I’m going to be completely matter-of-fact about this; I watch Attack on Titan.

And it’s good! I don’t regret watching it. It’s fast-paced and almost every second episode has a twist. It’s beautifully animated and the characters are varied and interesting. Rarely does an anime hold my attention this long as, from my personal observation, a lot of them drag on.

That being said…I have an issue with it. A race issue. Feel free to cop out. I know some of you are already tuning this out as soon as I said “race”. That’s fine. Just don’t read any further.

Now, I can’t promise to provide fully informed opinions on Attack on Titan. I only watched the anime and only read up to chapter 6 of the manga (even then, I started skimming halfway; I’m not a patient reader if I already know what happens next). I rarely read the “Information for Public Disclosure” sections because, truth be told, I find them long-winded. With all that said, I grant you permission to blow my head off in case I get some shit wrong because most likely I will.

From my basic understanding, Attack on Titan is set in some part of Europe. The vast majority of the inhabitants are of Western European descent, if their features and their names are indicative of anything. The only non-white character that I am currently aware of is Mikasa Ackerman, whose mother was confirmed to be…“Oriental”. Or “Asian”, if you refer to the anime.

Not sure what type of “Asian” Mikasa’s mother is. Is she Japanese? Chinese? Korean? No true confirmation. But that is not the true focus of this essay.

Look at what the subtitles in this caption says: “The rest of the Asians went extinct”. As in, there are no more Asians, as far as the audience is concerned. They were all wiped out by the Titans.

And check this out:

From my understanding, this one line pretty much admits that the world that Attack on Titan is set in is an all-white location. There are no more races; they all went extinct, with only the white people left to build their walls and defend themselves.

And that’s my issue. Why is it that only white people were able to survive, save for Mikasa’s mother’s ancestors (the “Oriental” woman)? Better question: where are the European people of colour? Did they somehow become extinct as well? I’m starting to think that the white people just threw them out as Titan bait to give themselves time to build their walls.

I don’t like the implications of this. Were the other races just not smart enough to survive? Did we die out because of our simplicity? Moreover, the erasure of POC Europeans in this show is rather…troubling. Where are those of African descent? Of Middle Eastern descent? Where are they? How did that one family of “Asians” make it to the Walls and no other person of colour has?

I understand that the knowledge on people in the Outside World is severely limited. The only other “clan” of humans known to us right now are the “Titan Shifters”, but there is little to no information on these people.

I get it. Japan has issues with including non-Japanese POC in their shows. When they do, it can become… problematic.

I know that Chinese characters are often subjected to age-old stereotypes in anime and most other races are pretty much non-existent. The only anime that I know of that actually depicts non-Japanese POC is Michiko e Hatchin, a show based in a fictional version of Brazil.

Outside of this, I know of few other anime that actually do a somewhat decent job of depicting non-Japanese POC. I’ve seen quite a few anime based in some fictional part of Europe: Full Metal Alchemist, Rose of Versailles, Baccano!, Haibane Renmei, Valkyria Chronicles, Victorian Romance Emma, and, obviously, Attack on Titan being among them.

Obviously, I am not Japanese. I didn’t grow up there and I’ve never been there. Therefore, my opinion on their media is heavily skewed. I speak from an outsider’s perspective and, thus, I cannot claim that this piece is informed in any way. If you feel I said something wrong, I welcome you to challenge me on this. Whatever the case, I just don’t think this looks very good. My hesitance to watch anime these days comes from this very issue. And it’s a shame that yet another Tumblr-famous anime seems to contribute to it, with no one coming out to question it.

Perhaps the social justice community has better and bigger things to tackle. Maybe I’m just making a big deal out of nothing. Whatever the case, as an ex-anime fan, I felt the need to divulge my grievances concerning Attack on Titan and even Japanese animation in general. Take them as you will.