who—much
design are to be understood neither as trivial like Isayama’s Titans—had neither the freedom
nor as being primarily for the purpose of nor the mental capacity to question the
shock-value, even if their arresting appearance murders his autocratic master forced him to
has provoked in readers a morbid fascination commit.10 In his essay On Hatred, the Soviet
that is believed by some to have heavily propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg argued, with
contributed to the series’ rise in popularity.9 unsurprising hyperbole, that the Nazi invaders
When they first break through the outermost had no legitimate justification for their actions.
wall, the Titans appear to Eren—and thus to Rejecting the idea that the German Volk was
the reader—as incarnations of absolute evil, an protecting itself from extraneous threats and
interpretation that is informed by both their ensuring the safety of future generations by
behavior and their looks. Incapable of speech procuring living space, Ehrenburg maintained
or rational thought, they pursue human that the Hitlerites acted mainly out of simple
beings—which are, it should be noted, the only spite, a sociopathic engrossment with death
organisms in which they express any interest— and destruction. “Spite drives every soldier of
much as animal predators pursue their natural Fascism,” he writes,
prey, but with much greater fervor and vitality. After losing a battle, they subsequently
Unlike ordinary predators, however, the Titans hang women and torture children.
do not devour human beings for nourishment. After entering someone else’s house
They devour other life in a very strict sense of and not finding anything to loot, the
the instinct “to live”: to live exclusively for a Fascist soldier kills the housewife. One
perpetual now. Practically immortal and able to German lance corporal wrote in his
regenerate lost limbs—including heads— diary that torture ‘cheers and even
almost instantly, they seem to attack and feed excites’ him. In Hitler’s speeches, there
solely for the kill, the act of taking life—a is no love for the German people; his
notion distilled visually in their frozen, speeches breathe one thing: spite. Even
menacing smiles. Their lack reproductive Hitler’s voice resembles the hoarse
organs, leaving it unknown (at least at the bark of a hyena.11
beginning of the story) how they might Upon studying the works of far-right authors
procreate, further distances the killing from any published during the years of the Weimar
straightforward reproductive necessity. The Republic, Klaus Theweleit noticed striking
point seems to be that the Titans serve as similarities in their depictions of the antagonist
exaggerated versions of us when we are under who stands in the way of the noble German
the grip of totalitarian thinking. We lose not soldier, attributing to that foe “a staring face
only our ethical sensibilities but also our sense with a hollow smile around its open mouth, a
of extension into time through any kind of face set apart from its own narcissistic sneer:
legacy, moral or physical; all that matters is a omnipotent, impotent.”12 The exaggeration of

9 Super Eyepatch Wolf, What Makes Attack on Titan 11 Ilya Ehrenburg, On Hatred, p. 146.
so Popular? 12 Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, p. 24.
10 Siegfried Kracauer, From Calegari to Hitler, p. 46.

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FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

