I’ve always read it as at least a little bit a comment on the Iraq war, but what’s it’s deal? It’s the only anime I can think of that climaxes with a military coup, and its cool that mustang wants to put people on trial for war crimes, but then he gets in power and doesn’t do it.
It’s also just got a whole plotline about racism, but it feels slightly off? Like minorities are okay if they save your life.
Just gonna use this as an opportunity to rant about the PEAK LIB moment where one of those oppressed minorities talks about working for the same genocidal, imperialist military that destroyed his ancestral land because he wants to enact “change from within”. All while he talks down to another member of this group for resorting to extreme measures.
That’s right. Those partisans should have just called for “MORE 👏 JEWISH 👏 EINSATZGRUPPEN 👏 TROOPERS” instead.
I think if you’re a Liberal, it’s extremely hard to write a story about how you defeat Fascism because of your ideological blinders. Fascism is an evil that results from a master plan, and when you defeat Hitler, you win and can now reform your way to an equitable society instead of organizing a new one.
Not only that, but i’m more and more convinced that when most authors represent societies falling prey to fascism, it’s mostly due to moral failing of the people in charge, who are very clearly evil and have a plan, not because of systemic issues, which makes for a satisfying ending when you defeat the bad guy(s) and everything will come out roses afterwards.