Huh? What title did I just type for this article? What the fuck is going on? Anime is no longer the “cult following” little baby industry here in the West. While this is certainly not the first time we’ve seen anime become involved in politics, this is definitely one of the instances that procured a large amount of discussion, debate, and outrage from all sides. I’m going to try and cover what happened, how people reacted to what happened, and what does this indicate for future mixes between, well, anime and the United States government. Which is a sentence I didn’t expect to write today. 

So a few days ago Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona posted a meme video that was an edited version of the famous Attack on Titan opening. The opening had been edited to include him in it, very similar to those Bernie Sanders and Trump anime openings that people were making back in the day. It’s unclear as to whether he himself edited it (I doubt it) or if he found it and used it, or someone on his team made it specifically for him to post. Either way, the point is he put it on his official account. I gave it a watch myself and I didn’t understand most of the edits. It was obviously politically related but I’m not familiar enough with the man or his policies to really get what most were trying to say. Regardless, some were blatantly obvious as there were edited shots of “him” zipping around and attacking the titans which were changed to be Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The original post has been deleted, but you can watch below as someone posted the video onto YouTube.

So that’s what happened, how did people react to it? As they do with everything political: mixed of course. Obviously fans of Gosar thought it was the most based thing they saw all month, praising a representative for actually posting ads that are funny and interesting while using a modern medium instead of the standard boring political commercials. People who don’t like Gosar or his party immediately rushed to attack his ad for depticing him using violence to save the day and that ads depicting him attacking other representatives are way out of line. Then you have a lot of people who are simply upset that anime is getting thrown into the mix of politics and want it to stay as far away from American politics as possible. But most importantly, how did the other representatives react? Not well. At the time of writing, November 10th, there are currently calls to open an investigation into the video and remove Gosar from office for posting such a violent video. In response, Gosar posted the following meme as seen below:

Oof, you gotta watch "you're" forms when trying to post a comeback meme. But I get the sentiment.

Okay this is a blog, so I’ll finally get personal for a few seconds. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum they’re on, I always find myself smirking when I see some celebrity or activist utilizing anime as promotion. For some reason I’ve always enjoyed watching one walk of life interact with another. I’m one of those fucks that will watch those “Japanese student spends a month in America” or vice versa type videos because I enjoy watching culture clashes. So I find it a bit amusing to see someone in Gosar’s position posting anime memes. I simply can’t help myself. It doesn’t really bother me at all. However, I could see the argument that it was unprofessional and that he shouldn’t be posting memes using content that he probably knows nothing about. I believe I have to draw the line at calling for his resignation though. Like god damn I watched the video. It was not a threat. It was not a “call for violence”. It was not a warning that Gosar is going to arm himself with twin blades and slash up some political figures. It was a dumb edited anime opening. 

That’s my two cents anyway. I wonder if this means the start of more and more instances of anime being used in the political scene, or if this backlash will cause other representatives to think twice before touching the spooky scary world of anime. What did you think of the meme video? Should it be considered a threat of violence? Who is in the right here? Combine anime and politics in the comments, and watch as arguments ensue!