facial features recurs, of course, widely in visual prevented) when the female partner’s head
renderings of the enemy figure across both the suddenly transforms into a terrifying, snakelike
world and the political spectrum. But, limiting creature, one whose elongated throat is lined
ourselves to the Third Reich, we would do well with rows of breasts.15
to distinguish the large, beak-like noses and The understanding of unrestricted
bulging, swollen lips used to ridicule the desire as both a self and race-destroying
“Jewish leech”—thus making his total form enterprise led the Third Reich to reverse many
appear disproportionately small—from the of the steps taken towards sexual liberation by
furrowed brows, crooked grins, and piercing the Weimer government. It did so, for instance,
pupils that are intended to demonize the figure by the banning and burning of books from
by making his total form disproportionately sexologists and activists like Magnus
large. Many representations that aim to Hirschfield and Max Marcuse,16 as well as by
produce the latter of these two effects also tend instituting the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which
to depict him as a towering figure, one whose prohibited mixed marriages and extramarital
enlarged size symbolizes both the depth of his relations with people of inferior race.17 Like
malice and the destructive potential of his Zöberlin’s female siren, the male beast became
being.13 But this one-two punch helps us an equally dreaded manifestation of the sex-
understand the contradictory impulses deprived degenerate. Fear of the “rapacious
animating the totalitarian disposition toward bestial Jewish male” looking to force himself
the enemy. onto and thus defile “innocent German
Although the Titans’ lack of femininity” grew widespread thanks to
reproductive organs can be attributed, rather provocative posters showing, among other
straightforwardly, to a matter of censorship, it unappealing scenes, Jewish octopuses latching
would be unwise to rule out the possibility that onto a chaste incarnation of the Aryan
this anatomical subtraction was, at least to motherland—an image which becomes even
some extent, a conscious decision on the part more striking when considering that Isayama’s
of Isayama. Theweleit has already written at Titans possess an exclusively male physique,
length about the conception of the enemy as while the three walls that protect Eren’s society
impotent, his inability to give life, forcing him are personified by and named after three
to take the lives of others instead. Krafft, the female goddesses: Maria, Rose, and Sina.
masculine hero of Hans Zöberlin’s 1937 anti-
Semitic novel The Command of Conscience, Fighting the Enemy
narrowly avoids a death trap in the shape of an
infertile yet libidinous Jewish woman longing And yet this entire view is upended,
to drag the honorable Aryan into the and for good reason. In many ways, Attack on
“emptiness, night, and moral solitude” of her Titan appears to be a variation on the anti-war
existence.14 Yet Zöberlin’s take on the dark side story, part of a longstanding tradition of
of human sexuality is, however difficult to pacifist literature that stretches from Walt
believe, a fairly mild one compared to, for Disney’s 2016 animated feature film Zootopia
instance, some of the mass-produced and back to Leo Tolstoy’s 1855 Sevastopol Sketches,
mass-distributed illustrations designed to and further still. Roughly speaking, this type of
combat the spread of venereal diseases. One narrative follows two warring factions which,
particularly striking example shows two naked by recognizing the commonalities between
people as their intercourse is interrupted (or them, come to understand the futility of their

13 See, for instance, figs. B and C. 16 Dagmar Herzog, Sex after Fascism, p. 20.
14 Hans Zöberlin, Der Befehl des Gewissens, p. 41. 17 Patricia Szobar, Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi
15 Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, p. 14. Courts of Law, p. 132.

24
FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

struggle and establish peace. When Eren learns eventually sent Zeke Yeager, Eren’s half-
that the person behind the breach—and the brother and one of the hundreds of thousands
death of his mother—is none other than his of Eldians left behind on the mainland during
best friend, and the mindless Titans he swore Fritz’s exodus, to claim the source of this
to eradicate turn out to be thinking, feeling ancient magic. After uncovering the true
human beings, the reader is led to believe that history of the world, and witnessing the
the series’ true antagonist is not an external discrimination against the Eldians upon
entity, but the simplistic, black-and-white infiltrating Marley, Eren comes to the bleak
worldview that consumes its principal conclusion that the animosity between the two
characters. races will not end until one has effectively
This revelation is deceivingly annihilated the other. This is the binary
foreshadowed in the manga’s sixth chapter, thinking in which Eren has become trapped.
which follows a ten-year-old Eren joining his But so has the pacifist Zeke. Anyone
father, Grisha, a doctor, on a visit to one of his familiar with the writings of Carl Schmitt can
patients, a girl named Mikasa who lives in the see at once that the relationship between the
mountains. Getting to Mikasa’s house before Eldians and the Marleyans is a direct
his father, Eren finds her parents dead and the application of the Nazi jurist’s thought. In his
girl herself tied up by men looking to sell her book The Concept of the Political, Schmitt
into prostitution. Arming himself with a identifies what he calls friend-enemy
kitchen knife, he manages to outsmart the distinctions, antagonisms that run so deep they
kidnappers before proceeding to brutally permeate and override every aspect of life,
murder every last one of them. When an from social to cultural to economic. According
understandably horrified Grisha arrives at the to Schmitt, an enemy is not necessarily an
scene, he attempts to call upon his son’s enemy because he is ugly or unethical, like a
conscience. But Eren, rather than expressing Titan, but because he negates “his opponent’s
any remorse, instead becomes enraged at his way of life” by virtue of his own—a quality that
father’s inability to understand what is so makes coexistence with the adversary
perfectly clear to him. “I did not kill people,” effectively impossible.18 When accepting the
he asserts, “I killed monsters that happened to fact that conflict is an inevitable part of human
resemble people.” nature, one is left with two possibilities:
And yet, even when Eren recognizes surrender and die or fight and live. In Attack on
that the monsters are people after all, his Titan, these two options are represented
outlook does not change. On the contrary, the respectively by the characters of Zeke and
way he sees it, the enemy has not suddenly Eren. Unwilling to kill innocent people, Zeke
disappeared but rather shown its true face. The intends to gain control over the king’s abilities
Marleyans, we are told soon thereafter, have and use them to sterilize all members of his
been at war with the Eldians since the dawn of race. Once the Eldians will have died out, the
time, a conflict that ended only when the 145th world shall be left to the Marleyans, who can
Eldian king, Karl Fritz, weary of all the thenceforth live on in peace. His
bloodshed, took his people to an island on the “euthanization plan,” as Isayama calls it, bears
edge of the world, where, after erecting the a striking resemblance to the position adopted
walls, he used the power of the Titans to wipe by Indian pacifist Mahatma Ghandi, who
their memories. Fearing the descendants of the maintained that the only moral answer to Nazi
royal family might one day change their mind, Germany’s Final Solution was for the
and desperate to use the king’s power for their European Jewry, along with Britons who could
own good, the Marleyan government be dispossessed by invading Nazis, to permit

