Did you know that Hajime Isayama originally started working on Attack on Titan in 2006?
He was rejected by manga publishers who told him to better his craft. Isayama refused and
spent the next few years thinking of ideas and plot twists. After 3 years, he was finally
granted serialization, but hold up. We’re moving way too fast. Let’s go all the way
back to the very beginning.
Attack on Titan has been my favorite anime and manga for the longest time, while there
are better written mangas out there, the enjoyment I had while experiencing it for the first
time still hasn’t been beaten. Even if you consider yourself the biggest Attack on Titan
fan in the world, I’m sure you will learn a thing or two in this video.
The show has become a critical and commercial success. The manga has sold over 100 million
copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Attack on Titan
has been nominated and has won many awards, including the Kodansha Manga Award and multiple
“best manga” awards as early as 2011. This video took a lot of time and research
to make, keep watching the video and if I surprise you with something, then show support
by comment, liking and or subscribing. Anyways, welcome to the full story of Attack on Titan
and it’s famous author Hajime Isayama.
Isayama was born on August 29, 1986. He enjoyed drawing from an early age. As a child, he
used to draw pictures on the blank pages of school textbooks. Since elementary school,
he dreamt of being a mangaka. He had 2 or 3 friends at the time who had already started
their own mangas. Isayama himself stated that those friends were much more exceptional that
him, while he hadn’t started his own manga at the time, his dreams and aspirations kept
growing and growing.
He wasn’t a good student, he would prioritize drawing over doing his school work. By the
time he graduated high school, Isayama and his friends we mentioned earlier had to face
reality. His friends would pursue different career paths, but Isayama still wanted to
become a mangaka. So he enrolled in the manga design program of the cartoon arts department
and started designing a prototype and gathering ideas for his new manga, which at the time,
would be titled Humanity vs Titans.
Later, at the age of 20 in 2006, he set his foot in Tokyo and worked at an internet cafe
to pursue his dream of being a manga artist. In the same year, He submitted a 65-page one-shot
version of ‘Attack On Titan’ to the Magazine Grand Prix and eventually won ‘The Fine
Work Award.’ He would grab inspiration from cinema and video games instead of typically
other mangas.
His hometown of Oyama located in the Hita District, Ōita Prefecture in Japan, would
serve as inspiration for the three walls in Attack on Titan. The mountainous range circling
Oita made him feel very cut off from the world. And, as a child, he often wondered if there
were monsters lurking over those hilly peaks. While working at his job, he would encounter
drunk patrons who had trouble connecting with their sober friends.
The groups' inability to communicate struck a chord with Isayama, birthing the fledgling
idea that would turn into a full-on Titan one day. The post-apocalyptic setting was
inspired by the movie Jurassic Park and the video game Muv-Luv Alternative. The idea of
humans being driven into a corner like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, would be fundamental
by the start of the story.
Isayama would release multiple one-shot chapters to start off his mangaka career. His goal
was to earn enough money to quit his job at the Internet cafe. His idea of Humanity vs
Titans would be brought up to the manga publisher Weekly Shonen Jump department at Shueisha.
They denied publishing his manga, it was too dark and not suitable for their audience.
He was told to switch things up, to censor it basically. Isayama refused and decided
to contact another publisher instead. He contacted Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine department
and he was accepted and started publishing multiple one-shots.
Isayama has written four one-shots. When he moved to Tokyo, he also left behind the idea
of Humanity vs Titans. He would instead start focusing on creating other one-shots. In 2008,
he would release “ORZ” and “Heart Break One.” He gained a small amount of recognition,
later winning the Special Encouragement Award. At the age of 22 and 23, his editor suggested
him to expand Humanity vs Titans into a long-term series. Isayama spent the next few months
coming up with new details of the story. Let’s go over some of the main changes between the
prototype and the first chapter of Attack on Titan.
