This article is a personal analysis after a lot of reading interviews. The full text is 5000 words, and you need to spend 5 minutes to read it.
"Attack on Titan" is the most popular animation work in the past 20 years. It was regarded as a masterpiece just halfway through the serialization, and its influence greatly exceeded the second dimension.
I still remember the shock of watching the first episode of "Giant" for the first time. The super giant appeared on the wall, accompanied by the classic narration: that day, human beings finally recalled the fear of being dominated by giants.
The shivering child that year is now the leader of spreading horror
"Attack on Giant" (hereinafter referred to as "Giant") was launched at the beginning of the fourth season, and the Douban score surpassed 9.8 points (36,000 people scored), indicating that the final season is suitable for the audience expected. A closer look at the scores of the first three seasons of "Giant": 9.2, 9.5, and 9.7, which shows that "Giant" not only does not pull the hips, but also has been improving.
Today, let’s talk about how the author of the attacking giant, Jianshan Chuang, created such a masterpiece? Does he have psychological problems like rumors on the Internet? What has he experienced?
The story reaches the final season, and every episode is sprinting towards the ending, non-stop. Any character can get a bento, so every episode is frightened.
In "Giant", the more passionate characters are, the faster they die. Popularity is not a talisman, and you can't escape if you write down the name. Jian Shan Chuang is indeed a bit bad-hearted, the leader of Alvin is not low in popularity, Jian Shan will let the giant bite the leader first, and see the reader's reaction. In the end, the head of the group cut off his hand to save his life. When the readers were relieved, Jianshan was probably laughing secretly.
Because the plot of "Giant" is very impactful, readers feel that the author's spirit is different from ordinary people, and they are constantly guessing what kind of childhood he has. Also, because Jianshan often has discussions about political and military systems in his works, doubts about whether he is a left-wing or a right-wing winger are very much. After all, how can a normal person write such a crazy script? How can you make readers hate it?
In fact, Isayama has been conceiving the story of the attacking giant since he was 19 years old, and he thought about it five years before the serialization. He has thought about the ending from the beginning in many interviews. Over the years, he has dug and filled pits according to the preset milestones. Therefore, the foreshadowing in "Giant" is not only many foreshadowings, but also accurate recycling. Therefore, Jianshan won the title [ King of Foreshadowing].
The bronze statues of Ellen, Mikasa, and Amin, which stand in the hometown of Isayama, are mostly inspired by reality. The idea of the huge wall surrounding the country comes from Isayama’s hometown of Hita, Oita Prefecture. The school walls, the mountains surrounding the village, and the huge reservoir dams are the origins of the three walls in the comics. Z2z
Mr. Isayama was a thin child when he was a child, he was neither moving nor had many friends. Sitting at the door of his house and looking at the dike in the distance would have a lot of associations. What is across the sea? If a monster comes from the sea, can the dam stop it?
Kanyama has the characteristic of the Japanese in the 1980s, that is, "dare not to escape." He once said one thing in an interview: When he was young, the village held a sumo tournament every year, and every child had to participate. His opponent ranked in the top ten in the county that year. Xiaojianshan knew that he would lose, but he could only stand in place and accept the reality by saying "cannot escape, cannot escape". Facing a big opponent who was a head taller than himself, Kanyama felt that he was facing a giant. After magnifying the feeling of that year by a few times, it is the shocking scene when the super giant appeared in the first episode of "Giant".
that day human beings finally remembered the fear of being dominated by giants
Weak children always dream of being able to have power, the power to turn things around in an instant like Ultraman. When
reached the middle school stage, Jianshan Chuang won the [Secondary Second Disease] unexpectedly. He wants to stand out and get attention, but his school and physique are not good, so he can only make himself unique this way. This competitive strategy later became his creative mentality: to make works different from others, the plot is always full of suspense, and no one can guess the plot direction.
Kanshan's father opposed him to be a cartoonist. But Jianshan Chuang is unwilling to stay in the village. It is very difficult for a rural youth to walk into a big city to live his dream life. For Isayama, what can he do without being a cartoonist?