18 Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, p. 27.

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FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

the violence, even at the cost of being assumptions that can only be fully
“slaughtered,” having presumably saved their comprehended by comparison.
own “souls” and “minds” through their As Heidegger states, Being and Time was
pacificism.19 Eren, using a different moral first conceived as a critique of traditional
compass, finds Zeke’s plan reprehensible. ontology—the phenomenological study of
Recognizing that both the Marleyans and the being—as it had been practiced in the west for
Eldians essentially fight for the same goal, he over two centuries. He takes particular issue
sees no evil in fighting fire with fire if it means with the claims of René Descartes, who he
securing the future of his race. After betraying believes presented the world “with its skin
his brother to come into possession of the off.”21 Denying the famous adage I think
king’s powers, Eren uses them to create an therefore I am, Heidegger argued that an entity
army of colossal titans with the intension of to could not possibly be understood as
commit what is more or less the story’s independent from the world around them,
equivalent of nuclear holocaust: convinced that because, by definition, the only way to exist
the war will not end until one side has was, simply, in the world. Because the world
annihilated the other, he commands his predates the self and goes on existing long after
monsters to destroy all life on earth outside the the self has dissolved; it also precedes any
walls. human code of ethics, a supposition which led
him to conclude that concepts of good and evil
Defeating the Enemy are, fundamentally, dependent on one’s place
in the world.22 Consequently, only by accepting
When reading Attack on Titan, few one’s thrownness, meaning one’s artificially
people probably find themselves thinking of determined situation in space and time, could
Martin Heidegger, yet the man and the manga one begin to live authentically. But does living
are connected to each other in interesting ways. authentically require violence? It should be
As of today, Japan counts no less than six noted that the scholarship defending
translations of the German philosopher’s Heidegger from Nazi ideology far
seminal work, Being and Time—five more than outnumbers—and outweighs—the scholarship
in the English language. This bit of trivia is not that hands him over to it.23 Nonetheless, while
to imply that Isayama is intimately (if at all) the philosopher’s ideas provide no direct
familiar with the work, but it does indicate that excuse for violence, some of his writing,
Heidegger’s ideas, which have an extensive and notably his 1933 inaugural address, The Self-
well-researched relationship with those of Assertion of the German University, illustrates how
Taoism, deeply resonate with Japanese conceptual needs could be adapted to serve the
culture.20 In the manga, various characters use political needs of the Hitlerites: “Questioning
the phrase, “I was born into this world” in then unfolds its most authentic strength to
order to make sense of their existence, find unlock the essential in all things. […] Only a
justification for their actions, and rule out spiritual world guarantees the people greatness.
suicide as a solution to their problems. This For it forces the constant decision between the
axiom, the precise meaning of which is as will to greatness and the acceptance of decline
elusive as the writings of Heidegger himself, to become the law for each step of the march
carries with it a couple of philosophical that our people has begun into its future
history. […] The very questionableness of

19 George Orwell, Reflections on Ghandi, p.4. Also see 21 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, p. 132.
https://www.openculture.com/2016/02/gandhi- 22 Michael Zimmerman, Heidegger, Ethics, and National
writes-letters-to-hitler.html (accessed 11/2/2021). Socialism, p. 99.
20 Alan Paskow, Heidegger and Nazism, p. 523. 23 Alan Paskow, Heidegger and Nazism, p. 520.