Humanity vs Titans lays out the Titans origins right from the start, saying that they were
created by a group of religious fanatics in order to protect nature from the devastating
effects of human society. The titans were designed to kill as many humans as possible,
and in the hundred years they’ve been around when the story takes place, they’ve wiped
out 80 percent of the species. This reverence for nature even influences the setting, as
instead of living in cities surrounded by protective brick walls, the remaining humans
in Humanity vs. Titans live at the center of a ring of towering trees, as the Titans
refuse to destroy plant life.
Basically, the characters were in the middle of nowhere and instead of giant stone walls
there was just a bunch of trees. Also, instead of the titans having a uniform weak spot at
the base of their necks, each has a central nucleus located somewhere in their body that
must be crushed in order to kill them. Eren was also more like Levi, a cool, capable warrior,
who’s also the only human to have ever survived a fight with a titan. He also keeps Eren’s
ability to shift into a Titan and having a similar backstory of his parents being killed.
Mikasa was also very different, instead of being a full-fledged soldier herself, she’s
a civilian who’s begging the protagonist, who she calls “Master,” to teach her to
fight, so that she can avenge her parents, who were also eaten by titans. After completing
the creation of characters and an outline of his new manga, this time titled Attack
on Titan, he took it to feature it in Weekly Shonen Jump. He was rejected once again for
the same reason and also adding on top, that the quality of his art was not good enough.
He went to several other publishers, but they also rejected it. Isayama and his editor were
starting to get worried, his self esteem was already low enough and he was about to give
up on his dream of becoming a mangaka. But finally, someone showed genuine interest and
didn’t reject his manga.
Kodansha’s monthly Bessatsu Shonen Magazine showed interest in serializing his manga. A few months
later on September 9, 2009, the first chapter of Attack on Titan was released and this is
what happened.
Like I just mentioned, Attack on Titan was released on September 9, 2009 and new chapters
would start releasing every month. The story itself was well-received, but more than that,
you could feel and understand the emotions in his drawings. While he still had the art
style of a student and there was no reason to compare him to a professional mangaka,
there was emotion in every page, every line. When looking back on his manga, Isayama admits
his art was rough and he’s not a huge fan of it.
Isayama estimated his basic monthly timeline as one week to storyboard and three weeks
to actually draw the chapter. The story was planned out in advance, even marking down
in which collected volumes a specific "truth" would be revealed. In September 2013, he stated
that he was aiming to end the series in 20 collected volumes.
His editor would not allow him to publish the manga without a clear ending set in stone.
Originally, Isayama planned to give the series a tragic conclusion where every character
passes away. But we’ll go more on that later. In 2011, 2 years after serialization had begun,
Attack on Titan won the 35th Kodansha Manga Award in the best shonen manga category. Attack
on Titan had a small fan base at the time, but one thing is for certain, the fan base
would continue to grow, the fan theories would continue developing and Isayama didn’t know
what to do with Eren.
He sort of created this character, but had no idea what he wanted to do with him, what
his goals or ambitions were. The first light novel of the series was also released. Attack
on Titan: Before the Fall began on April 1, 2011. Its story is set before the events of
the manga and it was published by Kodansha in three volumes. It tells the story of Angel,
the blacksmith who develops the first prototypes of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment and
the story of two young men who found a baby in a titan’s stomach.
A few months later in October 2011, a live-action film was announced to be in production. That
was pretty weird, it’s super uncommon for a manga to receive a live-action adaptation
before an actual anime adaptation. During this time period, the manga only had 5 volumes,
which to be fair, is barely enough content for an anime adaptation.
2012 was a pretty slow year, nothing too interesting would happen. A chibi parody spin-off based
on the series, titled Attack on Titan: Junior High began serialization in Bessatsu Shōnen
Magazine's May 2012 issue. It follows the main characters as they battle the Titans
while in junior high school. A month later, Kodansha USA would start localizing the manga
to a North American audience. By the end of the year, there would be a total of 9 volumes
and the director who had been carrying the live-action film on his back had left his
position.
In a 2012 interview Isayama said that Jean was his favorite character. In regards to
the future of the series, he has also stated that he has decided on the direction and has
already planned the plot completely. He said that he already knows what would happen all
the way to the last chapter. He predicted that readers would be surprised in Volume
10. Readers were in fact surprised by the true identities of the Colossal Titan and
Armored Titan. He also predicted that it would be less popular in Volume 13 because the story
goes on without the Titans appearance for a while.
