In some ways, Hajime Isayama's gruesome phenomenon broke ground for queer representation in the shōnen genre. From a canonical lesbian relationship to a leading non-binary character, on multiple occasions Attack on Titan (or, Shingeki no Kyojin) moulded authentic and positive queer representation into its rich fantasy world. Yet, while its conclusion earlier last year saw many of its characters' sagas come to a satisfying close, it should not go overlooked how Attack on Titan raised many of its queer-coded characters up, only to watch them fall...
The two angles in which AoT's representation of queerness can be approached are: those which are stated both explicitly and implicitly, versus those that have been widely stipulated by fans or can be observed through textual analysis. The existence of shipping within the fandom is not entirely relevant to this discussion, and exists as its own diversion from or reading of the literary canon, in much the same way that fans may impose genders, sexualities, and/or traits upon characters they favour or may relate to. In this respect I do not aim to pose my own personal preferences as canonical or more valid. Rather, to shine a light on the ways in which Isayama's text does (and sometimes, does not) make narrative use of queer-coding, for better and for worse.
Attack on Titan's Canonically Queer Characters:
"I have no regrets. But there is one thing... It's that I wasn't able to marry you." - Ymir, Chapter 89
The foremost example of queerness within Attack on Titan is that of characters Ymir and Historia Riess, who hold lead roles in the series' Clash of the Titans and Royal Government story arcs respectively. Both fellow cadets of the 104th Training Corps alongside protagonist Eren Yeager, Ymir and Historia's bond is one of the very few confirmed mutual romances of the entire series, which is otherwise so jam-packed with gruesome violence, betrayals and tears, there's scarcely time for a tender love affair.
Born of the camaraderie the pair find in one another, the secretive titan-shifter and heir to the Paridisian throne are constantly seen with one another from their introduction in the manga's earliest chapters, until Ymir's emotional farewell at the climax of the Clash of the Titans arc. Ymir and Historia's character narratives are intrinsically connected, perhaps more so than any other pair in the series. Their love for one another and desire to live selfishly together- escaping the burden of the roles prescribed to them- is core to their motivations. In an interview with new site SBS PopAsia, Shiori Mikami, voice actor to Historia, describes the pair as, "connected by the heart in an emotional way" and on a deeper level than they are to other characters (Rizzo-Smith, 2017).
Tragically, Ymir's feelings for Historia are only explicitly revealed posthumously, in a letter in which Ymir affirms her life's regret is that she never got to marry Historia. Indeed, things turn from bad to worse for Historia as the series progresses. While she is able to reclaim her identity and origins, this ultimately leads her to becoming a figure-head ruler of Paradis, largely for the military's benefit. Historia manages to retain some sense of control as compensation for taking on this role, opening orphanages to provide shelter for children otherwise impoverished similarly to herself and Ymir once were. That is until years later, during Attack on Titan's final arc, when Historia is targeted from multiple angles into baring children and inheriting Zeke Yeager's Beast Titan, thereby continuing the same traumatic cycle of power the Riess family had coordinated for millennia. Such plans are rightly framed as inhumane, yet the notion of literally imposing heterosexual behaviours onto Historia by pressuring her into baring children is not one particularly discussed.
In some respects, Historia loses ownership of her body when she eventually choses to have a child with a man she doesn't love. She is backed into a corner by Eren's genocidal plan to destroy the majority of the world via the Rumbling, becoming pregnant with the hopes of buying time for her comrade to come up with a less murderous alternative, a sacrifice that ultimately goes to waste by the series' conclusion. After Eren's death, Historia is able to love and nurture her child freely without fear of forcing them down the same harsh path she was. She tries to use her position as Queen to negotiate peace talks with the outside world, though it is made clear that fanatics (known as Yeagerists) in support of Eren's Rumbling outmatch her own political standing.
Much like Ymir's untimely death, Historia's narrative conclusion is a bleak one, and one frequently critiqued by fans of the franchise, who felt her empowering reclamation of her fate was discarded. While the young paramours' fates may have been a necessity for Attack on Titan's overarching narrative to progress, they are ultimately rendered disappointing given how closely they align with the problematic "bury your gays" trope that continues to plague popular media. Ymir and Historia are perhaps some of Attack on Titan's most interesting characters. They are emotionally complex, nuanced, and offer valuable insight into author Hajime Isayama's detailed and mature approach to world-building. It is simply a shame that the series' only queer relationship was sacrificed as a result.
