Time Writer | Flowers Without Banquet
Pilgrims in movies, night watchman in words.
In 2009, the comic book "The Attacking Giant" was born.
With the hard-core painting style, the setting of curiosity, and the brain hole against the sky, it has gained a high degree of enthusiasm, opening a new era of glory for Japanese animation and becoming an important work with epoch-making significance.
In 2013, the TV version of "The Attacking Giant" was launched, which pushed the IP discussion to a new peak.
Even if many viewers haven’t seen this cartoon, they should still remember its classic lines-
"On that day, mankind finally recalled the fear of being dominated by giants and the humiliation of being trapped in a birdcage."
It can be said that "The Attack Giant" occupies no less position in the animation industry than "Game of Thrones" in the American drama industry.
Unfortunately, however, these two works have one heartbreaking thing in common in the minds of fans-rotten tails!
The source of the picture comes from the network
On April 8, 2021, the comic version officially ended, and the author Lushan Chuang personally ended it with an unexpected ending.
After the end, many fans lambasted the author and publicly boycotted the work.
A large number of jokes have appeared on the Internet, mocking how outrageous its ending is, such as "Harry Potter went back to the past and manipulated Voldemort to kill his parents" and "Batman went back to the past and bought a thief to kill his parents".
The original party has been begging for a "magic change" ending in the TV version, making up for some regrets in the comic version and making it more "reasonable".
And after the final season of "The Attacking Giant" Part.2 came out, it really saved a few meager faces for this work with the continuous advanced production level.
Not long ago, the production team officially announced the postponement of the broadcast of the finale, which made fans begin to expect a different trend, at least a more detailed plot extension.
Anyway, wait patiently for the time being.
At the end of the animation, Time Jun also wants to say a few more words to bid farewell to it.
Reminder: The following content involves serious spoilers.
As an epic masterpiece, The Attacking Giant has a huge world outlook.
Two thousand years ago, Ymir, the ancestor of the Eldiya people, unexpectedly possessed the power of giants.
Ymir’s descendants can become clean giants (commonly known as "brainless giants") or intelligent giants with overwhelming fighting power as long as they get an opportunity.
Therefore, the Eldiya people have become the object of common fear of mankind all over the world.
Later, King Fritz, who inherited the power of giants, ruled the world by force and oppressed other nations.
It was not until King Fritz took office in 145 that the world situation was turned upside down.
Pursuing peace, he was tired of military oppression, led his people to retreat to Paradi Island, built three high walls on the island, and erased the memories of his people with the power of giants.
The first story of "The Attacking Giant" happened in such a big background.
Paradi Island maintained peace for a hundred years, which was broken by the arrival of giants outside the wall.
The solid city walls were destroyed by super-large giants, and innocent giants broke into the city and brutally killed human beings.
Allen, the protagonist of a teenager, witnessed his mother being eaten by a giant, but there was nothing he could do.
Allen, who lost his loved ones, joined the investigation corps together with his childhood partners, San Li and Amin.
The investigation corps is one of the three major corps in China. They wander outside the wall, fighting with giants and searching for information about giants. In terms of their functions, they are somewhat similar to the night watchman in Quan You.
The whole article revolves around the perspective of Allen and others. Every time a mystery is solved, a puzzle will be obtained, which will eventually pull out the iceberg of the whole giant world.
With the accumulation of information in their hands, Allen and others learned the cruel truth one after another:
Eldiya people are descendants of giants, and Allen also inherited the power of giants. The war in front of us is not a war between people and giants, but a war between people …
Across the sea from Paradi Island is a country called Malai.
Malai, who pursued the militaristic system, was oppressed by Erdia for thousands of years.
The hatred education handed down from generation to generation has made Malai people have a hard-to-understand hatred for the Eldiya people. They put the remaining Eldiya people in the country into shelters and regard them as "descendants of the devil".
Ironically, after being brainwashed by the government, the majority of the Eldiya people in the shelter agreed with the hatred of the Malai people, and attributed the blame to their compatriots in Paradi Island, believing that the people on the island are both real demons and the source of their own suffering.
So, in order to bring down the devil and destroy the Erdia Empire, Marais planned a "broken wall plan" to provoke the war.
