For many readers, I think this is our first meeting.
My name is Ukyo Kodachi. I contribute military-related ideas for the main Attack on Titan series.
One tie has led to another, and I’ve been entrusted with the estimable task of commenting on this volume. If you would kindly indulge me, I would be most happy.
The tale called Attack on Titan has many essences, but I believe one of them is the idea of resisting.
Today, in the so-called postmodern era, we are all equally exposed to the raging waves of the times.
Ours differ from the Cold War era of the twentieth century. Everyone understood it as an era of nuclear war but turned a blind eye in order to enjoy a modicum of peace.
The kind of ruin that we face now isn’t “the certain destruction of nukes” but rather uncertainties that strangle us slowly, be they economic, environmental, or terrorist.
Confronted with ruin, are we not exposed to the heavy pressure of having to choose between “resisting it” and “getting slaughtered”?
Naturally, no matter the region or place, having to resist the times is a universal. The fact that it’s not just contemporary but universal─isn’t that why Attack on Titan became so widely loved?
This novel is, without a doubt, a tale of “resistance”: people resisting and confronting a desperate, hopelessly cruel fate.
It’s not just that there are giants who devour humans.
On a more basic level, it’s about Mathias, Rita, everyone, confronting reality.
They don’t fight just because there are Titans, but to fend off calamity itself, on behalf of those trampled underfoot and for their own sakes, losing something by it but gaining something else.
Surely, this more than anything else is proof that we have an Attack on Titan piece here.
It concerns what the character called Rita would but could not protect, and what she selects and chooses then. It also concerns what it is that Mathias recovers and gains in the process.
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I’ve gone on too long about what captured my feelings.
Now, a little commentary from the angle of military affairs.
A big theme of this book is “defense.”
Fighting in defense does wonders for morale. That’s because among all wars it’s the easiest kind to justify.
You can tell from the fact that “defense” is the justification for most wars. Protecting the people from lawless invaders who threaten the homeland is not a difficult logic to comprehend.
But in reality, defensive fighting is very grueling.
That’s because the fighting never “ends.”
Not so for the attacking side─if the castle falls, or the other country is made no more, or all the humans in the city are eaten, it ends there.
The defending side has to fight endlessly “until the attackers decide to quit,” so there’s no breakoff point. Moreover, being on the defensive doesn’t guarantee allies or reinforcements. Being unable to acquire anything from the enemy (if you could do that, you’d beat them back), there’s the fear that the situation might only deteriorate.
This is evident from modern-day counterterrorism.
Terrorists are able to attack our cities and settlements freely and in their own time. They’re elusive, and the attack’s cost is far cheaper than the defending side’s costs.
But not putting up a guard is not an option. That signifies defeat.
Defensive warfare is always a question of how to keep up that guard and how to suffer a conflict that never ends.
Thus, for both the rank-and-file and their commanders, and for the civilians too, how to “resist” and how to bring things to a close are tough issues.
The side that repels the enemy and “wins” a defensive war frequently perpetrates gruesome tragedies against itself, shedding blood as freely inside as it did outside.
The reader who traced the path this tale took knows this.
It is not a fight where some overwhelming divine power scorches all of the marauding enemies and nothing is lost.
Something is lost in every battle, order is destroyed, and in the end, the land to be protected might be forfeit itself.
What Mathias and the others decide in the end is one form of this. You could argue they did “defend” what was worth defending or just as well as that they didn’t.
Regarding Mathias, you could even say he’s only begun to protect.
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Forgive me that lengthy digression.
The curtain falls on the tale for now, but I hope we meet again.
Please continue to bestow your favor on Attack on Titan.
2015, Lucky Day in Spring
Ukyo Kodachi