Attack on Titan’s Eren Jaeger is one of the most talked about protagonists in the anime industry. The character was quite complex to understand, but when fans did, they started to admire him for his actions, even though he went on the wrong path in the later part of the narrative. And a lot of the credit for Eren’s popularity goes to Hajime Isayama, the creator of the series.
He wrote about Eren’s personality in such a way that forced fans to question his morality and his role as a protagonist. But it didn’t affect his fame and global recognition; instead, it helped it reach the next level. However, Isayama alone is not responsible for Eren’s success as a protagonist. His voice actor, Yuki Kaji, also had a lot to do with Eren’s character.
Both Kaji and Isayama’s mindset about Eren’s personality was quite similar, and this was proved last year when Kaji voiced Eren for a one-of-a-kind interview. He portrayed Eren in a special interview where he defined freedom according to the Attack on Titan protagonist. Coincidentally, his definition was a lot similar to what Isyama believed about freedom.
Eren’s Definition of Freedom According to Yuji Kaji
In October last year, the character Eren Jaeger was interviewed on NHK’s program, The Professionals. Kaji not only voiced him but also answered all the questions as Eren would have. This interview was shared by Attack on Fans on X, and during the interview, Kaji gave a rendition of Eren’s definition of freedom.
He stated:
I think that freedom is when people can continue with their daily lives without being threatened. All I ever wanted was to be able to take a nap under the tree. That’s all… That wasn’t enough for me. There was a view I wanted to see. So I wanted to fight for it. I just wanted to fight.
According to Kaji (as Eren), freedom is not limited to getting free reign or moving out of someone’s authority. A person is only free when he can continue with his daily life without feeling fearful or threatened by another entity, element, or aspect of his own life.
This was a perfect explanation as it linked with Hajime Isayama’s narrative of Attack on Titan. The story portrays a world where people are threatened by the Titans to such an extent that they can’t even go on with their daily lives.
Hajime Isayama’s Freedom While Writing Attack on Titan
Although Isyama never explicitly talked about freedom, he did explain it in terms of creating the ending of Attack on Titan. Last year, he was interviewed by the New York Times and was asked about the controversial ending of the series and how he could have changed it.
Isyama pointed out that he could not have changed the ending because he had no freedom. His freedom was threatened by his vision of the story that he saw when he was young.
Isayama stated:
It would have been nice if I could have changed the ending. Writing manga is supposed to be freeing. But if I was completely free, then I should have been able to change the ending. I could have changed it and said I wanted to go in a different direction.
But the fact is that I was tied down to what I had originally envisioned when I was young. And so, manga became a very restrictive art form for me, similar to how the massive powers that Eren acquired ended up restricting him.
When Isyama started working on Attack on Titan, he already planned an ending, but midway, he thought about changing it. However, his restrictions forced him to go with the originally planned ending which was quite controversial.
However, when Isyama explained the entrapment in his own vision he had for the series, it sounded a lot like what Yuki Kaji said while defining Eren’s vision of freedom. Thus, in a way, Isayama was right to hand Eren’s reign in Kaji’s hands.
Attack on Titan is available to watch on Crunchyroll.
