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// Posted by :kanna // On :Tuesday, January 13, 2015


kanna here! AND WELCOME TO THE FIRST ANIME MONDAY OF 2015!!!

So…Attack on Titan.

Where do I begin? I mean, I know I typically start with background, and I don’t have an actual reason to stray from my usual format, but GOOD FREAKING G-D, there’s just so much I can’t wait to talk about!

OK, background.

Attack on Titan – or, if you want to go by its Japanese name, Shingeki no Kyojin – is an ONGOING manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. Why is ongoing in all caps? Well, because I think that this is the first Anime Monday where I’ve talked about an anime that has its manga still going. The manga series started on September 9, 2009 and is continuing to be published. The anime series premiered in Japan on April 6, 2013 and concluded on September 8, 2013, with twenty-five episodes and five OVA (soon to be six).

And now I need to explain what OVA is, don’t I? Well, for those of you who aren’t as familiar with the world of anime, I’ll fill you in with the power of this brief tangent. OVA stands for Original Video Animation. OVA are basically animated films and series that are straight to home video formats without being shown on TV or in theaters. I guess in Western terminology, you could think of it as a straight-to-VHS/DVD thing.

Back to Attack on Titan. There IS GOING TO BE A SECOND SEASON IN 2016. IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED BY A BUNCH OF ANIME NEWS SITES.

Oh, and there were two movies where they basically took all the episodes of the first season and just reformatted it to fit the length of a feature film. They split it into two parts. The first part is called Attack on Titan Part 1: Crimson Bow and Arrow and the second part is called Attack on Titan Part 2: Wings of Freedom. While the first movie has already been released (Nov. 22, 2014), the second movie is set for release June 27, 2015.

Now for a bit of context to set the story in motion!

Over a hundred years before the story starts, giant humanoid creatures called Titans suddenly appeared and nearly wiped out humanity. The Titans devoured humanity without remorse or reason. Not much remains of the human race, and the people who are still around remain within a country surrounded by three giant walls: Wall Maria, the outermost wall, Wall Rose, the middle wall, and Wall Sheena, the innermost wall.

Flash forward to present-day.

Titans haven’t attacked for over a hundred years, and many people have grown up without ever having seen a Titan. However, one day, a giant 60-meter-tall (or 200-feet, depending on what metric system you’re using) Titan, known as a Colossal Titan, appears and breaches the outer wall of the Shiganshina district, a town at Wall Maria. This allows smaller titans to invade the district.  An Armored Titan (much smaller than the Colossal Titan, but still fairly powerful) smashes clean through Wall Maria and forces mankind to abandon the land between Wall Maria and Wall Rose. The remaining population was evacuated into the inner districts, and the sudden influx of population caused turmoil and famine. In other words, even more people died.

We’re actually not going to start with the characters this time. Why? Well…the show is called Attack on Titan for a reason. So we’ll start with the Titans!

First off: HOLY CRAP THESE THINGS ARE AWESOME AND SERIOUSLY TERRIFYING!

Titans are giants. That’s the simple explanation. They’re giants that are generally 3-15 meters (that’s the equivalent of about 10-50 feet) tall and typically masculine in body shape. They instinctively attack and eat humans on sight, but don’t prey on them for food.

Weird.

Anyway, their skin is next to impenetrable. Titans also have regenerative capabilities, except for a weak spot at the nape of their necks.

While the Titans do resemble humans (two feet, two arms, same number and arrangement of limbs one would expect), they’re all deformed by human standards to some degree. This could result in lacking skin, but the Titans don’t bleed from these deformities. That’s probably because of their regenerative capabilities.

DO NOT ask me how there are so many Titans if they don’t have reproductive organs. I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to. Why? Well, would you want to know how your worst nightmares reproduced if they looked like this?

Creepy. Also, this was one of the few pictures I could find that wasn't of a Titan EATING PEOPLE.

Titans are TERRIFYING. They are massive and next to impossible to kill. I’m surprised that people thought walls would keep them out. FREAKING WALLS.  They are fast and incredibly strong. They eat people for no reason other than killing them. We have yet to see a vegetarian Titan. That’s probably not going to happen, though, unless the anime writers decide to step away from the manga and invent a vegetarian Titan. That probably wouldn’t be much of a threat, though. Not only that, but Titans have no intelligence. Unless you count Titan-shifters, which are humans that can turn into Titans. I’ll touch a little more on Titan-shifters once I get to the characters. Which should be right about…now!

Characters!

Eren Yeager is our main protagonist. He is a Titan-shifter, a human who can turn into a Titan at will. Something notable about Eren as a Titan is that he actually retains his intelligence and can remember what happened when he transforms from Titan to human. Eren is what’s called a Titan-shifter, a human who can turn into a Titan at will. How does a Titan-shifter become a Titan? Well, in order for that to happen, the Titan-shifter has to be wounded in a way that draws blood (even a paper cut would work) and have a concrete goal in mind.