Isaneyama self-portrait
does odd jobs every day, with a meager salary, lives in a small apartment, eats cheap lunches, watches Japanese TV series and anime, is it drunk every day?
Yes. This is his life in Tokyo for the first time. It is both poor and embarrassing. The most frightening thing is that there is no end to this kind of life.
The post-80s and post-90s in Japan grew up in the bubble era. They have never experienced poverty since they were young. Every step seems smooth, but they can more or less vaguely perceive the shadow over society. Like ordinary Japanese youth, Isayama always feared that unknown ghosts would suddenly appear and ruin their lives.
What is this shadow? What are they afraid of? We will see in "Giant".
In the "Giant" story, Parady Island has three huge walls protecting humans. The island naturally refers to Japan, and these three walls are metaphors for the three circles facing the Japanese Kanyama.
The outermost wall of Maria is a metaphor for school, this wall is the easiest to break through. In the interview, Jianshan said that he lacked courage when he was a child, and often he dared not take the first step, leaving many regrets. In "Giant", the training soldiers learn, the courageous people enter the investigative corps and go outside the wall, and the courageous people become the military police or garrison soldiers into the other two walls.
The wall is actually a circle of giants, and the irony cannot be clearer. The wall of Ruth in the middle of
is a metaphor for the workplace. In the story, the middle class and most of the people live in it, and people without money and power are kicked out of the wall. At the beginning of the story, human beings have retreated inside Ruth's Wall, which can also be understood as the ascending passage of Japanese social class is closed. Japan has just experienced the loss of 20 years. The people's life pressure is suffocating, and the consolidation of society has led to the low desire of young people. Hope is the most luxurious thing.
This is Isayama Sotsu
After graduating from Isayama Sotsu high school, she moved from the countryside to Tokyo, and worked part-time while studying painting at a technical school. He kept secrets about that life and always said to himself "can't go back to that kind of life", which shows how negative his views on the workplace are. The innermost metaphor of the Wall of Schiner in
is the social system. In the story, the inside of the Sina Wall is called the "king capital", where the ruling class and the military police live. Japan is a country where capitalism and royal power go hand in hand, similar to the Kingdom of Paradi in "Giant", with hereditary families and hereditary chaebols. This is a paradise for the powerful and the elite, and most of the others are kept in captivity like livestock. In the lyrics of the theme song of the first season of
, there is a sentence "hypocritical prosperity, peaceful livestock", which is the author's evaluation of society. There is oppression inside and outside the wall, either as a social animal inside the wall, or seeking "freedom" outside the wall where there is no protection at any time and there is a risk of death.
In the 1990s, "Teacher of Hell" was also a smash hit on domestic campuses.
When I conceived "Giant", what I thought most was how to impact readers. He chose to use fear to build consensus with readers. He said in an interview that when he was a child watching "Teacher of Hell", he was scared to pee by the "Mona Lisa" scene. He thinks that cannibal giants can bring fear to readers, because this is something that even he is afraid of.
It's not enough to have cannibal giants. The editor requires this work to follow the dark route and have a desperate story background. Ishiyama imitated the heavy world view in The Legend of Sword Wind. Isayama is addicted to a certain galgame, and also copied the decades-old war setting and school stage in the game into "Giant". In terms of character setting, Isayama refers to his favorite manga "ARMS" in his youth, turning his companions into enemies and enemies into companions. He combined these elements to form the foundation of the "Dark War Live Drama of the Last Days" in "Giant".
Now that "Giant" is a niche work is really unconvincing, but its initial planning is indeed aimed at the niche market. The first short story of "Giant" was submitted to "JUMP", but was rejected without any suspense. The first is that Jianshan's painting skills were really poor at the time, and the second is that the concept of the work deviated from the mainstream three elements.
later won a special prize for this "Giant" short story in the "Shounen Weekly" competition, and was introduced as an assistant to a cartoonist. Two years later, the editor of Shonen Weekly Shintaro Kawakubo took over the "Shounen Monthly", which was a personalized route. He immediately contacted Isayama and suggested that he create a full-length novel based on the "" Giant Short Story. It is obvious that Kawaku has heard Isayama talk about "Giant"According to the outline, it is judged that this will be a unique masterpiece. So Isayama started to draw the first two-character concept draft, and one draft passed the planning meeting of the magazine.