Historia and Ymir are not AoT's only leading queer characters however. Titan scientist and later, Survey Corps commander, Hange Zöe, is canonically non-binary, with Isayama affirming that the character is not to be referenced with gendered pronouns. A spokesperson for Kodansha, the US publisher of Attack on Titan also claimed in a statement that:
"[Their] impression is that [Hajime Isayama] thinks Hange’s gender identity is not important to the story he’s telling, and so he wanted to give readers the freedom to come up with their own interpretations." (Romano, 2021).
Within the manga, Hange's character design lacks any clear identification of sex and they are exclusively referred to with gender-neutral pronouns, something the anime adaptation regrettably does not observe, instead feminizing Hange's design and prescribing female pronouns to the character.
Ultimately however, Hange's gender identity is never made a point of within Isayama's narrative, instead is simply accepted as a given, something that is particularly refreshing. Hange is central to Attack on Titan regardless of the fact that they are they only character who explicitly does not prescribe to binary gender norms. They are a master strategist, comedic personality, and moral compass of the series. Hange is not only physically but emotionally strong, and someone written as admired by their subordinates. They just also so-happen to be non-binary. Hange remains one of the franchise's most popular characters, consistently ranking within the top 10 in the series' official popularity polls; supporting the notion that Attack on Titan's queer characters are not only favoured but also commended by fans of the series.
Attack on Titan's Implied Queer Characters:
"I didn't think you were all that into girls?"
"Really? I didn't think you were all that into guys either." - Ymir and Reiner, Chapter 38
Protagonist of Attack on Titan from the Marleyan perspective, titan-shifter Reiner Braun is a deeply complex character with enough history and personal damage to sink a battleship. One of Reiner's most prominent struggles throughout the series is managing a dissociative disorder born of his trauma of having been groomed into murderous acts at such a young age. Colloquially known amongst fans as his Solider (Paradisian) and Warrior (Marleyan) personas, Reiner exhibits different personality traits dependent on which side of himself is at the forefront of his mind, and this seemingly also includes his sexual preferences. Early in the Clash of the Titans arc, during Reiner and his comrades' holding up in the ruins of Castle Utgard, Reiner and Ymir have an exchange that infers that Reiner- much like Ymir- identifies somewhere along the LGBTQ+ spectrum.
It is a brief scene, and a topic of conversation not brought up again within the series. Some fans inferred that Reiner may have potentially had feelings for his fellow warrior Bertholdt given Reiner's persistent questioning of Bertholdt's feelings for their partner-in-war-crimes, Annie Leonhardt. However, whether these behaviours were a subtle indication of his feelings, or simply part of the pair's close bond as a result of their shared trauma is something never explicitly made clear.
Another narrative trait criticised by fans is that by the manga's conclusion, Reiner appeared to have disregarded his "Warrior" front entirely, even reverting back to making explicit reference to his sexual attraction for Historia, something fans had previously accepted as merely a product of his false Paradisian persona; displaying hyper-masculine, heterosexual traits as a means of appearing "normal" or socially acceptable to those around him. Reiner's concluding comments about Historia were particularly distasteful, and were felt by many to be a betrayal of the mature progression towards self-acceptance that his character had spent the manga's final third developing. In this respect, not only did Reiner's character loose a lot of his well-earned development by the series' conclusion, but with it, his implied queerness as well.
Less prominent though still worthy of discussion is that of secondary characters Pieck and Yelena, who are written by Isayama to flirt with one another on multiple occasions, hinting at a potential sexual attraction between the two women. These scenes are small and ultimately inconsequential, though do nevertheless indicate Attack on Titan's broad acceptance of queerness as natural to its fantasy world. Indeed, the existence of queerness within AoT is hard to deny, given the mere existence of Titans, which are to a certain degree, queer-coded themselves. While Titans may be the product of the Subjects of Ymir, an ethnic group that is physically indifferent to any other within the series; the Titans themselves are Othered. Titans lack any sexual organs, and are, as a result, "queer for their being outside dichotomies and fixed definitions of gender." (Fanasca, 2021, 264). Their very identity elicits anxiety within the narrative because of their Otherness, their origins initially unknown, given their lack of traditional heterosexual reproductive capabilities (Vernon, 2017, 488). The Titans are, for lack of a better term, "[symbols] of queerness par excellence." They cannot be classified as male or female (besides Annie's so-called Female Titan, which still lacks any sexual organs). and thus, are both asexual and a-gendered because of this (Franasca, 2021, 266).
