Joseph Luster
July 8, 2013 It’s abundantly clear by now that Attack on Titan is a straight-up phenomenon, and it’s definitely one of the more surprising runaway successes of recent years. The anime is currently streaming thanks to FUNimation and Crunchyroll, and Kodansha recently ramped up Hajime Isayama’s original manga to monthly in order to catch up with the Japanese releases. Said manga is an odd beast, with rough art that speaks loudly of Isayama’s experience level and unconventional style. The story itself, while not revolutionary, lends itself well to a mix of melodrama and intense action, and fans hit the road running with their own wild brand of homages and parodies.
The amount of costumes, photo tributes, fan art, and video mash-ups created and uploaded since the anime started airing is pretty staggering, not to mention legit promotional crossovers like the one with Pizza Hut. From the photo-crashing trend that had folks using perspective tricks to make it look like they were attacking Titan-sized friends (pictured above) to Attack on Titan baking tutorials, this article would be long enough to wrap around Wall Maria if we included it all. Still, we’ve got a sizable portion of the more recent highlights to showcase below, so get that theme song pumping in the background and enjoy!
Be wary, while most of this stuff is spoiler-free, if you’re just starting the series some of it might be new to you.
“Attack on Baby” features a Titan mom suiting her 5-month-old daughter up in a replica Scouting Legion uniform:
Tanya Panagia offers a handy Attack on Titan cosplay makeup tutorial:
Hatsune Miku and a chorus of popular Vocaloids cover Linked Horizon’s Attack on Titan theme:
For something much more frighteningly accurate and kind of hilarious, a live-action parody of the Attack on Titan opening:
Attack on Titan cosplay has been pretty huge, and one of the coolest things to come out of the efforts of crafty fans is this semi-functional Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear:
And, of course, what craze would be complete without mixing it up with moe? Could anyone possibly be prepared for what happens when Attack on Titan gets tossed in a blender with Lump of Sugar’s bishoujo visual novel Nursery Rhyme?
Even more disturbing than a full-scale Titan attack, moe characters break down the wall and invade the unprepared town within!
To end on a less disturbing note, here’s a hand-drawn blend of Attack on Titan and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Is that an odd choice of anime to combine? It certainly is, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the still-growing obsession with Attack on Titan, nothing is too out there to warrant a mash-up, remix, or parody. Hopefully it continues, because seeing this level of creativity pouring out of fans is just as—if not more, depending on who you ask—entertaining than keeping up with the series itself.
Let’s close this off with a bridge to the new summer season of anime: A pixiv artist’s work that crosses Attack on Titan with the hunky swimming anime Free!
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