The Eotena Onslaught



The Eotena Onslaught is the English translation chosen by fansub group Commie for the anime Shingeki no Kyojin, of which they fansubbed the first season in 2013. As part of the translation, 巨人 (Hepburn: Kyojin, lit. "Giant") would be referred to by various derivatives of the word Eoten, including Eotena, Eotene, and Eotenum. The tongue-in-cheek explanation of why these words were chosen, The "Eoten" Manifesto, was created by Commie's editor, Margaan, and included in the release announcement on Commie's website.

History
The first Commie Shingeki no Kyojin episode was released on torrent sites and Commie's website on the 6th April 2013, under the title Shingeki no Kyojin. Users who downloaded the episode from torrent sites would likely be unaware of the Eoten choice as the manifesto was only included on the website.

The "Eoten" Manifesto included in the post was a theoretical discussion and debate between Margaan and the fabricated Karphos Anēr, whose name roughly translates to Straw Man in Greek.

As described in The "Eoten" Manifesto, the translation Eoten was chosen for Kyojin due to numerous reasons, including that Eoten is the Old English word for giant or monster, Eoten featured throughout the poem Beowulf as "bestial terrors that live to devour people and destroy their works", which are similar to how Kyojin operate, and "Attack on Titan" is incorrect grammar.

Commie did not proceed to subtitle any Shingeki no Kyojin seasons past the first.

Controversy
The choice of translating Kyojin as Eoten was met with both support and derision from the anime community, with the initial post on Commie's website amassing 383 comments within the first month. This pushback was likely expected by the Commie team, leading to The "Eoten" Manifesto being included unprompted by the community.

At the time, MyAnimeList included a function of allowing users to rate fansubbing groups for each anime, and as of 24th April 2013, had Commie listed with approval from 29 out of 129 users (22%), compared to GG which had 223 out of 254 (88%).

Examples of both sides of the arguments can be found in Commie's post on their website and their torrent on Nyaa. Reactions to the manifesto include "you’re a fucking retard killing fansubbing", "What Eoten shit is this? A big naked guy is running after me to eat me, let me get my Oxford English dictionary to look up another word for giant. I'm glad you aren't the only ones subbing this, and hope stupidity isn't contagious among fansubbers.", "very impressed with your amazingly broad grasp of both the Japanese & English languages along with its roots in Latin Germanic & ye old English", and "Interesting, amusing AND informative."

Further discussion was also brought up in various other forums, such as Reddit and Crunchyroll.