But little did anyone know that the next year in 2013, everything would change forever.
An anime adaptation produced by Wit Studio would be released. Isayama would be a big
part of the production of the anime, he made some mistakes during the first few chapters
that he would like to change, so he used the anime adaptation as an opportunity to fix
those mistakes and tell the story he wanted to tell.
When the anime released on April 7, 2013, the popularity of the show exceeded Wit Studio’s
and Isayama’s expectations. He was more motivated than ever to continue writing and
the anime would hit mainstream popularity. Think of the amount of popularity Demon Slayer
had when it first released and give that same amount to Attack on Titan in 2013.
The anime and manga would both bring in 151 million dollars of revenue. The anime would
multiply their revenue by hundreds. It was honestly incredible. To give you a better
idea, the manga's publisher, Kodansha, credits Attack on Titan for the company's first revenue
increase in eighteen years. When the 12th volume was released, it immediately sold over
2.2 million copies.
However, with all of this popularity, Isayama and Wit Studio couldn’t capitalize on it.
Frequent breaks would happen, Isayama was starting to doubt what direction the story
should go. It’s why there was a 4 year gap with season 1 and 2. Not because the studio
was lazy, but simply because there was not enough content. Attack on Titan was the second
highest selling manga series of 2013, with 16 million copies sold in a single year.
In September 2013, Isayama stated that he was aiming to end the series in 20 collected
volumes. But clearly, that’s not what happened.
2014 and onwards is what I consider modern Attack on Titan, Isayama knew where he wanted
the story to go and after achieving his goal of living comfortably with a good amount of
money, his full focus was on writing something people can truly enjoy, and it’s really
noticeable when this happened. If Isayama ended the show like he said on volume 20,
it would end with the basement cliffhanger and who knows what would’ve happened next.
No time skip, nothing.
A second light novel titled Attack on Titan: Harsh Mistress of the City was published on
August 1, 2014. And again, another novel titled Attack on Titan: Lost Girls, was published
on December 9, 2014. It comprises three short stories featuring Mikasa and Annie. 2014 was
a pretty regular year, more chapters and volumes would continue to be released, and that’s
about it. When 2015 hit, the show started slowing down. Manga sales would slow down
over 50% dropping from 123 million dollars in revenue to 60 million.
Even though the manga had a substantial decrease, it was still in the top 3 of best-selling
mangas in Japan. The manga was going through the Kenny and Historia arc, appropriately
titled the Royal Government arc and
If you remember, earlier I stated that Isayama was predicting during an interview that starting
on volume 16, the series would slow down because of the lack of Titan appearances. And he was
right. With a completely different arc, with new characters, new fights, new goals, and
absolutely no hints at a new season, it’s understandable why so many people lost interest.
The next few years, from 2015 to 2016, to slow would repeat the same trend. Sales and
popularity would decrease and the show would still continue. Other than the very important
announcement that Isayama has binge-watched all of Game of Thrones and everyone should
watch it and it would serve for inspiration for the future of the story.
Starting in 2017, the show once again regained popularity again. The manga was going through
the Return to Shingashina arc, aka the events of Season 3 part 2 and hype was through the
roof. Theories about the basement would pop up left, right and center.
The reveal of Reiner and Bertholdt’s true identities would be revealed in the anime
and it was crazy. Everyone’s love for Attack on Titan had started again, and this time,
it wouldn’t die down. Isayama’s favorite character would change from Jean to Reiner
and the memes of Reiner’s plot armor would slowly start appearing.
He also announced that he already had a brand new ending in mind, this was the second possible
conclusion that Isayama thought of.
During this time, the manga was going through the Kenny and Historia arc, appropriately
titled the Royal Government arc and if you remember, earlier I stated that Isayama was
predicting during an interview that starting on volume 16, the series would slow down because
of the lack of Titan appearances. And he was right. With a completely different arc, with
new characters, new fights, new goals, and absolutely no hints at a new season, it’s
understandable why so many people lost interest.
