In the last couple days the same Attack on Titan controversy that pops up once in while came back: does Isayama supports imperialism, nazism or antisemitism?

The answer is probably not, and here I'm going to explain why and how it all started:

It all started in 2010, when Isayama made a post on his blog about the general of the japanese empire he used as inspiration for Pixis. The general name is Yoshifuru Akiyama, and on that post Isayama said that he was "respectable and frugal".

The original post is from 2010, but the controversy only started in 2013, when the anime first aired.
Yoshifuru Akiyama committed many war crimes, especially in China and Korea, and when the fans from those countries found out about this post, they got really angry.

If to Japan that man was a war hero, for China and Korea he was a monster. The fans got really offended and on that time Isayama received many death threats.

Around that time that was also this tweet account that claimed to be him, and that account made lots of comments defending japanese imperialism. It was never confirmed if that account was actually his.

His only checked social media is his blog: http://blog.livedoor.jp/isayamahazime/ 

and his editor does has a twitter account: https://twitter.com/ShingekiKyojin 

The years went on and he never talked about that subject again, that made a lot of fans get really apprehensive, since the manga has a military theme and also seems to be nacionalist. But everyone who is still reading the manga knows that his thoughts are not the same.

Here below, the MANGA SPOILERS start, so don't read if you don't want to get spoiled!

In the manga, right now, the plot became more political, and the main discussion is about two people: eldians (the titans) and marleyans, they have a long history of blood and oppression. In the present, marleyans are on the top, but eldians had ruled the world +

for centuries before that and are hated by the whole world.
The eldian people are the ones capable of turning into titans, it all started 2000 years ago when their ancestral, Ymir, obtained the power of titans. The members of the royal family of Eldia are her direct descendants+

and their titan, that is passed through generations, has an special power called "the Coordinate." Using that power, the king can control the bodies and minds of their people and, also, can turn them into “mindless” titans.

At some point of the history, one of the kings started to use those titans to invade and control another countries, and the first one was Marley, which was also the closest country. They did that for a thousand years, till a king called Karl Fritz decided his people already+

caused enough disgraces and decided to lock part of his people behind walls, so they could live in a "paradise" waiting for the day the world would judge them, death or forgiveness.

Karl also made a pact with his titan so all of the royal family wouldn't be able to use the coordinate power to destroy another countries again.

Although, Karl hadn’t brought all the eldians with him to the walls, some stayed on marleyan territory and they were locked up in walled ghettos and use armbands as identification, like in an apartheid regime, and are treated like second class citizens+

even the current generations who had nothing to to with the empire in the first place. These eldians are the people of Reiner, Bertholdt and Annie.

In the meantime, an eldian who lived in marleyan territory started to have an extreme behave and opinions after he realized who fucked up was his people’s situation in Marley. However, his (justified) hatred made him start denying that the eldian people were capable of doing+

terrible things in the past and he claimed that eldians only did good things to the other nations they invaded, and tha Marley made up those lies to harm the eldians.

That character is Grisha Yeager, Eren's dad.

Please, note that he affirmed this without even being able to read those ancient documents.

To Grisha’s ultranationalist eldian group, their ancestral Ymir was only capable of doing good things, and she was a goddess that blessed them with those amazing titan powers. To the other nations they invaded and destroyed, Ymir is a demon and her people are cursed.

In the same way that for Japan Yoshifuru Akiyama is a hero, and for China and Korea he is a monster.

So Isayama is actually talking about it in the manga. If Grisha was portrayed as someone who was right it would be really problematic, but he is not.

In fact Grisha is a terrible man who managed to curse the life of both of his sons and if it wasn't for him a lot of terrible things that happened in the plot wouldn't had happened. He got so blind and was so obsessed for his ideals he used his kid as a weapon, cursing his life

The guy hated Marley so much for his people current situation (with reason) that he was planning to revive the Eldian Empire and rule the world again because “his ancestors were right”. Not a very good solution to the problem, tho.

Here Isayama shows extremism and hate resulting in more extremism and hate, like a vicious cycle.

And when Grisha finally got part of his revenge, he understood that it was not worth it. He lost everything because of it and even when he saw the marleyan officer who killed his sister dying, it didn't make him feel better.

So by making Grisha go through all that process and it being made the way it was, Isayama is clearing saying that he doesn't think like Grisha, or at least not anymore.

It's also worth noticing that the things Grisha said are usually used by colonialist countries to defend+

themselves. Things like: "we only bring technological advance to our colonies" are still taught in history class on some countries, and it completely ignores the genocide and slavery they did in most of their colonies.

