the-final-titan

[the-final-titan]

[the-final-titan]

No matter which era this Titan has found itself in, it has pushed ever forward, seeking out freedom. For the sake of freedom, it fights.

Eren Kruger

[the-final-titan]

From 進撃の巨人 to Attack on Titan - The Story of Title Mistranslation

Shingeki no Kyojin. This name might sound foreign to some of you, I was one myself. Attack on Titan, however, is well known as the main title of the series.

During online discussions, I come to realize that the English title is a major mistranslation! Or is it?

Literal Translation

via Wikitionary

進撃 [shìńgékí]

(1) an advance, charge on an enemy

(2) to advance and attack, charge

の [no]

の is often seen translated as either the preposition "of" or the possessive (-'s), as a marker of possession.

巨人 [kyòjíń]

(1) (mythology) a human of very great size, titan

(2) a very tall person

(3) a person of extraordinary strength or power, bodily or intellectual

From the literal standpoint, the title becomes Advance of the Giant.

Why Attack on Titan then?

Sometimes I look at the English title and I cringe. The phrase is simply incorrect; however, I could see why this error would be kept and remain unchanged.

The rule of (wrongly, yet) Cool

For the better or worse, Attack on Titan does roll of the tongue well, even though it's blatantly wrong.

English as Second Language (or a case of machine translation gone wrong)

As seen from the original volume 1, the English title has always been "Attack on Titan", most definitely set by the author himself, his editor and the publisher.

As someone who's not a native speaker, I can assure you that these types of mistakes are usually everywhere; prepositions get misused, and we end up with "on" instead of "of".

However, I personally don't agree with some of these explanations. As if some localizers and/or publishers don't have a good, competent translator for one title. Entering...

Attack "on" titan

A Case of Misdirection (also gone wrong)

As you, yes you, the one who read through all of this wall of texts, would know about this series, Attack of Titan is a story of plot twists and shocking revelations, one after the other, sometime next to each other! So, believe me as I say, "Let's go conspiracy mode on this bitch". (Spoilers btw)

Attack "of" titan

The author led us to believe that this is the stories about humanity's fight against titans, as seen in volume one of the manga, though I would guess the author use "Attack on" as same as "Attack against" (Japanese grammar?)

Now we've come to realize that humanity has a chance; humanity has Eren as the titan shifter. I would bet that the author would change the English title in the later volume. However, that didn't happen.

As explained by Eren Kruger later on, every incarnation of Eren's titan always fights, all pushing for freedom. Again, this should be the title change, starting from this reveal, but it hasn't.

"The Attack Titan"

Have you noticed that the Japanese title, Shingeki no Kyojin, has multiple meanings and reveal another interpretation without ever changing a thing? I'm willing to bet that the story goes like this:

"The Advancing Titan"

THE ENGLISH TITLE'S NEVER CHANGED TO REFLECT THIS EARTH SHATTERING TWISTED OF THE STORIES AT ALL!

(1) The author set up some Japanese title for his "giant fighting protagonist" story, realized that it's has multiple interpretation and think that it would be an "in your face" kind of plot twist.

(2) He wrote that in; the story and the title (the Japanese title) was integrated such that each reveal makes a reader look at the cover and goes "OHHH", for 3 times! such revelations, many twists.

(3) English title is nothing to concern about, so he does some translation and put it in, to be cool. The twist could still be happening if he cares enough to change the English title to reflect that. But for what? His Japanese audiences could not care less about the English title (some alphabets below the title) being grammatically corrected or got changed later down the line.

(4) Later on, the manga got some clout and the anime boosted it to mainstream status. The title is set, so localizers would just translate the contents, thinking of that funny title yet never did anything to it.

And there we have it, the title that just good enough for marketing and referring to, and I guess that changing the name just for some plot twists is unprecedented and making the series more confusing when selling it to western audiences.

Refer to Eren's titan ability as we've witnessed Eren explanation; to see future events through its future inheritor or may I say, "To see the future in advance" is the titan true ability.

(Looking at you, Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 3: The first part)