The Attack of the Giants goes from shallow to deep, and each season has a distinct theme.
The first season is freedom, the second season is justice, the third season is war and the fourth season is destruction and rebirth.
After entering the final season, The Attacking Giant completely got rid of the structure of young people’s blood, introduced a more macroscopic and subversive concept, and mentioned the horror of killing, the cry of war, the cry of freedom and the gap between classes without modification, to face the gloomy human nature and the cycle of history.
In the final season, part1 made a bold attempt from the perspective, revealing the story across the sea with "Malay Articles" and telling different positions in the same war, so that the two countries that were originally tit-for-tat had a mirror image of each other.
Part2 carries on the story of part1, moving the battlefield from Malai to Paradi Island, turning Allen from "Ai Dao" into "Chairman Ai", and starting the plan of extermination-launching Di Ming.
After the earth chimed, Allen, with the help of Ymir, awakened the giant in the high wall, let the giant step over all the land outside the island, and trampled and crushed countless innocent lives.
At this time, Allen, as if possessed by Hitler, changed from a "lamb to be slaughtered" to a "man with a knife". In order to protect his nation, he did not hesitate to destroy the whole world.
In the final analysis, what "The Attacking Giant" really wants to talk about is the process of a victim turning into an offender.
Lushan Chuang once said in an interview, "The hero thinks he is a partner of justice because of his own subjective factors. Basically, because of his own subjectivity, he subconsciously thinks that he is not wrong. Anyone can be a perpetrator, and everyone has a bad side in their hearts. "
However, unlike Hitler in history textbooks, as an audience, we have followed Allen through a series of ups and downs.
Emotionally, we are more likely to empathize with him and understand the fundamental purpose of his doing so-to protect the people we value most from persecution by other nationalities.
In the last sentence of the cartoon, Lushan Chuang hinted that Allen used his ability to predict the future and interfere in the past to manipulate the giant to eat his mother in the past to complete the closed loop of the causal chain.
The setting of this mother-killing has become the biggest controversy in the original.
Although this move satisfies the plot setting of the snake, it is unacceptable in emotional ethics.
In addition, another unacceptable setting is that the curse of the giant has lasted for thousands of years because Ymir, as a slave, fell in love with the slave owner Fritz, who destroyed himself, and was willing to be a cow and a horse for him.
The way to relieve the giant’s power is to kill Allen by San Li himself to warn Ymir that true love should not come from control.
Although this setting creates a strong sense of surprise, it looks more like reversal for the sake of reversal.
No matter how San Li feels about Allen, or how Ymir feels about King Fritz, there is no deep clue to shake people’s hearts.
For fans, this is actually an resentful creative injury-it should have been a solemn farewell, revealing a frivolous spirit.
At present, it seems that the plot of Part.2 is in the same strain as the comic book, and it has not been changed much, but most viewers have given it greater tolerance from the perspective of feelings.
With more and more interpretations, I began to understand the author’s intention and Allen’s choice …
Although the ending is not satisfactory, as far as the anti-war stance is concerned, the breakthrough made by the attacking giant is still obvious to all.
It is like a mirror hanging on the top, reflecting the cycle of hatred between nations and the past, present and future of mankind.
The identity change between the offender and the victim has been staged in history countless times, and hatred is constantly passed on in the hands of losers like a torch.
The intertwined hatred among ethnic groups has never dissipated and continues to affect the real world today.
The ending "collapse" of "The Attacking Giant" just symbolizes the interest dispute that the human world will never calm down and stick together forever-
How to end these contradictory social dilemmas, namely centralization and freedom, fairness and class, obedience to loyalty and independence, and national and personal interests?
Perhaps, everything, in the end, can only be left to time to answer slowly.
In the new year, we need you! Time Jun is now openly recruiting "writers", with generous manuscript fees and movie-watching benefits. The specific requirements are as follows: 1. Can write articles that conform to the tonality of our content; 2. Deep confusion, unique viewpoint, clear logic and concise writing; 3. Don’t drag the manuscript, don’t wash the manuscript, and accept the revision; 4. Relevant writing experience is preferred. Please send your resume +3 original manuscripts to: mtime9999@163.com.