I’d been hearing about how great this show was for years, and I finally got around to giving it a watch with a buddy who also hadn’t seen it. (I haven’t gotten through the last two episodes, but I wanted to get this done before New Years’, and I don’t ~think~ they have an intro sequence, anyway). Plot twist: AoT is a good show! (Unless it all turns out to be a dream in the end, in which case it’s not.)
…but this article isn’t about whether the show is good or not. This article is about cherry-picking visuals and lyrics from the show’s 7 intro sequences and then ranking them based on how much Japanese nationalism I could “find” in each. Honestly, some of these are a bit of a stretch…but that’s what makes it fun.
We’ll go from least to most nationalistic, starting with…
1) Season 3, 1st Intro: Red Swan by YOSHIKI feat. HYDE
Here you’ll find some brief rising sun imagery (and, honestly, not every sunrise has to do with Japanese nationalism)…but this intro’s otherwise inoffensive. Not a bad song, either.
2) Season 1, 2nd Intro: Jiyuu no Tsubasa (Wings of Freedom) by Linked Horizon
Add a couple of lines in Italian, and you’d have the Village People of the Axis powers. Yikes. [Followup joke edited out for reasons of common decency]
3) Season 1, 1st Intro: Feuerroter Pfeil und Bogen (Crimson Bow and Arrow) by Linked Horizon
The title of the song makes me uncomfortable. It sounds like something a Nazi would shout (not “say” – Nazis always shout) about disappointing pastries. The only questionable thing I could find was the following lyric, which, if read in a certain light, implies a desire for complete Japanese domination of the Pacific region: “The humiliation of being caged is what triggers us to fight”. That’s the kind of thing only angry parrots and Japanese nationalists say.
4) Final Season, 2nd Intro: The Rumbling by SiM
There’s lots of generic WWII visual language in this intro – some of the characters are wearing ’30s-’40s – style uniforms, the Cart Titan is hauling around an old-school artillery cannon, and there are battleships blowing stuff up. You can also see prominent “rising sun” – style lines around Eren (the protagonist)’s eyes at 1:24.
Borderline-uncomfortable World War 2 vibes aside, this is a fun, catchy song. I sing it to myself every time I take a shit.
5) Season 2 Intro: Shinzou wo Sasageyo (Dedicate your Heart) by Linked Horizon
This one’s got a few houses getting blown away (as they might in a nuclear blast), but I feel like it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it counts as nationalist imagery, especially when there are much more obvious examples of nuclear(ish) detonations in the other intros. That being said, let me bring some lyrics to your attention:
The one[s] who shall betray the past
They are the ones that we have to exterminate
…uh, holy shit. Getting some real Otoya Yamaguchi[1] vibes from that one.
6) Season 3, 2nd Intro: Shoukei to Shikabane no Michi (Path of Aspirations and Corpses) by Linked Horizon
This is where things start getting truly bonkers. It kicks off with a city getting blown the fuck up by a nuke; later on, you’ll notice a number of burning buildings that recall the firebombing of Tokyo. The Beast Titan, a big, hairy monster from abroad, is destroying the main characters’ lives by throwing rocks like they’re fucking baseballs. If that ain’t American as Die Hard, I don’t know what is. Last (but not least), you can spot red lines around Eren’s eyes that sure as hell look like the rising sun logo. Is it a logo? Maybe an emblem? Eh, who gives a shit – we won the war.
7) Final Season, 1st Intro: My War by Shinsei Kamattechan
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Bro are you serious? This intro is a cornucopia of nationalist insanity. We’ve got what looks like an internment camp getting nuked. We’ve got somebody in a GI uniform burning shit with a flamethrower. We’ve got a bunch of soldiers firing rockets. We’ve got old-school battleships blasting away. We’ve got MORE nukes. So many nukes. More nukes than is reasonable, certainly. Fuck, we only needed two.
Oh, yeah – Happy New Year.
PS – If you’re planning on mailing me something poisonous, remember that I liked the show. Also please note that I did minimal (no) background research for this article, unless you count a vague knowledge that the manga got dinged for some “questionable” themes and watching the show’s intros a bunch of times. Anyway – thanks for reading! XOXO