Posted in: Comics, Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh | Tagged: adi tantimedh, anime, Attack On Titan, Comics, entertainment, manga

When Titans Attack The Kingdom Of Pop Culture – Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh

Published Mon, 28 Apr 2014 11:00:15 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Adi Tantimedh writes,

I could have sworn I wrote about Attack on Titan last year when It began to take off, but now that it's really taken off as a global pop culture phenomenon, it's worth looking at it again.

I suppose I should summarise the plot for people who don't know it. The story is set in an unspecified quasi-medieval era, possible the future, where the world's dwindling human populations live in walled cities under constant attack from giant humanoid monsters called Titans that threaten to wreck their cities and eat them all. Their only defense is an army of specially-trained recruits whose life expectancy is unsurprisingly short. What sets the latest generation apart is the emergence of a new weapon that may be a trump card, more radical and ruthless strategies and, at last, a push to uncover the mystery of the Titans and their origins and the possibility of ending the war once and for all.

The original manga series began serialization in Japan back in 2012, but began to hit critical mass in 2013 after the anime series premiered. The US edition of the manga actually sold horrendously until the anime series came along, and the buzz and popularity of the show online pushed the Western sales of the manga into the top of the bestseller's lists, making it and The Walking Dead the bestselling comics in the West now. In Japan, the manga has now sold 30 million copies and even more across the rest of Asia.

The manga/anime fan community across the globe tends to follow each other through the internet on social media and certain websites to reach a certain consensus in agreeing which shows and series become the most popular. The buzz for Attack on Titan is reaching another stage in the US this coming weekend due to the premiere of the official English dub with voice actors who are considered the A-list and up-and-comers of the anime and video games voice acting world. It also makes the show now accessible to potential new fans who didn't watch the original Japanese version online or didn't want to read subtitles (though these days, purist anime fans tend to prefer the original Japanese voice dubs).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXgz3y8Z79E[/youtube]

Of course, to those people who haven't seen the anime or manga, or who don't like anime and manga, the popularity of the series is a mystery. It's worth examining why this series is now the most popular comic and anime in the world rather than another series in a different genre like, say, a supernatural high school romance or a giant robot war series.

Attack on Titan is a series about warfare, living under siege, of constantly under the shadow of death. Like many shows of those themes, it's apocalyptic. It's about the last remnants of Humanity fighting a desperate struggle for survival, to live one more day, one more week one more year against a massively powerful enough that's almost unstoppable.

Does that sound familiar to you? Does that remind you of two other popular, zeitgeist-tapping genre shows that had similar themes, namely Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead?

That's what Attack on Titan does. It hits on the same buttons with a unique remix and combination of genre ideas and conventions. It's a new take on the "young people recruited to hellish war" genre that has been popular in Japan since the 1970s combined with the giant monster, or "Dai Kaiju" genre. The genius twist here is that the giant monsters here are zombies, as a friend of mine pointed out, which brings the series into the realm of the zombie genre. There's the emotional intensity of beautiful young heroes and heroines fighting a war where they could die in the next raid that puts it in the same realm as much of the most popular current Young Adult fiction like The Hunger Games Trilogy and The Divergent Trilogy, though thankfully the series has avoided the mawkish and increasingly clichéd subplot convention of the heroine in a love triangle with two guys. This being a Shonen manga, the hero is male, and more angst-ridden than many others'.

There are other reasons the series is popular now: it's story feels more universal rather than another niche story specific to Japanese culture. It's not cute or creepy like many other manga and anime, and the female characters are strong and distinctive rather than overly or gratuitously sexualized. They behave like people in a war rather than cutesy anime characters. The characters are diverse enough for fans to pick as their personal favourite. There are morally grey decisions to make, traitors to uncover and massive destruction and body-counts to revel in, the same qualities that gave shows like Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead their gritty, doomy edge and appeal.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OkpRK2_gVs[/youtube]

It's a mark of a popular series when there's debate over its subtexts. Is Attack on Titan an allegory about a Japan besieged by outside forces, perhaps China, and its need to have a strong military? Or is it about China facing a new invasion from Japan? This is the debate raging between Japanese and Chinese fans on the internet as part of the current ongoing tension between China and Japan. It's also a sign of the show tapping the zeitgeist when there are multiple interpretations and debates about what its deeper meanings might be. For Western fans, it falls in with the current vogue amongst Science Fiction and Fantasy fans for apocalyptic fiction in a time of war, and the unfairness of having to live in it.

Meanwhile, the first season of the anime ended on a cliffhanger faithful to the manga, and went on hiatus in order for enough new chapters in the manga to adapt before a second season can be declared. This is to avoid making pointless fill-in episodes in the meantime that risk diluting the impact of the stories or the brand, which is a smart move.

Not attacking Titan at lookitmoves@gmail.com

Follow the official LOOK! IT MOVES! twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lookitmoves for thoughts and snark on media and pop culture, stuff for future columns and stuff I may never spend a whole column writing about.

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