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NEWS: Attack on Titan Franchise Halts Sales of Eldian Armbands


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RockSplash



Joined: 28 Oct 2019
Posts: 495
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Rentwo wrote:
Replica_Rabbit wrote:
Fun fact, Whitebeard's Pirtare flag had a Manji until Oda and his team realize it was problematic and change it.


Correction: Oda did not want to change it but was forced to by Shueisha. Oda would later go on to reference actual Nazi imagery when creating the Germa Kingdom and their not-so-subble ᛋᛋ flag so it's unlikely he had any reservations about that stuff. He was basically censored by higher ups.


To be fair, the Germa are villians, and I imagine the reservation was less that he wanted something problamatic, but he was more bothered that other countries thought the Manji was a swatiska. I have heard a lot of examples of "PC" in anime is due to ignorance. Ishimori, despite having stories dealing with racism, would not have realized Cyborg 005 looked like a stereotype.
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mtza



Joined: 12 Feb 2021
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:28 pm Reply with quote
Unusually for me, I'm going to say pulling it was probably the right decision (though obviously I question the decision to give this the OK in the first place). AoT pulling so directly from real-world history with its imagery could be interpreted as borderline crass even within the context of the series itself, but the decision to merchandise it was just straight-up gratuitous.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:41 pm Reply with quote
FunkyDude88 wrote:
Meanwhile Bandai sells everything from patches to shirts with the Zeon flag that literally have "Sieg Zeon!" written on them. They also currently have pre-orders up for Zeon Iron Cross pins.
The Iron Cross was around long before the Nazis, and therefore shouldn't be thought of as a Nazi symbol.
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NeverConvex
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Joined: 08 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:52 pm Reply with quote
I find myself on both sides of this sort of debate pretty frequently, but I don't really see how there's any question, here. Any given person's intentions aside, "try not to commercially sell and encourage people to widely wear, as a fashion accessory, paraphernalia that will directly and frequently evoke in other people images of the treatment of Jewish people in Nazi Germany" seems like a really, really basic level of civility to request.
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Connor Dino



Joined: 20 Dec 2010
Posts: 292
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 3:53 pm Reply with quote
There was some girl on youtube who live-reacted to the trailer of season 4 of AOT...and she was wearing the soldier version of the arm band...I hve no idea where she gotnit but it was NOT a good look.

Have no idea why people thought this was a good idea.
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor


Joined: 19 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:50 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
FunkyDude88 wrote:
Meanwhile Bandai sells everything from patches to shirts with the Zeon flag that literally have "Sieg Zeon!" written on them. They also currently have pre-orders up for Zeon Iron Cross pins.
The Iron Cross was around long before the Nazis, and therefore shouldn't be thought of as a Nazi symbol.

Except it now is because of their actions. The meanings of things change as they are used. There's a reason the most of the people you still see wearing the Iron Cross are doing so as a stand in for more outright symbols like the swastika.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:16 pm Reply with quote
ATastySub wrote:
Except it now is because of their actions. The meanings of things change as they are used. There's a reason the most of the people you still see wearing the Iron Cross are doing so as a stand in for more outright symbols like the swastika.
We should not let that be, we should maintain that it is not a Nazi symbol. What about all those soldiers who were awarded it during the first world war, why should they be indirectly associated with the Nazis.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2242
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:16 pm Reply with quote
mrsatan wrote:
I'm going to be honest, I wish AoT had never "gone there" in the first place.


I’ll join you on that lonely hill. Granted, overall, I find a lot of media is guilty of using Nazi imagery more for window dressing than anything else (as much as I still love Captain America), but it just seems particularly egregious in anime, AoT especially. Maybe a better writer could have used it more skillfully, but for where the story ultimately ended up, I don’t feel like the parallels worked, and that is some very loaded imagery to just toss in semi-casually.
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 5:49 pm Reply with quote
Frankly armbands have been out of vogue for a long while anyway. If you wanna display pride in anything, just put it on a shirt. At least then if you're invoking discrimination it's in style. Hasn't South Park taught us anything?

In all seriousness, any emblem can invoke offense if you imagine it enough so. A Ravens fan can get riled up from seeing somebody wearing a Steelers shirt in the vicinity. And Jets fans aren't feeling very acceptable either I recall.
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Replica_Rabbit



Joined: 23 Aug 2015
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Location: Portland
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:04 pm Reply with quote
Rentwo wrote:
Replica_Rabbit wrote:
Fun fact, Whitebeard's Pirtare flag had a Manji until Oda and his team realize it was problematic and change it.


