BDM126 Exercise in Appealing Animation - A Review on Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)

The Animation I find appealing is a kind of visceral anime displayed by Wit Studio's: Attack on Titan. 

With beautiful fluidity that helps you become immersed in the fiction, along side a striking and clear aesthetic in it's drawing style, on-top of serious themes such as death and violence for survival, it is an experience for the eyes as shown in this clip below.

Attack on Titan is an ongoing dark fantasy series about man-kind's last walled city, attempting to survive against hordes of these mysterious titans. Being an Anime, akin to many other's of it's kind, Attack on Titan started as a Manga in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shonen Magazine (a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels) on September 9th, 2009 and was subsequently collected into a total of 15 volumes as of the end of 2014.

The Anime adaptation of the series by Wit Studio first aired on April 6th, 2013 and ran until September 28, 2013 and was directed by Tetosuro Araki, who previously directed the famous Death Note anime series. Attack on Titan was produced by Wit Studio President George Wada of Production I.G., of which Wit Studio is a subsidiary of.

When it comes to awards, this Anime epic has won multiple at the 3rd Newtype Anime Awards including: best director, best script, best soundtrack, best theme song, top female character and title of the year. Attack on Titan also won the award for best TV animation at the 2013 Animation Kobe Awards. IMDb also states that Attack on Titan has won Animation of the Year and best director in the Tokyo Anime Awards 2014. Though success with critics is hard earned for the series, as the intense violence in some of the scenes is relatively uncommon for mainstream Anime causing many critics, such as Carl Kimlinger from the Anime News Network, say that Araki "clearly intends it to be powerful and unsettling, but it's just crude and unpleasant". 

On top of the astounding animation quality and critical controversy, the beautiful music, composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, has also left an impression on fans everywhere with it's iconic epic overtones and melodies, and a example of why they were awarded top theme song. The composer is also responsible for the epic soundtracks of Kill la Kill, of which Best Music was won for work on  both Kill la Kill and Attack on Titan at the Tokyo Anime Awards in 2014.

The core question of this exercise though is to ask, what makes this anime appealing to me as a content creator and consumer? To me, it is a combination of the following things: 

• The strength and boldness of the lines (with the lines themselves at times being used as an accent for the focal point for additional effect)
• The 'busyness' in many of the intense moments, adding to the emotions and stress in the scene.
• The subtle touch of movement in scenes.
• The ability in the artists to portray such strong emotions in each and every character
• The beautiful shape and accuracy of the muscle groups and how they react in the environment (for example when the male titan slams his fist into the ground and the muscles and bones tense, then fail causing the arm to almost explode)
• And finally the cinematographic layering in almost every scene resulting in a deep immersion and feeling of perspective in Attack on Titan that i personally feel isn't found in many other Anime or even two dimensional animation (other than the typical background pan).

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is property of Wit Studio and Production I.G.