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FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

Being forces the people to work and fight and inherently good, while Eren, believing
forces it into its state, to which the professions mankind to be good (that is, fighting for a
belong”.24 noble cause), concludes the real enemy to be
Here’s the problem, in admittedly the world itself. In this regard, Isayama does
reductive terms: If you are thrown arbitrarily not appear to align himself with Adolf Hitler as
into the world, then, to possess (own) your much as with another influential German
“self,” to be true to your essential being, you figure, Arthur Schopenhauer, who wrote the
must enter a tautology: aim to be true— following charming words about a beach in
authentically—to what you have already been Java covered, “as far as the eye could see,” with
“thrown” into becoming artificially. As Eren skeletons,
prepares to destroy the nation of Marley, as The skeletons of large turtles, five feet
well as the innocent civilians he knows reside long and three feet broad, and the same
there, his friends attempt to dissuade him. But height, which come this way out of the
Eren, possessed by his fatalistic understanding sea in order to lay their eggs, and are
of reality, refuses to listen, and sums up his then attacked by wild dogs, who with
argument to them in a single sentence: “I have their united strength lay them on their
always been this way.” Having grown up in a backs, strip off their lower armor, that
society that hides behind walls, under the is, the small shell of the stomach, and
influence of a pacifist king who, unbeknownst so devour them alive. But often then a
to his subjects, wanted them to atone for the tiger pounces upon the dogs. Now all
sins of their ancestors, Eren resolves to remain this misery repeats itself thousands and
true to what he himself has always believed in thousands of times, year out, year in.
spite of what others—those whom Heidegger For this, then, these turtles are born.
would perhaps refer to as ‘the Man,’ or the For whose guilt must they suffer this
‘they-self’—told him: that he will fight for torment?26
freedom and survival, no matter the cost. The answer is: For none. They must suffer—
Eren’s final resolution bears, in some because they were born into this world.
respect, a striking similarity to one of the
Columbine killers, Eric Harris, who wrote in
his diary that “the human race isn’t worth
fighting for, only worth killing. Give the Earth
back to the animals. They deserve it infinitely
more than we do. Nothing means anything
anymore.”25 Perhaps this is what one of the
aforementioned journalists meant when they
said—in rather vague terms—that Attack on
Titan captures “the hopelessness felt by young
people in today’s society.” Perhaps indeed, but
the statements made by Eren and the school
shooter, two young and highly motivated
perpetrators of mass murder, also vary gravely
in that the latter professes mankind to be
inherently evil and the world (which, as he says,
ought to be given back to the animals)

24 See http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/ 25 Eric Harris’s Journal.


350kPEEHeideggerSelf-Assertion.pdf (accessed 26 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and
10/1/2021). Representation, vol. 3, p. 112.

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FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

Fig. A: Eldian residents of the Liberio Internment Zone


in Marley, Hajime Isayama, chapter 85, The Basement

Fig. C: Cover art for the first volume of Attack on Titan,


Hajime Isayama, 2009

Fig. B: White Army propaganda poster depicting


Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, unknown, c. 1920

Works Cited

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https://kotaku.com/china-banned-attack-on-titan-death-note-and-more-1710016281.
Accessed Oct. 25, 2019.
Churchill, Winston. The Lights are Going Out, 1938.

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FILM & HISTORY 51.2 (WINTER 2021)

Ehrenburg, Ilya and Konstantin Simonov. In One Newspaper: A Chronicle of Unforgettable Years.
Moscow: Sphinx Press, 1985.
Harris, Eric. “Eric Harris’s Journal.” School Shooters Info. Transcribed and annotated by Peter
Langman. https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/harris_journal_1.3.pdf. Accessed
Dec. 10, 2019.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. New York: State University of New York Press, 1962.
Herzog, Dagmar. Sex After Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth Century Germany. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2007.
Isayama, Hajime. Shingeki no Kyojin. Tokyo, Kodansha, 2009.
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of German Film. Princeton: Princeton
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Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
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Speelman, Tom. “The Fascist Subtext of Attack on Titan Can’t Go Overlooked.” Polygon, Jun. 18,
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Szobar, Patricia. “Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi Courts of Law.” Journal of the History of Sexuality,
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Super Eyepatch Wolf. “What Makes Attack on Titan So Popular?” YouTube, uploaded May 27, 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaPSzvMO8Fo.
Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
“Top-Selling Manga in Japan by Series: 2013.” Anime News Network, Dec. 1, 2013. Archived from the
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Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 1, 1974. Accessed Nov. 23, 2019.
Zöberlin, Hans. Der Befehl des Gewissens. Berlin: Zentraverlag der NSDAP, 1938.

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