Like what Europe did to Latin America and Africa, and what Japan did in Korea and China.

"Ok, I got it, he probably does not supports imperialism, but what about the nazism or antisemitism?"

Even though the manga has a lot of visual references to the european side of WW1 and WW2, it also makes a lot of references to Japan's and Asia's modern history.

The author uses many of those visual references in other contexts, and on this case he decided to use the most famous reference to a group of people being treated as second class citizens and apartheid regime.

Don't get me wrong, this is not free from criticism, people have good reasons to be uncomfortable, this is a super serious theme and there's a lot of chances it could get offensive really quick!

And if someone does feels uncomfortable by it, they have the right to not like it or not read it and the fans should respect that. But it's also good to point out that only because a piece of media discusses some theme, it doesn't mean it is supporting it.

In fact, it appears on the manga as a form of criticism.

The Eldian Empire did terrible things, but the current eldians don't deserve to be treated by Marley the way they are, and Isayama makes that explicit. The story is still on going and we have a lot of things to find out, but the way it is portrayed in the manga is not positive+

they don't deserve that. But I'll talk more about it in a bit.

For many of us fans, the manga makes criticisms of wars. I know there's a lot of people who claim that "they didn't had other choice rather than start a war!!" but that attitude is bringing terrible consequences to everybody in the manga.

It's our instinct to think the main characters are always right, and whoever are opposed to them are terrible villains, but on SnK it's not that easy. Most of the character are suffering because of attitudes and decisions they made on the first arcs of the manga, and it really +

makes us think about what would be the right and the wrong thing to do.
There's also a few more important topics that deserve to be discussed, like the idea of the "right history". On the one hand, Marley teaches kids about how eldians made terrible things to them and that's why+

they deserve to suffer, to pay for their ancestors’ sins. But on the other hand, we have the ultranationalist eldians claiming the Eldian Empire did nothing wrong, and other eldians saying the events Marley teaches did happened but they weren’t that bad.

So what is the "right version of story"? We guess the marleyan version is probably the closer to the truth, because they don't try to erase the facts that happened, like Grisha used to do most of time. And the way the King Karl Fritz acted really makes us think the eldians+

did terrible things that should never be repeated.

If you still believe in Grisha's version of the history, even after chapter 114, it's time to make a more critical analysis on how the Coordinate works and how the eldian people also suffer because of it. The Coordinate only benefits the higher parts of the eldian society and+

the normal people are fated to suffer and be controlled by it.

It's nice to highlight that no matter what Eldia did in the past, the eldians that are alive today really do not deserve to suffer for their past mistakes. Marley keeps using tactics used by the Eldian Empire, using the normal eldian people as weapons, and treating eldians like+

second class citizens because of their blood. That’s disgusting!

But still, Eldia, as a nation, has to admit and recognize all of their past mistakes. If you don't learn about your past and recognize its bad parts, you're fated to repeat it. And that's the kind of discussion that is happening on the manga right now with the Kaya and Gabi+

subplot about "don’t hate each other as individuals in the present because of your countries’ past mistakes", and with the emergence of an terrible extremist movement inside the walls, claiming for the return of the Eldian Empire.

So again: Eldians while individuals don't deserve to pay for the mistakes of their past, but they, as a nation, do have to find ways to make up for it.

About a hundred years ago, when Karl Fritz stole the memories of his people and tried to pretend that nothing ever happened, he also created another problem.

It seems that the best way for all those nations come to an agreement is reflected on Kenny's and Uri's relationship.

Kenny is a member of the Ackerman clan, and Uri was one of the kings. The power of the Coordinate doesn’t work on Ackermans, so when they betrayed the royal family, the Karl Fritz’s order was to kill them all.

Kenny tried to kill Uri to avenge what the royal family did to the Ackermans in the past, but Uri, instead of trying to attack him back, only defended himself and said he was sorry for everything his family did to the Ackermans in the past.

Even if Uri wasn't the king who started to kill and persecute the Ackermans and even if Kenny wasn't from a generation that turned their back to the royal family, the consequences of those past acts reverberates through the ages and affects individuals on the present time.

Uri being able to recognize and say he was sorry for everything, even if it wasn't directly his fault, was a symbolic act, even if was the very minimum to compensate for all those mistakes. That's how Kenny forgave him and how they became friends, despite being so different.

This is the end of the thread, and I hope you enjoy it! And keep in mind none of the characters are free from criticism, no matter how much you love them.

And please give a chance to the manga, rn there's not many medias that make you debate and think about those very complicated themes.