Titan Fanatic: Hange Zoe

Welcome back to another segment of Women Crush Wednesday! I hope all of your weeks have been off to a great start!

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This week’s feature is Attack on Titan’s Hange Zoe. There are two sides of Hange that I couldn’t help but take note of. On one hand, Hange is the epitome of what it’s like to be a fangirl. On the other hand you have an incredibly smart, quirky scientist. It’s a great combination and honestly I think she represents a lot of us ani-bloggers. We all have that side of us that can fangirl about something yet have the professional side of us that the rest of the world knows us for. I promise there are NO spoilers in this post about her, even though I’m ahead in the manga!

The Foil of the Goddess of the 104th: Historia

It’s Wednesday y’all! I’m here with a pretty awesome WCW to get you through hump day!

Now as you guys know by now, outside of my love for the sports genre I’m a pretty avid follower to the fandom that is Attack on Titan. In a previous WCW I featured Ymir; and that went into heavy spoiler territory. However, now with Season 2 under our belts, I thought it would be appropriate to feature this AoT character.

So without further ado, let’s talk about The Foil of the Goddess of the 104th: Historia.

When we first met Historia, she went by the name of Christa Lenz. A beautiful petite blonde girl with the kindest nature and personality; so much so that she’s labeled “goddess” by many of the men in the 104th. However, Christa’s true nature hides behind a façade. As I’ve said before these two are actually foils of one another; Christa’s friendly façade is really Ymir’s true personality, and Christa’s nature is actually the cold loner that Ymir pretends to be. Christa has been known to place herself in dangerous situations despite her meek nature. Ymir has called her out on her somewhat fake kindess because she’s wants to be seen as a “good person”. Ymir has also accused her of wanting to die a hero as seen on the Historia episode when she’s trying to save Daz even if it means putting her own life on the line. These rash actions of Historia deal with her backstory; all she wants is to be cared about and recognized.

Again, let me reiterate that I love the dynamic between Historia and Ymir. Previously, I mentioned before that they’re like soulmates; they’re understanding of another and their trust in their bonds have added another layer of complexity to the story as we now know who Ymir really is, and Historia’s true self is about to be unfolded.

Historia’s past is still a mystery in the season 2 of Attack on Titan; but we know for sure that she’s an illegitimate child of a nobleman and was forced to change her name and distance herself from the family if she wanted to live. Historia is on the brink of becoming a crucial piece of the puzzle. Warning: this will heads into spoiler territory past the episode of season 2 that revealed Christa’s true identity. So, proceed with caution after the break!

Lady Rapier: Asuna Yuuki

AH! It’s International Women’s Day today! WCW just happened to be today too! Epic coincidence! Really exciting to find that out but! I digress! For this week’s WCW I’m going to continue with my SAO theme this week and feature Asuna.

Role Model: Haruhi Fujioka

Ah! Finally back with WCW, it’s been quite awhile I know. I took a break for work and also because as you know, I’ve been picking women to celebrate and write about for more than just their looks. I feel like I really need to take the time and do some research on these fierce ladies because they deserve the time. I’m still going to try to stick to a weekly post; but we will see.

Symbolic Armor: Erza Scarlet

This weeks WCW post is a bit of a throwback to the woman that brough about my WCW posts to begin with. Erza Scarlet is one of top favorite heroines, and her name is byfar my favorite anime character name; so much so that I use it every chance I get when given the option to name my character in a game. I like it because it’s feminine sounding yet also gives off a strong fiery presence.

In my previous post about her found in Day 4: Favorite Female Character Ever of my 30 Day Anime Challenge, I really focused on her backstory and her overall personality. This week I’m going to recap on some of the points that really stuck out to me and will hopefully try to expand on those a bit more.

Erza’s armor is one of the most defining characteristics of who she is. Her signature magic though is a spatial magic in which she can “requip” her armor at an amazing speed. She’s also known to be one of the few mages that can requip during battle; and it’s rumored that she has about 100 different types of armor in her posession. This type of specialization of “requip” magic is often called “The Knight.” Erza is known throughout the entire kingdom of Fiore for this type of magic giving her the nickname “Titania.”  Although she may have over a hundred pieces of armor at her disposal, I find her armor to be symbolic through two lenses. One lens is how her Armor represents an emotional state and the second lens looks at Erza’s femininity.

Her Revenge on Life

First off, I want to thank everyone for all the great and positive feedback that I got for introducing WCW. I’ve mentioned this in a few comments, but I may have set the bar too high with using Utena Tenjou as the first girl. I’m not sure if ALL the women I choose can be as thought-provoking and deeply complex, but I’ll try my best. I’m really humbled by all the great feedback guys! I love you all!

I had started another post last night that ended up being another intense philosophical character; but I couldn’t bring myself to publish it. I still need some time with her; so I’m pushing her to next week. I’m totally doing today’s post on the fly, so I’m going to pick someone that might be less intense. But looking over this post, I think it’s still just as intense. But I won’t diverge from the fact that these women are a force to be reckoned with!

But anyways,  this week’s character is from Attack on Titan. I plan on featuring a lot of the characters from this series because they’re all vital to the story. I want to try to be spoiler free, but for the most part if you don’t want to know what happens to these girls I advise a lot of you to skip it because I can’t help not be talk about them beyond season 1 of the anime. So, let’s talk about Ymir.

Ymir is a supporting character in Attack on Titan. There’s not much to Ymir in the first season of Attack on Titan. But I’ll try to be spoiler free in this section at least. Ymir is uncooperative, cold and confrontational. She likes to exploit those that could be of use to her or owe her a debt that needs to be paid back. Ymir has a general distrust for people for the most part but with good reason too. She’s a mysteriously complex character as we don’t know her reasonings for wanting to join the cadets or joining the survey corps. After the break I’ll talk about her backstory and her vow to live for herself; her revenge on life.

She’s a bit of a lone wolf in Season 1, until she meets Christa (whom I also intend to write about at some point too!). These two are actually foils of one another. Christa’s friendly façade is really Ymir’s true personality, and Christa’s nature is actually the cold loner that Ymir pretends to be. Christa brings out Ymir’s warmer personality, and Ymir has such strong feelings towards Christa that she’ll risk whatever it takes to ensure her safety. The relationship between these two is more than friendship; I would actually go as far as saying they’re soulmates. However, it’s probably best to characterize them as star-crossed lovers. I really enjoy the dynamic of Christa and Ymir; their understanding of one another, their trust in one another and the bond they shared added another layer of complexity to the world of Attack on Titan. Their story is on the verge of tragic, but that’s for another time! More about Ymir after the break! STOP HERE TO AVOID MAJOR SPOILERS.