Posted in: Comics, Manga | Tagged: anime, Attack On Titan, Comics, Hajime Isayama, kodansha, light novel, manga

Attack on Titan: Manga in the Final 1% to 2% of Ending

Hajime Isayama reported on Sunday that his megahit manga series Attack on Titan is now about 1 to 2% away from completion. This means the manga is just months away from publishing its finale.

Anime News Network found the Nishi Nippon Shimbun report, where Isayama spoke at the unveiling of the statues of the manga's main characters at his hometown Ōyamamachi's Ōyama Dam. He added that he has been arranging the pieces of the finale like the endgame of a shōgi (Japanese chess) game. The dark, downbeat series has not been afraid of killing off fan favourite characters throughout its run. No one is safe. It is, in many ways, the manga series that captured the anxiety and uncertainty of the 21st Century.

Isayama launched the manga in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in 2009. Kodansha published the 32nd volume on September 9. Kodansha Comics is publishing the manga in English digitally and in print, and it published the 31st volume on August 25.

Isayama previewed the rough layout sketch for the final panel of the manga series on the MBS documentary program Jōnetsu Tairiku in November 2018 and declared last December that he was planning to end the manga this year. He's probably going to finish drawing it this year. Whether the final chapter will be published by December remains to be seen. The series is serialised monthly in chapters that run between 40 to 50 pages each.

The December issue of Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine announced on Monday that the manga is getting a full-color serialization in the magazine. They did not say when the full-color version will launch, but this serialization is the second project in seven new projects for the magazine. This is similar to Image Comics reissuing The Walking Dead comic series in full colour to give it a second life.

The first television anime season based on the manga premiered back in April 2013, and the second season premiered in April 2017. The first part of the third season premiered in July 2018, and the second half premiered in Japan on the NHK General channel in April 2019. Attack on Titan The Final Season will premiere on NHK on December 7. The anime series has been a condensed but faithful adaptation of the manga. It has been simulcast with Western streaming services like Crunchyroll and Funimation.

The manga has also spawned many spinoff manga and light novels, several spinoff anime, video games, and a 2-part live-action film project. The manga currently has more than 100 million copies in print worldwide. The anime series' debut was what pushed sales of the manga series into a massive success in the West and practically revitalized the US manga market. Now it's approaching its endgame.

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