News
NTV's ZIP! Show Airs 1st Look at Live-Action Attack on Titan Films
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
NTV's morning news program ZIP! aired the first footage on Thursday for the upcoming live-action Attack on Titan films.
Director Shinji Higuchi confirmed in July that the project will span two films. Both are slated to open this summer. Higuchi stated that, with the supervision of Attack on Titan manga creator Hajime Isayama, the story will be based on the world and characters of the manga, while incorporating new characters and new formidable enemies. Yuusuke Watanabe (Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, live-action Gantz, Gantz II: Perfect Answer, 20th Century Boys, Gatchaman) is writing the script. Film critic Tomohiro Machiyama, who is also friends with Isayama, is working on the scripts together with Isayama and Watanabe.
Isayama's manga depicts the battles between humans and the giants who now rule the world outside humans' walled enclaves.
The film stars:
Haruma Miura as Eren
Kiko Mizuhara as Mikasa
Kanata Hongō as Armin
Satomi Ishihara as Hans/Hanji
Nanami Sakuraba as Sasha
Takahiro Miura as Jean
Hiroki Hasegawa as Shikishima
Ayame Misaki as Hiana
Pierre Taki as Souda
Jun Kunimura as Kubal
Shu Watanabe as Fukushi
Satoru Matsuo as Sannagi
Rina Takeda as Lil
The cast includes seven characters that are new to the film versions of the story. Sanspo reports that Hasegawa's character Shikishima holds the key to the film's story as "humanity's strongest man."
Hajime Isayama's original Attack on Titan manga has inspired four spinoff manga, a 25-episode television anime version that aired in 2013, and two compilation films, the second of which will open in June. Additionally, a second season of the television anime series is slated to air in 2016. Isayama launched the series in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in 2009.
Kodansha Comics is publishing Isayama's original manga in North America. The company is also releasing three of the four spinoff manga, and the Attack on Titan Guidebooks: INSIDE & OUTSIDE. Vertical is publishing the Attack on Titan: Before the Fall light novel series.
Both Funimation and Crunchyroll streamed the anime version of the manga as it aired in Japan, and Funimation released the series on home video last year.
[Via 0takomu]