From gnarly and creepy Titans to poverty and hunger, Hajime Isayama’s manga Attack on Titan reflected the horrifying reality through its visuals and storytelling. The dystopian manga along with the anime turned out to be a major hit among readers and viewers.
From power-packed action scenes to eerie Titans, the manga surpassed its limits in its depictions of gore and violence. All in all, the process of crafting concepts along with stories and illustrations in the manga is not often discussed.
While some character designs came off smoothly, the author faced obstacles and had to go all out while creating this character in the series.
Hajime Isayama’s key to writer’s block in Attack on Titan
Manga conception and its serialization is no joke. From character designs to storyline, the process involves painstaking effort and obstacles to make the author’s work more refined. While the author faced several issues drawing the main characters for the manga, the Cart Titan proved to be more difficult.
The Cart Titan appears in Episode 13 of the third season where Marley attacks Paradis Island. It is seen walking on all fours with immense speed, agility, and endurance. This character’s design made Isayama step out of his comfort zone as he recalls the moment in an interview with Febri :
I was blanking on the design until two days before the deadline, and the resulting iron mask was a reference to a mask from a one-shot manga I first contributed to in high school. Back then, I was always drawing masks, like it would have killed me to stop, but fortunately it was the key to my artist’s block.
However, his inspiration and obsession with masks was the key to his writer’s block that eventually helped him create the character design for the Cart Titan. Furthermore, it gave the Titan its unique quirk in addition to its gnarly figure.
While The Cart Titan was a difficult character to draw, the Staircase Titan proved to be equally difficult for the author when it came to capturing the essence of fear and eeriness in manga.
The Gnarly Staircase Titan in Attack on Titan was nightmarish
It’s a known fact that both the manga and anime reflected Titans’ eerie and gnarly nature through nightmarish visuals. It is not uncommon since Hajime Isayama perfected and aced the character designs through his unique art style and illustrations after painstaking efforts.
The Staircase Titan is one of the creepiest Titans in the series. It debuted in Season 2 where Reiner encounters the Titan when he opens the tower door. This particular character proved to be a challenge for Isayama as he couldn’t afford to bring out sloppiness in his visuals.
In an interview with Febri, he revealed how the Staircase Titan proved to be difficult to conceptualize. He quoted:
I’m prone to drawing titans haphazardly, actually, but I realized that scene wouldn’t work if the titan didn’t seem uncanny and scary, so I put everything that I had into drawing it.
To say the least, the uncanniness along with the eerieness of the Titan perfectly captured the author’s motive to reflect the hidden meaning behind the conception and creation of the gnarly creature.
While Cart Titan and Staircase Titan proved to be difficult to draw, they most certainly brought out the author’s hard work and relentless efforts in bringing out the disturbing visuals along with strong emotions in the readers.
Attack on Titan is available for streaming on Crunchyroll
