Phenomenon of ‘Attack on Titan’ will be one of the protagonists of the anime for this year
From being niche content in the West to a mass cultural phenomenon, Japanese anime (or animation) has made leaps and bounds in recent years. From the international success of ‘Dragon Ball’ and the impact of Naruto on millennials, this has gone on to scenarios never seen before for this type of content, which now also tops lists on this side of the planet.
This week the release date of the third part of the last season of one of the most successful anime in history was announced: ‘Attack on Titan’, which arrives on March 4. This story, ‘Shingeki no Kyojin’ in Japanese, was written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama.
Due to its popularity, more than 110 million copies of the manga, which is the Japanese word for comics, have been printed worldwide. The story, which first printed in 2009, was adapted for the anime format and has been on the air since 2013.
Its protagonist, Eren Jaeger, is one of the most representative icons of Japanese culture, which is why this series has sold more than US$482 million in merchandising in that country alone. Similarly, six of the seven volumes of the manga that have been published in the United States have been on the New York Times best-seller list.
According to information from the Screen Rant portal, ‘Attack on Titan’ is the anime with the second most expensive episodes to produce, as each of these is estimated to cost Mappa, the show’s current studio, about US$150,000. The third season, which had 21 episodes, cost approximately US$3.1 million.
The series ranks below ‘Dragon Ball Super’, with an estimated value of US$160,000 per episode. Another of the most popular anime ‘Demon Slayer’, appears ninth in the list with US$80,000 per episode.
In May 2014, ‘Attack on Titan’ recorded more than one million viewers per episode in the United States and physical sales in DVD format exceeded 200,000 that same year.
This last season will be broadcast in Latin America by the Crunchyroll streaming service, specialized in anime.