attack

For the past few years, whenever we get together, my friend Hannah and I watch the hit anime Attack on Titan. We only watch it together because it is too horrifying to watch alone. The premise is this: as far back as anyone can remember, all of humanity has lived within a series of enormous and mysterious concentric walls. The walls protect the humans from the Titans, a race of grotesque, gigantic humanoids who feast on humans. One day, the outermost wall is breached and the titans invade, devouring countless humans including our protagonist Eren's mother. Traumatized but not broken, Eren joins the Scouts, the elite group of warriors who go on missions beyond the walls and slay titans using their omni-directional maneuver gear. SPOILER: turns out that titans are actually humans who have been converted somehow, by what mechanism we do not yet know

Attack on Titan can be read as an allegory for pretty much whatever you want. Youth in Hong Kong drew on imagery from the show during the protests to depict mainland China as titans threatening to annihilate their beleaguered city. Sometimes I think the titans are the forces of Capital. I'm sure there's some immigration narrative there. But watching it this time I only think of disease. All of humanity lives in quarantine. The titans must be contained. Any encounters with the invaders/disease inevitably result in huge losses of life. Has anyone else watched this show? It's sooooo delightfully gruesome and terrifying!