This is the planning draft of the year. Jianshan's painting skills are not much better than the draft.
Jianshan's painting level is well known, and he himself knows that it is difficult to improve, so he chose to seek breakthroughs in screenwriting. He will watch a lot of movies and then look for professional film critics to watch, so he knows how a story can attract people. Moreover, Isayama's talent for writing is far stronger than painting ability, especially his lines are master-level, coupled with his first-class feel in the lens, constitute a unique style. The situation of
is the same as Teacher ONE, the original author of "One Punch Man". Both have outstanding advantages in certain aspects. It is easy to find people who make up for their shortcomings under the production system of Riman, and they all break out. Took its own way. The creators of
have their own unique mentality, and Jianshan’s mentality for creating "Giant" is to constantly bring impact.
Before the serialization started, Isayama created the strongest impact and insisted on revising the plan after the plan passed the editorial department's planning meeting, so readers would feel the fear of being dominated by giants in the first episode. This is the first wave of the work, and readers will remember this work "as if there is something different" in their minds.
This is the cover of the first issue of
Isayama made Allen be eaten by the giant in the fourth episode. This is the second wave of the work. The reader can't guess how the plot can be reversed after falling into the dead, and then Alan becomes a giant and fights with the giant, bringing the reader a third impact. At this time, the readers decided that "this work is too good", starting from the "golden three combos", "Giant" embarked on the road of counterattack.
However, the sales volume of "Giant" continues to rise, and it is still a work of non-mainstream values. Its worldview is too gloomy, coupled with the bloody violence rarely seen in youth, it is doomed to accept criticism from the public's aesthetics. And I have to complain about Jian Shanchuang's style again, and it can indeed persuade many people.
It was not until the first season of 2015 animation was launched, and the "Giant" that was beautified by the animation industry detonated the world in one fell swoop. However, the simpler and more crude narrative in the animated version, coupled with the fact that the metaphor becomes invisible, makes "Giant" banned in China for granted.
Although the evaluation of "Giant" continues to rise, Jianshan Chuang is still afraid of cutting it in the middle, because his poor painting skills are recognized. The style of the comic version of "Giant" is difficult to distinguish from the later style of Fu Shao, but Fu Shao is confident in the plot and playing mahjong in order to save time, so he is too lazy to paint well, and Jian Shan Chuang is still working hard. The painting is ugly.
Jianshan is afraid to return to the previous distressed life, so he constantly polishes the story to make the main line more attractive. At the same time, he constantly improved the stories that were not fully explained in the early stage, and repaired them by recalling the plot in the middle and later stages, which made people feel that he had left foreshadowing everywhere. In fact, Xiaonan has written online articles, and it is clear that most of the foreshadowings are later inspirations. Can Captain
survive? The animated "Giant" by
caused a sensation worldwide and brought great benefits to Isayama. According to common sense, he can lay down on his achievements for the rest of his life without worry, and he can achieve his ideal life by selling copyrights. But Jianshan Chuang did not slack off, and kept rushing to the end of the story, as if he wanted to finish the finale as soon as possible. The follow-up story of
"Giant" is either more and more connotative discussions, or corps battles, or desperate battles. Even a large piece of literary drama is full of information, and iron fans can write tens of thousands of words in papers looking at so few pages of comics.
Impact and sense of impact are the way "Giant" keeps its freshness. The
wall is turned into a giant! There are giants among the companions! The giant is actually a human change! One by one mystery is being solved, and new questions are constantly being produced: the nine giants, the purpose of the ancestors, the enemy across the sea? Numerous characters appeared one by one, slowly unfolding a huge world. The world extends layer by layer, and whenever you break a barrier to gain hope, you find that the outer layer is still wrapped in despair.