Attack on Titan's Potentially Queer Characters:
"I promised him that I'd kill you no matter what. I promised him!" - Levi, Chapter 81
Besides canonical romantic pairings such as Eren and Mikasa or Ymir and Historia, one of the AoT fanbases' most popular "ships" is that of former Scouting Legion commander Erwin Smith, and fan-favourite Captain Levi Ackerman. Even outside of a romantic and/or sexual reading, Erwin and Levi's relationship is one of the series' most prominent and complex. They are literally the definition of enemies-to-friends (-to lovers?). the pair's mutual trust in one another is at the forefront of both the Royal Government and Return to Shinganshina arcs, as well as AoT's canonical prequel, A Choice With No Regrets. Even following Erwin's death, the oath shared between Erwin and Levi remains the captain's driving force all the way through to the manga's concluding chapter.
Beyond the realms of the text itself, merchandising and promotional material for Attack on Titan favours the two characters together, further solidifying their popularity amongst audiences. AoT's attraction at Universal Studios Japan also makes reference to the relationship, with a walkthrough exhibit highlighting shared bedroom quarters between Levi and Erwin, something long-speculated to be canon by fans given the pair's multiple appearances together within the series' setting.
Interviews with both Hajime Isayama and Attack on Titan director Tetsurō Araki further highlight a level of intimacy to their relationship that spans beyond friendship, with Araki claiming that, "-of course there is emotion between them which cannot be concluded as “friendship” (Animedia, 2019). Isayama goes into even further detail, particularly in regards to Levi and Erwin's shared ideals:
"I always wanted to write Levi and Erwin as a mutual and equal relationship... Levi stayed with Erwin till now because he interprets Erwin's slogan "Fight for Humanity's Future" as a very selfless aim... and he makes this target his life mission." (Isayama, 2017).
It is hard to deny that Levi and Erwin are not, at the very least, queer-coded. However, as strong as any of these claims may be, there still remains no official confirmation of a canonically queer relationship between Levi and Erwin. It is a shame, considering the global platform of the series, and the genre-defining potential such a queer relationship would have. Two men- both written in a profession often associated with hyper-masculine heterosexuality- who already express an emotional vulnerability unlike many male characters in both the shōnen and action genres alike, could have a great impact as positive LGBTQ+ representation in popular media, if given the opportunity. Moreover, it is the vocal response from fans that further proves that Levi and Erwin are not only celebrated for their potential queerness, but that fans are eager for more of it.
Levi and Erwin's ship name "Eruri" currently boasts 163k posts on Instagram, and over 9300 pieces of work on popular fan-fiction site, Archive of Our Own. Retrospectively, "Yumikuri"- the name for the relationship between Ymir and Historia- currently sits at 66.2k Instagram posts and almost 4000 archive posts. Comparatively, popular and canonical heterosexual pairings including Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman, as well Armin Arlert and Annie Leonhardt, sit at around 2900 and 1600 fan-fiction works respectively (with only "Eremika" ousting Levi and Erwin from the top Instagram popularity spot). As Marta Fanasca notes in their essay, Attack on Normatively: A Queer Reading of Shingeki no Kyojin, such statistics provide vivid evidence of how successfully LGBTQ+ couples are received and subsequently admired by fans of the franchise; displaying how "alternative representations of femininity and masculinity [and by extension, non-heteronormative relationships] can actually win an audiences' support" (2021, 267).
Attack on Titan's Should-Have-Been Queer Characters:
"What took you so long, you idiot..." - Jean, Chapter 81
Therefore, further in regards to the Attack on Titan's missed opportunities of offering substantial and canonical queer representation, it is worth talking about the relationships that we never got to see truly blossom at all.
When fan-favourite Jean Kirstein was first introduced as a young cadet in the 104th training corps, he was immediately characterised by his heterosexual, masculine bravado. This soon changed as the narrative progressed, Jean's character became multi-faceted and lost a lot of the stereotypically heterosexual traits prescribed to him. Core to this was Jean's relationship with fellow trainee Marco, who's words of encouragement and later, untimely death, left an impact on Jean that would be felt all the way into the series' conclusion. Many fans were intrigued by the possibility of a romantic connection between the two young men, and even outside of a potential relationship with Marco, this lead to many fans self-labelling Jean as a queer character with romantic and sexual attraction to both men and women.
