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NEWS: Attack on Titan Franchise Halts Sales of Eldian Armbands

I’m just more frustrated that now groups of people have convinced them to give up on the armbands, those people are going to see what other Anime content they can get cancelled that might ruffle someone’s feathers, almost inevitably. I highly doubt this slither of censorship will be good enough for more dogged activists on the internet

Personally, I'm conflicted on this one.
Usually I lean heavily towards the "it's just fiction" side of things, but I do realize that there is both a time and place for anything and that it's definitely a matter of context and execution that determines what's acceptable and what's not. And like many others here, my initial reaction was "who thought this was a good idea?" and that it's a bit tasteless and, if nothing else, just kind of a possible PR nightmare.

But then I remembered how, a decade ago, they promoted the musical The Producers, when it came to Germany for the first time. They hung up very Nazi-looking red banners, with white circles in them, with the only difference being that instead of a black swastika in the middle, you'd find a black pretzel symbol (or apparently sausages as well but I don't remember seeing those).
They had them as flags above stores and, the most insane part, had huge banners with them draped from the theater building, making it look like some kind of WW2-era German headquarters.

Someone from the musical's cast went on TV in full Nazi getup, complete with the pretzel armband, to promote the musical and perform Springtime für Hitler.

All of that sounds terribly insensitive and like it couldn't possibly end well. But, if I'm honest, I thought it was pretty funny and ballzy. And I usually don't find stuff funny just because it's edgy or offensive. But that just... kind of didn't feel anywhere close as bad as I would've thought it would. And I also don't remember there being much offense by the general public at the time, either. People talked about it, wondered if it's okay to make fun of such a serious historical thing, but the reaction wasn't any different from what you'd get with any other piece of entertainment coming out that deals with the second world war and related things.

Which makes me wonder why my initial reaction to this merch was a more negative one.

Now obviously the context is a completely different one. Who Mel Brooks is, as a person, his history but also his many accomplishments, contributed greatly to how I reacted then. And maybe it was just so out there, so ridiculous, just like the subject matter of the original film itself was, that nobody could possibly take it seriously and you just "can't be mad at it".

But if I thought something so extreme as decorating a whole huge theater building with Nazi-like banners was okay, is it really reasonable for me to not be okay with something as comparatively small as Nazi-like cosplay merch?

I don't know.
Like I said, I'm conflicted.

I don't think it would be funny because knowing the history of those atrocities and what those symbols represent its difficult to disassociate them with the atrocities they are based on. With Comedy you have to be very careful when dealing with sensitive topics if you aren't it can comes off as mocking the memory of those who suffered at the hands of those atrocities and the scars that the atrocities leaves behind on communities that were deeply affected by it.

Replica_Rabbit wrote:

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).

They become good guys by the end of the arc though once Big Mom betrays them.

Good and evil are relative in One Piece though. Most characters are just out for their own interests Luffy literally released hundreds of dangerous criminals from Impel Down just to find his brother, many of which joined up with Blackbeard and made him a bigger threat.

I actually disagree that it is "problematic" for Asian country to use their cultural symbols just because ignorant westerners can only recognize it (or in manji case mistake it ) as a (stolen) symbol of their own racist past, but here we aren't talking about censoring real millennia-old cultural and religious symbol of other culture, but about not commercializing fictional symbol based directly on Holocaust imagery, so I'll join the chorus of "Who thought it's a good idea?" in this case

I’m just more frustrated that now groups of people have convinced them to give up on the armbands, those people are going to see what other Anime content they can get cancelled that might ruffle someone’s feathers, almost inevitably. I highly doubt this slither of censorship will be good enough for more dogged activists on the internet

Gem-Bug wrote:

I really don't understand the "oh no, cosplay merch ruined" angle, or why anyone would want to cosplay as an armband-wearing, persecuted character, especially since spoiler[all of the ones that are relevant to the story eventually lose/take them off. Like, why cosplay Gabi at her worst/most pitiful instead of after she grows as a person?].

I don't think the cosplay angle is much of a concern. An armband seems like something even a novice cosplayer could make pretty easily. And if not, a quick search on Etsy reveals there's a lot of people selling these already.

The official website for the Attack on Titan The Final Season anime announced on Monday that the anime's production committee has decided not to offer the Eldian armband as commercial merchandise for the anime, after acknowledging that the armband evokes images of discrimination.

So many anime in the past blatantly dresses up characters like Nazis and will make them either neutral or a hero as opposed to the villain to be reviled.

I've never seen The Producers, but isn't the pretzel thing making fun of Nazis, while armband would be basically straight up cosplaying Holocaust ?