Correction: Oda did not want to change it but was forced to by Shueisha. Oda would later go on to reference actual Nazi imagery when creating the Germa Kingdom and their not-so-subble ᛋᛋ flag so it's unlikely he had any reservations about that stuff. He was basically censored by higher ups.

Germa 66 are the villains, Whitebeard pirates are the good guys. It is totally different and Germa 66 is based on a Kamen Rider villain group Shocker an army of evil people (that was also based on Nazis).
Also, where did Oda say he didn't want to change it? (I remember the higher-ups asked him to change it?) I'm pretty sure Oda has the same amount of power as Kubo (Ichigo is running away with a Manji) and Kishimoto if he didn't want to change it Jump couldn't force him to do anything.
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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1193
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:34 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
babajones wrote:
This is stupid...Armbands does not harm anyone..... The anime already have characters with Armbands but somehow if people cosplay these character with Armbands then it symbol of oppression ?? Really ??

Context matters. When the armbands are specifically associated with a persecuted group (in the sense that the persecuted group is forced to wear them) then yes, they're a blatant symbol of oppression.

EDIT: To be clear, using them in the story isn't necessarily a problem, since they're used (however crudely) to make a story point. However, making money off of selling something like that is ugly.


Yeah, armbands appear in school settings in anime/manga all the time, because they're an actual thing, culturally/socially. Nowhere near the same as a designation of an oppressed/persecuted group, so folk's defense of it being an anime thing doesn't really work here.

Rentwo wrote:
Correction: Oda did not want to change it but was forced to by Shueisha. Oda would later go on to reference actual Nazi imagery when creating the Germa Kingdom and their not-so-subble ᛋᛋ flag so it's unlikely he had any reservations about that stuff. He was basically censored by higher ups.


I mean you can call it censoring if you want to. Shueisha either figured it would bother folks, and/or, more likely, would hamper sales in Western countries. The change was announced in 2006, and we didn't get the early volumes featuring it until 2008(and it was left as-is in the physical volumes. Checking now, it is still the old manji version on Viz's online reader). So it's not even truly "censored" here. This is a series about a rag-tag group of good people fighting against an authoritarian government and other would-be dictators; Oda is very much not whatever anti-woke/PC hero you seem to want him to be.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
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Location: australia
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:42 pm Reply with quote
"Let's make armband merch! This cannot go wrong in any possible way."
A few days later: "Oh no! It went wrong in every possible way."

I understand wanting to pump out more merch, especially as hype for the new season rises, but damn was this an ill thought out move.
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RockSplash



Joined: 28 Oct 2019
Posts: 495
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:44 pm Reply with quote
harminia wrote:
"Let's make armband merch! This cannot go wrong in any possible way."
A few days later: "Oh no! It went wrong in every possible way."

I understand wanting to pump out more merch, especially as hype for the new season rises, but damn was this an ill thought out move.


As someone getting a marketing degree, trust me, it's not the only poor merchendise descision. In fact, there is much worse out there.
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1987
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:57 pm Reply with quote
RockSplash wrote:
As someone getting a marketing degree, trust me, it's not the only poor merchendise descision. In fact, there is much worse out there.


Oh, absolutely, I see poor merch decisions and marketing decisions online more frequently than I should.
I know this isn't even near the tip of the iceberg but it's certainly an awful, idiotic idea that clearly didn't have much thought put into it.
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RockSplash



Joined: 28 Oct 2019
Posts: 495
PostPosted: Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:59 pm Reply with quote
harminia wrote:
RockSplash wrote:
As someone getting a marketing degree, trust me, it's not the only poor merchendise descision. In fact, there is much worse out there.


Oh, absolutely, I see poor merch decisions and marketing decisions online more frequently than I should.
I know this isn't even near the tip of the iceberg but it's certainly an awful, idiotic idea that clearly didn't have much thought put into it.


Can anyone source or have proof to what I am about to say? Forgive me if I am wrong, but I read somewhere that Japan skips over a lot of world war 2 in school, and because of that many Japanese do not comprehend the sensitivity. I won't pretend America is any better, but in comparison WW2 is the one of 3 events you learn about in school the most.
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