"Giant" turned out to tear apart the film of reality with the cry for freedom, allowing readers to face the biggest fear in their hearts: war.
As we all know, militarism persists in Japanese society, and the left-wing ideology has not disappeared, it just exists in another way.. The Japanese live on small islands. Everyone knows that resources are limited. In order to survive, they must go out and have more space. Trapped on a small island, the country will only become other people's puppets, and the people will only become props.
The Japanese have no self-confidence to regard Tokyo as the center of the world. In the animation works of that year, the whole universe spoke Japanese, and all the aliens were aiming at Tokyo. The "Plaza Agreement" that year burst Japan's false prosperity bubble, and the Japanese lost 20 years. So the Japanese are afraid, afraid that a certain country will impose sanctions on Japan again, or use Japan as a gunman again.
tamper with memory? This is no longer a metaphor:
Japanese anime people may be the group of people who like to express anti-war in their works, but in fact, Japanese people are warlike in their hearts. Randomly find a few works to see, it is all kinds of reasons to start fighting, for example, "FATE", the living and the dead and the half-dead from the east to the west are pulled together to start the fight.
"Attack on Titan" is a superficial anti-war work. I think it is a subversion of the anti-war thinking in the animation industry for many years. People who have seen it should understand what I mean. At first, Alan clamored to expel the giant, but he became a giant and later discovered that he was the big boss behind the scenes. How to understand this? Did the dragon-slayer warrior eventually become a giant dragon? Or is it that after the strong and the weak are transposed, the invaded will eventually become the aggressor? There is a saying in the
movie "The Swordsman": People are rivers and lakes, how can you get out of the rivers and lakes?
In a militaristic country, everyone is a part of the war, including "anti-war" is also a part of the war. For example, the national policy of the Great Qin Empire was "farming war," and farming was also part of the war. You call on the people not to work hard to reclaim the land for farming as soldiers. The grain harvest is large, and the country will give you a prize because it is more confident to start a foreign war.
In front of big words such as nation and country, young people can only respond to "giving their hearts". Because they have no retreat, can't run abroad, can't hide in the mountains, as long as you care about your family, there is only one choice. And those who can really carry out the anti-war are either the children of aristocratic capitalists who have no turn to go to the battlefield, or they are officially sent by Infernal Affairs. Z2z
Jianshan Chuang said in his works: Attacking giants represent the will to pursue freedom in every era.
But the freedom he described has always been nihilistic. It is not so much freedom as the pursuit of uncontrollable. Abandon all worldly restraints, go as far as you can go, do whatever you want, otherwise you will smash the world. This "freedom" attitude is the author's antidote to fear. Z2z
Jianshan does not understand "freedom" because he does not have freedom himself. After ten years of serialization, he was tied up in front of the stage for ten years. If he stops creating fear, he will also fall into the fear of society as a whole. Without the support of thousands of readers, Jianshan would have only one way to escape. Because cartoonists are considered celebrities, but they still can't make the transition from class to class. Isayama said that "Giant" is only 2% away from the end, and it will end with the fourth season animation, after which he will go to a hot spring hotel.
Jianshan is not a person with a righteous governance idea after all, although his works have so many discussions, he finally chose to retreat.
In fact, every reader of "Giant" knows what the wall and the giant are metaphors, but everyone is vaguely unable to say it. It can only be said that where there is oppression, there is resistance. The more oppressive society is, the more we have to find ways to resist. Animation is a low-cost option. Mr. Z2z
Jianshan Chuang grasped our inner fears. He always hinted that "this is medicine", attracting us readers to chase updates like drugs. In fact, we like this work, it is better to say that it is the antidote to our mental resistance against oppression.
Are you confident that you can guess the outcome of the giant? Can the captain survive? Please tell me.
About the author: I’m Xiaonan, a former cartoonist, now I write web articles, and I like anti-routine brain-burning cartoons. This column week will take you to discover niche masterpieces and interpret treasure works. Thank you for your attention and friendly discussion.
