During his visit to the Angoulême Comics Festival, the Japanese mangaka spoke about the genesis of his famous shonen, which sold more than 110 million copies worldwide.
He is one of the most famous mangakas in the world. The Japanese Hajime Isayama, at the origin of the manga The attack of the Titans (Where Shingeki no Kyojin, SNK) is visiting France for the first time this Thursday to give a masterclass during the 50th edition of the Angoulême International Comics Festival.
“An honor”, according to the author, 36 years old, who, for the occasion, returned, at the microphone of France Interon the genesis of his successful manga, the 34th and final volume of which was unveiled in June 2021.
Despite the popularity of The attack of the Titanswhich has sold more than 110 million copies worldwide and has been adapted into an anime since 2012, Hajime Isayama assures us that when he started out in 2009, he was far from imagining the impact his work would have:
“When I started writing, I expected 80% that it would stop in the middle. I never imagined that I could live writing manga,” he says.
“Humans are scarier than animals”
The attack of the Titans tells the story of a medieval city, entrenched behind a wall, prey to attacks by gigantic humanoid beings, the Titans, who have been trying to devour them for centuries. For their survival, some inhabitants then try to fight them, on the initiative of Eren Jäger, an orphan who wishes to avenge the death of his mother.
If this manga was born almost 15 years ago, Hajime Isayama remembers precisely when he imagined the scenario. At the time a server in a cybercafé in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo, the author explains that he was attacked by a drunken customer.
“There are customers who could be very upset and I was like, ‘What’s going to happen when they come back?’ If there is a tiger in a city and we lock ourselves in a house with a key, the tiger cannot follow us”, he specifies.
And to add: “But a human being, he can open the door and have a knife in his hands. This is where I said to myself that the human being is more frightening than an animal, than a tiger .”
Eren “reflects a bad part of me”
For his inspiration, the author explains that he also drew on his childhood, spent in Ōyama, a small town in the Japanese countryside, and on the dark side of his personality, in order to create the main character of Eren Jäger.
“My hometown was surrounded by mountains and it was really like an island on earth. We had no contact with other people and growing up in this environment had a lot of impact on me”, confides- he.
“I think human beings are formed by making mistakes and so I figured a completely perfect, good hero wouldn’t be interesting. He’s a character that reflects a bad part of me. And the whole story goes towards killing that bad part,” he adds.
In June 2021, Hajime Isayama ended almost 15 years of work by publishing the 34th and final volume of his saga. If he assures that a sequence of the attack of the Titans “is impossible” because the work is “completely finished”, he says he has another rather amazing project to achieve: building a sauna with his own hands.
