It is not very often that a Japanese manga series is able to make the leap across the pond and gain a significant following, much less a following strong enough to warrant a full length movie. Attack on Titan is one of those titles that has a strong following on both sides of the pond.
Attack on Titan started as a manga in 2009, but did not gain wide-spread popularity until 2013. The animated series that was produced and released in that year propelled the series to mainstream popularity, and comic conventions across the world saw the Survey Corps uniform appear in the cosplay circles, as the Inquisitr has shown here . In 2011, the first whispers of a live action adaptation were heard, but the next update from distributor Toho wouldn’t come for almost two years. The news was that Shinji Higuchi ( The Floating Castle) would be directing the Attack on Titan movie adaptation, according to Rocket News .
The Attack on Titan series is set in a world where humanity has retreated behind a circular network of cities as giant genderless monsters, known as Titans, are literally devouring the human race as a bedtime snack. The manga picks up 100 years after the first appearance of the Titans, who have literally eaten all of humanity except for what resides behind 3 concentric walls that have kept the monsters out for over a generation. It changes when a 200-foot-tall Titan appears out of a lightning strike, compromises the wall, and a small army of the smaller Titans ravages the border city. The population retreated further in disrupting the balance of food and economy.
The series is ongoing, with a collection of 16 current volumes as of this writing.
The trailer above for the Attack on Titan movie shows a few scant moments of actual Titans with one raising a human snack up but cutting away before we see the face. The other moment is a low angle shot of the 200-foot Titan surrounded by a cloud of smoke (presumably from the high temperature around the Titan) about to smash the wall. The remainder of the trailer is mostly screaming populations, explosions, and dramatic poses. The Attack on Titan movie is slated for a summer release in Japan, with no official word on when a version for North America will be coming.
[Image Source: YouTube]
