Newest Post
// 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.
