Attack on Titan: Shingeki no Kyojin

[Y]

Shingeki no Kyojin is a manga by Isayama Hajime, serialized in Kodansha's monthly "Bessatsu Shonen Magazine". Only starting publication a couple years ago, it won the Kodansha Award for Shounen manga in 2011, was nominated for a several others, and is reviewing/ranking extremely high. It is the #2-#3 best selling manga in Japan.

Mankind has been destroyed. The last remnants of humanity live in a single great city surrounded by walls fifty meters high. This is to protect them from the Titans who have destroyed human civilization - enormous, humanoid monsters who eat human flesh. The story follows several members of the military group tasked with defending the city from the Titans.

It's getting an anime adaptation soonish and a preview trailer just landed for it that I thought I'd share with you guys. When I say it looks a lot better than the manga I think I'm still selling it short.



This is the Next Big Thing for you guys that don't read manga. This comic absolutely blew up in popularity almost as soon as it came out and 10 years from now will be spoken of the same way as Berserk. It's an unspeakably bleak portrayal of a narrowminded and futile humanity struggling to eke out a pitiful existence against impossible odds. The only problem with the manga was the frequently lackluster art, a problem which has apparently been more than rectified in the adaptation.

Also the title translates more literally to "Advance of the Giants" which is a way better title than "Attack on Titan" but whatever!

[Ryllharu]

Looks sick.

Since I somehow hadn't heard of this prior, I'll have to grab the manga now.

[MFauli]

That´s going to be a movie, not a weekly series, right?

Anyway, lookgs really intriguing, but you´re setting expectations too high, Y, when you draw the BERSERK-comparison. Let´s discuss stuff like that after its airing, I´d say.

[Y]

That´s going to be a movie, not a weekly series, right?

Anyway, lookgs really intriguing, but you´re setting expectations too high, Y, when you draw the BERSERK-comparison. Let´s discuss stuff like that after its airing, I´d say.

It's a TV series.

I've read the manga. I'm not being hyperbolic. Frankly the only superlatively written Berserk arc is the Golden Age anyway, but I intend to draw more of a thematic comparison.

[Kraco]

The manga is good, that's true. I also read a long time ago it was predicted to be the next big thing, but perhaps I've just seen too much shounen to be able to judge anymore, personally. Still, the setting is really interesting, the main characters kick ass, and people die when they are supposed to die, so I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it animated. Let's hope it won't be unnecessarily censored because gruesome violence is somewhat essential to the atmosphere.

Edit: After being notified about it, while I called this shounen, I'm not entirely sure it is. But it has some core elements that generally remind me of shounen hero growing up stories. So, I'm not going to edit it out. Shounen has changed over the years, maybe this is more like it was back in the day.

[Y]

The manga is good, that's true. I also read a long time ago it was predicted to be the next big thing, but perhaps I've just seen too much shounen to be able to judge anymore, personally. Still, the setting is really interesting, the main characters kick ass, and people die when they are supposed to die, so I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it animated. Let's hope it won't be unnecessarily censored because gruesome violence is somewhat essential to the atmosphere.

Edit: After being notified about it, while I called this shounen, I'm not entirely sure it is. But it has some core elements that generally remind me of shounen hero growing up stories. So, I'm not going to edit it out. Shounen has changed over the years, maybe this is more like it was back in the day.

Well I mean it's published in a magazine with "Shounen" in the title, but I think most people use the term to pidgeonhole something.

[Ryllharu]

Still, the setting is really interesting, the main characters kick ass, and people die when they are supposed to die

People die if they are killed?

[animus]

Yeah, I'm following this manga too and it really is fucking good. I don't praise many things nowadays, but this really deserves the praise.

[shinta|hikari]

Finally, finally.

Mikasa, I have been waiting for you for ages.

This has a great concept, very good mystery, a crap ton of violence, and freaking bad ass characters. The only thing the manga lacks is more of itself.

[Y]

Now with HD trailer.

The release date for this show is April 2013. No info on whether it's a short series, an ongoing or what.

[EpyonNext]

I could tell you that the trailer didn't give me a massive boner.

Of course, I'd be lying.

[Ryllharu]

First episode is out:

[gg] Shingeki no Kyojin - 01




-------------

Damn, what an overwhelming aura of despair. According to the eyecatch, all of humanity lives in an area about the size of Uruguay (or Cambodia or Syria). After 100 years of peace, everyone got complacent. I don't want to say they deserve it after seeing what happened to Eren's mother, but they kinda deserved it. I also liked that the guardman just stopped. I wouldn't call him a coward because he accomplished his goal one way or another, and the mother knew better.

I do like that Eren has the typical protagonist attitude of being the only one who is willing to fight back, but is mostly protected by Mikasa. Nobody thinks he would be a good fighter, and no one is afraid of him. They're afraid of her.

I guess the only other comment I have to make is that I was impressed by Armin's VA. We've known for a while he was going to get played by Inoue Marina (Yoko from TTGL, Yozora from Haganai, or Natsuru from Kampfer), but she really pulled out all the stops with her masculine voice.

edit 2:
Read the lyrics of the OP. Bwahahaha.

[MFauli]

First of all: I dont get it. The Titans are inside their town, so it´s all over. Or are there several towns they can flee to?

Whatever.
Fuck! Best show of the season confirmed already.
Maybe I´m a complete pussy now, but I cried when Hannes went to fight the Titan, looked at the giant´s face, then turned around and took the children with him. It wasn´t cowardice that made him run. It was pure and utter despair and the realization that he couldn´t defeat this gruesome looking thing. He KNEW by just one look at it that he´d die if he approached it. Trying to fight it wouldn´t result in a heroic death, it wouldn´t help anybody. He´d just die. Just how helpless he had to have felt there. Fuck ...

