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Arnavion | 4 months ago
Years later it turned out some of the giants had classes / types and the title was a reference to the Attack type of giant. Thus the English title would've been better as "The Attack Titan", and indeed the Japanese title could also have been interpreted as that, though it's only obvious in hindsight. The Japanese title was likely deliberately intended to have the double-meaning "Attack of Titans" and "The Attack Titan", though this double-meaning cannot be conveyed in English, and in fact we're now stuck due to inertia with a third English rendering that is completely disconnected from either meaning.
silicon5|4 months ago
Actually, another quirk is the German lyric in the first season's opening theme. Crunchyroll doesn't usually translate opening or ending lyrics, but translating the lyrics was standard practice in the fansub era, so the. However, they misheard the lyric as "Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Jäger" - "You are the food and we are the hunters" - as if the line is spoken by the Titans (perhaps the English-speaking audience is primed to the Germans being the bad guys in movies). The actual lyric was revealed in official Japanese sources as spoken from the perspective of the humans: "Seid ihr das Essen? Nein, wir sind die Jäger!" - "Are we the food? No, we are the hunters!" However, the incorrect lyric persists among fans because the second opening theme superceded the first before the error was widely noted in the English speaking anime community.