The next few years, from 2015 to 2016, would repeat the same trend. Sales and popularity
would decrease and the show would still continue. Other than the very important announcement
that Isayama has binge-watched all of Game of Thrones and everyone should watch it and
it would serve for inspiration for the future of the story.
Starting in 2017, the show once again regained popularity again. The manga was going through
the Return to Shingashina arc, aka the events of Season 3 part 2 and hype was through the
roof. It is considered by many people, including myself, to be the arc that turned Attack on
Titan into a masterpiece. Theories about the basement would pop up left, right and center,
before it was revealed of course.
In the anime, the reveal of Reiner and Bertholdt’s true identities would be revealed and it was
crazy. Everyone’s love for Attack on Titan had started again, and this time, it wouldn’t
die down. Isayama’s favorite character would change from Jean to Reiner and the memes of
Reiner’s plot armor would slowly start appearing. He also announced that he already had a brand
new ending in mind, this was the second possible conclusion that Isayama thought of. By then
end of the year, the Marley arc had started, aka the time skip arc that’s in Season 4
Part 1.
By the start of 2018, the Declaration of War chapter was released. On July 23, 2018, the
first episode of Season 3 would air. After airing 12 episodes, Season 3 was put on hiatus.
In an interview, Isayama would announce that he is how a married man and showcased the
final panel of the manga. He had already planned how the story would end, but a few years later
he would change it once again. That’s about it.
In 2019, Isayama showed disappointed for the ending of Game of Thrones, but more importantly,
Season 3 Part 2 would start airing. When it aired the final episode, the final season’s
release date would be announced at the same time. But it seems like they didn’t discuss
the release with the studio and as a result of such a short time to animate, Wit Studio
dropped the anime. This caused Mappa to pick the show up and animate the final season.
In 10 months, the studio had to animate 16 episodes which was extremely difficult.
In December 2020, the final season would start airing and it broke so many websites. The
hype was soaring once again, Crunchyroll was shut down momentarily due to the high traffic
the show was bringing in, and not to mention all of the other websites. Attack on Titan
was finally back, but of course, there had to be some controversy. Mappa used a lot of
CGI to animate the titans, this made them look odd, but they would make up for it by
hand-drawing the Colossal Titan.
This was the complete opposite of what Wit Studio did. Let me know what you guys prefer
down below, normal Titans and a CGI Colossal Titan or CGI Titans and a normal Colossal
Titan. Anyways, the final Season would be split into… three parts?
By 2021, the manga would be 95% complete and last second the ending would once again be
changed.
The Final Season Part 1 would air it’s final episode and go on hiatus before releasing
Part 2. And on April 9, 2021, the final chapter would be release and it was hated. So many
people, I swear it feels like over 50% of Attack on Titan fans consider it a masterpiece
except the ending. As a result, Isayama would participate in an interview where he would
address multiple questions including the ending.
Isayama stated that the final chapter was extremely difficult to write, so much so he
considered it beyond his ability to do so. As a result, he does NOT regret the ending
he gave the manga, instead he regrets not being able to express it properly with his
writing. In the same interview, he also mentioned that chapter 69 and 71 are his favorites.
Instead of focusing on the plot, those chapters focus on the individual characters instead.
As a result, it reminded him of the feeling of making a one-shot chapter. He also considers
the start of the Marley arc as the peak of his artwork and the happiest he’s ever been
while making Attack on Titan. He draw the panels with extreme concentration and strength.
Well, we are now in 2022. The Second Part of the Final Season started airing in January.
Rumors of an anime-only ending have started, as well as the final few chapters being adapted
into a movie. Attack on Titan will forever be remembered as one of the best animes ever
made. This show brought so many people who have never watched anime before to go ahead
and watch this show, that’s how good it is. For the future of Isayama, he has stated
he wants to write another manga in the future and open up a sauna.
Most of us are looking forward to his new manga and business if he does end up doing
them. If I’m being honest with you guys this video took forever to make so I wanna
end this as soon as possible and upload it so leave a like, comment down below and subscribe
and peace out.