And wtf @ that gigantic red Titan. Why´s he 10 times as big as the other ones? Guess he´s the Titan´s leader/origin? Also, are those Titans intelligent? It is said that wearing clothing is a sign of intelligent life forms, so that would make it a "no". And wow, these monsters are so creepy, scary looking. Most traumatic event a main character could have witnessed, eh? I can´t think of a more gruesome thing any anime-hero has had to go through.

I´m excited to see how episode two follows up these events. And I´m glad that this spiderman-device (seriously, it´s a "spiderman-for-everybody" device, so cool) is a common tool. From the trailer I thought only Eren would have it, which would have been too "he´s the chosen one"-like. Good.

My only complaint so far would be that Eren is looking like Ruffy from One Piece, but whatever.

Man, I love it when an anime fulfills all expectations. So good.

[Ryllharu]

From the trailer I thought only Eren would have it, which would have been too "he´s the chosen one"-like. Good.

What would make you think that? There were clearly four people in the trailer with them, and one of them was blatantly female.

And wow, these monsters are so creepy, scary looking. Most traumatic event a main character could have witnessed, eh? I can´t think of a more gruesome thing any anime-hero has had to go through.

All I can say to this is, "Heh."

[David75]

So we get at least 2 sizes of Titans.
I guess that huge one lost his skins due to the explosion(s). I guess humans setup bombs as a firewall against the titans they know: the small ones. They never thought they'd get much bigger titans. That one was so huge that the explosives did not do enough damage to incapacitate it enough and it was able to breach the wall.

So now, we really need to have some background intel on how titans came to be, what are their ecosystem... because obviously feedings on so few human bodies isn't enough to support their massive energy needs. And they can't prey among themselves or they would not be able to grow in numbers... and you'd still have to find the primary source of food needed to sustain them.

The search for the source of intelligence also is important. Like stated above, the titans we got to see seem to be fairly simple in behaviour. Attack, eat, don't care for life and pain.
That's not enough to grow in numbers and build strategies.
So is there another group of titans with more wits, or are they just weapons grown by other human communities...?

[Y]

The anime adaptation was everything I could want. It's visually lush in a way the comic really never is, and everything about the world we've seen is fully realized. The emotional beat with the boozy soldier seeing a titan and just... flinching in the face of the enormity of the task ahead of him was great, and understated in the best way. The score is great (and the opening with its extremely morbid lyrics and dismal message is an instant classic). The direction and tone of the show are dead on; I think the director of Death Note has met material that matches the impossibly high stakes and gravitas he lent to scenes like eating chips. I even like the acting, as Eren hams it up as the only person who realizes what kind of TV show he's in, and Mikasa carries the trauma of just existing in this world in everything she says. It's a winner and I have total faith in the anime adaptation going forward.

[Kraco]

Like everybody else seems to be, I'm also very happy with this beginning. The false security to mask the hopeless situation was pictured very well, and naturally the moment of truth was as gruesome as it had to be. This wasn't so far much of a shounen with nobody fighting back, so I'm looking forward to when that is taken care of.

[Belial]

First of all: I don't get it. The Titans are inside their town, so it´s all over. Or are there several towns they can flee to?

If you watched / read the intermission you could see there are actually 3 walls, only the first one was breached as far as i could see, could be the others are bigger stronger as more important people live inside, don't know if they can withstand that big 50 meter mofo tho...

and i would guess that that big mofo didn't have skin to begin with because he grew so big his skin couldn't handle his growth spur, he seems a monster / mutant even compared to those other ones, not because of any damage the humans did to him

the first episode was simply amazing, you could feel the depression radiate trough you screen, shows like this give me a hope for the future in the anime world

[Buffalobiian]

First of all: I dont get it. The Titans are inside their town, so it´s all over. Or are there several towns they can flee to?

They leave? Perhaps they don't really have that high an energy need (or have freakishly low metabolism or a highly efficient metabolism), so they take a few bites and leave. If they're intelligent, perhaps they will themselves to do it.

I'm also leaning on the idea that they leave because Eren has to ultimately get back to his basement and unlock the basement for the goods his father left him. Anime convention tells me that his father should die and the key will be salvaged.

I'd say there are several towns to flee to. That would mean that no one has been breeched in 100 years, or no one bothers to communicate between cities anymore.

I also don't think that was an explosive trap. The mutant seemed to have arrived via a thunderbolt, which leads to me thinking:

1) It's sent by a god
2) It's extra-terrestrial in nature
3) Titans have science and they launched the mutant at the wall
4) The lightning was purely coincidental

So far the setting reminds me of Chrome Shelled Regios, while the gruesome man-eating nods to Claymore.

[Kraco]

The land occupied by humans is actually helluva large to be just a single walled off place, like Ryll indicated up there with his comparisons.

From the center (king's palace?) 480km to the outer wall (that now has a single breach). However, assuming the outer wall is roughly circular, it's fricking 3000km long! The map also shows those smaller walled off areas. Maybe they are the bigger towns, while the rest is countryside, villages, forest, etc.

To be honest, I think the mangaka made a terrible mistake with these numbers. Unless there was a period of hundreds of years of a slow, losing battle against the giants and humans realised their doom from early on, plus the giants weren't everywhere equally. So that when people elsewhere were being eaten and eradicated, the people roughly around where this city stands, plus any lucky refugees, had several generations to build these massive structures relatively unhindered. Let's not forget they don't seem to have much in the way of heavy machinery, relying on horses and such, so building thousands of kilometers of dozens of meters high walls is a godly accomplishment.