Our second protagonist is Mikasa Ackerman, Eren’s adopted sister. This girl is BADASS. She’s the last known person of Asian descent living within the walls. She graduated at the top of her class in the 104th training corps. She’s super protective of Eren because he saved her and gave her the will to live.

Our third and final protagonist is Armin Arlert. He’s the childhood friend of Eren and Mikasa. He’s not that strong in battle, but he is pretty strong emotionally and super smart. He’s levelheaded, loyal, and selfless; constantly worrying for the safety of his friends and always ready to throw himself into dangerous situations for them. He’s essentially the strategist of the group. In other words, he’s more brain and less brawn. Not that that’s a bad thing.

So…rating?

NINE OUT OF TEN.

The animation is incredible. I always love seeing a manga I’ve followed pretty closely get an anime adaptation done AMAZINGLY well. I give the animators a ton of credit. There are action scenes that happen so fast that it can be pretty hard to follow, but they’re done so incredibly well.

The music is also amazing. This anime actually has two openings and two endings, which is interesting because we have only seen one season. The group Linked Horizon performed both openings. The opening for the first half of the anime was “Crimson Bow and Arrow,” and the second half’s opening was “Wings of Freedom.” You might have better luck finding them if you use their Japanese names, “Guren no Yumiya” and “Jiyuu no Tsubasa.” I have to give Linked Horizon’s singer a TON of credit for using German in the song, because it’s not his first language, but he tried anyway. Great work!

The ending for the first half was “This Beautiful Cruel World” (“Utsukushiki Zankoku na Sekai”) by Yoko Hikasa, and the ending for the second half was “great escape” by Cinema Staff.

The interesting thing is how much German is incorporated into the anime. While Attack on Titan doesn’t necessarily take place in Germany, there are German lyrics scattered throughout the anime’s first opening, and the majority of the anime’s second opening was also in German. Eren’s full name, Eren Yeager, sounds similar to the German word “Ehrenjäger,” which means “titular hunter.”

So…why do I give this nine out of ten instead of my usual ten out of ten? There’s nothing wrong with it. But…

Here’s the thing about adaptations. You have to make changes. That’s a given. And there are numerous adaptations (anime included) that have done this TREMENDOUSLY well. Attack on Titan, on the other hand…well…

People have said that following the anime is easier if you have read the manga. Personally, while I can see where they’re coming from and agree to an extent, I don’t think it’s too necessary to read the manga. I read the manga after I saw the first season and think that the two go hand in hand. I would recommend the manga because it’s well drawn and well written. But would you need to read it to understand the anime? Not really. There are a few parts of the anime where reading the manga could come in handy, but it’s your choice.

Before I forget, there is going to be a live action adaptation split into two parts. I talked a little bit about this on my Facebook, but I’ll talk a little more. The original director, Tetsuya Nakashima, left his position in 2012 due to considerable creative differences with regards to scriptwriting and other things. He was replaced in 2013 with Shinji Higuchi, who would also be responsible for special effects. Yusuke Watanabe and critic/subculture expert Tomohiro Machiyama will be scripting the movie with the series creator, Hajime Isayama. So, this movie is BOUND to have some good lines.

The cast is pretty good, too. We have Haruma Miura (Eren Yeager), Kanata Hongo (Armin Arlert), and Kiko Mizuhara (Mikasa Ackerman) for our leads. Other cast members include Nanami Sakuraba (Sasha Blouse), Takahiro Miura (Jean Kirstein), and Satomi Ishihara (Hange Zoë).

These films look AMAZING. Besides, look at the EPIC-NESS of the live-action version of the Colossal Titan!
Epic, right? The tagline (translated) is: The world is cruel.
 Fun fact about the Colossal Titan to be featured in the live-action movie: In the anime, the Colossal Titan was 60 meters (about 200 feet) tall. The live action? Well...the CGI department is NOT holding back. The live-action Colossal Titan is 120 meters (about 400 feet or 30 stories) tall. IT'S TALLER THAN GODZILLA (108 meters/350 feet).

NEXT TIME ON ANIME MONDAY:

My next post will be more of a “special” post. It’ll be a glossary of some of the terms I’ve used and will be using throughout Anime Mondays. This won’t necessarily be on Monday, so I’m not counting it as part of Anime Mondays.

After that, I plan on reviewing a bad anime. One that I personally couldn’t stand. At all. Okay, that’s not entirely true. There was one element that I really liked. And…here’s your hint: it’s super popular and fans were crushed when the manga concluded a couple months ago.

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