Jean's sexuality was ultimately a rock left unturned in Attack on Titan, and the potential lost in ignoring the groundwork his character had as a strong and multi-dimensional queer lead leaves a regrettable taste in the mouth. After Marco's death, Jean formed a new and even stronger attachment to comrade Armin Arlert, with the pair's companionship focal to their own narrative journey's throughout the Female Titan arc, all the way until the series' drastic two-year time skip, in which the relationship was subsequently snubbed. Originally drafted to be the same character by Hajime Isayama, Jean and Armin became two strategic sides of the same coin. Their logistical minds bounced off one another, and it became a frequent occurrence for the pair to be seen alongside one another within each scene they were in.
Jean and Armin's potential for a queer relationship grew on the multiple occasions that they saved one another from imminent death. Armin defended an unconscious Jean with nothing more than a broken blade, and would later kill someone for the first time when he shot one of the Interior Military Police threatening Jean's life. The pair even shared the trauma and comforting aftermath of one of the series' most bleak and unsettling of encounters, which saw Armin sexually assaulted when he and Jean were both captured. Jean and Armin held more potential than most LGBTQ+ pairings within the series for their pre-existing bond to develop authentically into a canonical relationship. Isayama even commented on the pair himself, highlighting that he created the two characters to be some of the most relatable of the series:
"In my own view, I created Jean and Armin as representatives of humanity. They are not bad people, but they are also not purely righteous people, either. Sometimes they have a sly [cunning] way of thinking, tell lies, and there are also times when they are confused. I wanted them to be characters whom readers can sympathise with and relate them to actual human beings.- Jean and Marco, original groundwork." (Isayama, 2016)
Surely, therefore, as "representatives of humanity", it would make sense- in a franchise with a moral message of hope and love triumphing hate- that such characters might themselves be able to reflect this. Instead, Attack on Titan's time-skip saw Jean and Armin go from confidantes to having hardly any shared interaction, with no explanation given to readers. furthermore, by the series' conclusion, we saw Armin engaged in a heterosexual relationship with Annie, which- to an extent- was fashioned out of the feelings of another character (Bertholdt) whose memories existed inside of him. Combined with what some viewers saw as Armin's forced heterosexuality, is the ambiguity of Jean's romantic conclusion, given it is still not clear if he ended up partnering and fathering children with Mikasa (Isayama and his editing team are still as-of-yet to make a statement regarding the matter). That is not to disregard Armin and Jean's heterosexual partnerships as invalid, nor imply that the existence of these at all diminishes a queer reading of the characters. Simply, it is worth noting the valuable missed opportunity that AoT had to use the foundations it had built to act upon a queer relationship between two of its deuteragonists.
Attack on Titan's queer-coded characters carried the franchise, and it is well past time they were paid their dues. Both canonical and implied, queer-coded characters such as Historia, Erwin, Armin, and Reiner were the focal point of the majority of the series' core narrative arcs, and AoT simply would not have been able to progress in the way it did without their characterisation being the way it was. Attack on Titan's potential for hosting multiple LGBTQ+ characters allowed for the franchise to blossom on a global level. They have been the subject of thousands of pieces of fan work, and have helped to cement the series not only as one of the most critically influential within the shōnen genre, but also one of the most universally recognised and acclaimed ani-manga series of all time. Who knows what more it could have done if its queer characters were granted their well-deserved opportunity to thrive?
Bibliography:
Araki, T. (2019) Interview, Animedia April 2019. Animedia.
Fanasca, M. (2021) Attack on Normatively: A Queer Reading of Shingeki no Kyojin. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture. Volume 7 (2) 255-270.
Isayama, H. (2018) Attack on Titan: Character Encyclopaedia. Kodansha USA Publishing.
Isayama, H. (2016) Jean Kirstein: Interview. Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin, Volume 4.
Rizzo-Smith. J. (2017) 'Attack on Titan' Voice Actor Talks Christa and Ymir Romance. SBS PopAsia. Available from: https://www.sbs.com.au/popasia/blog/2017/08/24/attack-titan-voice-actor-talks-christa-and-ymir-romance
Romano, A. (2021) 'Attack on Titan' creator gets the last word in debate about character's gender. Daily Dot.Available from: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/fandom/attack-titan-snk-hange-hanji-gender-debate/
Vernon, A (2017) Colossal bodies: re-imagining the human anatomy in Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Volume 8 (5) 480-493.