• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.413-420
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• 2024

After Friedrich Nietzsche's advocacy of nihilism, many literary works, dramas, and films have depicted aspects of human psychology associated with nihilism. Animation, too, has been used to convey nihilism, with narratives infused with nihilistic themes produced as both TV series and theatrical animations. Particularly, animation, as a visual medium capable of realizing any imaginative image unlike other media, possesses distinctive characteristics from live-action cinematography and differs from comics in its temporal properties. Hence, this study aims to analyze how Nietzsche's defined three stages of nihilism are represented within animation characters and how they construct various scenarios, using the anime "Attack on Titan" as a case study. The research unfolds by first examining Nietzsche's types of nihilism and the three stages through a review of literature, while also investigating the portrayal of nihilism in mass media and considering the unique attributes of animation. Secondly, building upon the literature review, the analysis interprets the narrative and constructed world of the chosen case study from a nihilistic perspective, examining four major characters through the stages of passive nihilism, active nihilism, and eternal recurrence. The findings demonstrate that the anime conveys two messages regarding negation and affirmation of one's life and existence, thereby offering viewers an opportunity to deeply contemplate human existence. This study is considered significant as it examines how Nietzschean nihilism is portrayed within the popular entertainment medium of animation.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.137
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• pp.277-321
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• 2016

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy embraces characteristics of existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology. In his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", Nietzsche defined human beings as an existence with innate possibility for change, beings that stand at the borderline between "the last man" and "the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$", raising a question over the meaning of human being's existential healthiness. The anthropological symptoms that Nietzsche's philosophy deals with trigger existential problems, and healing these anthropological symptoms is a precedent to healing an existence. In Nietzsche's philosophy, the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$ is presented as a prototype of practical man with a healthy existence, born from endeavors to heal the last man prototype of a decadence that was prevalent throughout Europe at the time. Nietzsche found the root cause of nihilism found in Europe in philosophy, religion, metaphysics, and Christianity, and attempted a genealogical investigation on this aspect. In so doing, a philosophical problem surfaced whereby only one truth was used to force diverse existential styles into a uniform style. Nietzsche intensively criticized philosophy and philosophers that only studied truths from metaphysical-Christian-moral perspectives, as they overlooked the foundation of true existence and presented human beings of a feeble mind and will as a result. Nietzsche emphasized the practical role of philosophy that can contribute to the human being's ascent and growth based on realistic conditions of human existence described as the earth, that philosophy that can serve as a basis for existential transformation of human beings and their lives. The task of philosophers is to lay the groundwork for the possibility of changes for all human beings and their realization. This existential practical foundation of philosophy can be called the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$, as it is healthy man, the "greatest reality" as Nietzsche desired.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.139
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• pp.105-131
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• 2016

The notion of responsibility, which has now gained a firm foothold as one of the fundamental notions of philosophy and its neighboring disciplines, became the subject of philosophical enquiry only in the 19th century by Kierkegaard, who delved into the morality of critical self-awareness in ethical responsibility of the absolute self; and Nietzsche, who put emphasis on the responsibility of the sovereign self in coping with the problems of the future. Nietzsche is the first philosopher who took issue with the diminishment (Verkleinerung) of humanity-what he called human being's greatest disease-that swept Europe at that time. Concerns about Europe's future were the key movens of Nietzsche's philosophy revolving around the advent of nihilism in Europe and its solutions. He prepared alternative solutions in deep awareness that the ethics of good and evil firmly rooted in the traditional metaphysics and Christianity would not even catch the depth and breadth of the big problem of globalization brought about by modernism, let alone solve it. Nietzsche devoted his whole life to disseminating the knowledge that the future of humankind depends on removing these old ethics. This article traces Nietzsche's reflections on the ethical event of responsibility and provides an overview of the purview and scope contained in the meaning covered by the notion of responsibility in his philosophy beyond common norms and values.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.76-90
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• 2015

Based on a concept of Nietzschean nihilism, this study aimed at interpreting the nihilism in arts and its expressions, also analyzing the modern fashion collection from the same angle. The research was centered on arts after 1980, when post-modern formal destruction expanded in earnest and on the fashion collection after the 20th century, easily accessible to data. Particularly, it set 1994 nihilism collection by Alexander McQueen, a representative nihilist fashion designer as a starting point. Nietzsche mentioned that true arts may be achieved when Apollonian characteristics including a bodily sensory system and an idealization process and Dionysian characteristics including every human feeling are integrated. Besides, he emphasized the importance of an artist being represented as an image of ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$. The ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ image, reflected in arts and artistic nihilism, represents themes of violence/death, realistic/unrealistic expressions, human body/inhuman aversion materials and the transmutation of a form. Fashion collection expressions, owing to the special characteristic of the show form unlike other arts, were segmented as a realistic ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ image using a model in a theme, expression, material and form. The theme of violence/death was divided into the death of human and a society. Human life/death was expressed as destruction of human weakness and self-identity, sexual objectification and violence, and social death as destruction and conflict of a class, nation, culture and nature. As for the expression, it was divided into the realistic expression of the primitive/natural and directing of an unrealistic atmosphere using a show.