Tetsuro Araki and Tetsuya Nakatake Look Back on the “Miracle” of Attack on Titan
While the meteoric success of Attack on Titan makes it easy to look back on fondly, Araki and Nakatake were candid about the challenges the team faced during production, and also all the things they learned as a young studio.
It has been almost fifteen years since Attack on Titan first aired. Looking back now, what emotions come to mind?
Tetsuro Araki: I'm very grateful that so many people watched it. Even when we travel abroad like this, there are still so many fans. It's one of the most important works of my career.
Tetsuya Nakatake: I have a son who is now in the seventh grade, and he's currently watching the anime for the second time on Netflix. He was born after we finished editing Episode 24. That was also the episode where Assistant Director Hiroyuki Tanaka, who directed it, was taken away in an ambulance because he had worked himself to exhaustion.
Araki: I only just learned that your son was born that day.
Nakatake: You really forgot?
Araki: I didn't know!
Nakatake: At this rate, you'll forget again. (laughs)
That certainly makes it an unforgettable day now.
Nakatake: After my son started rewatching Attack on Titan, I started watching with him. Watching it now, I'm reminded of how much power it has and how simply entertaining it is. I can still watch it normally and think, “This is really good.”
Araki: Even though we made it ourselves, when a short clip is shown at an event, even if it's only a few seconds or a few dozen seconds, you can feel how strongly it draws people in. Even as one of the people who made it, I think, “This really has a lot of power.”
It must be rare and special to have worked on something that your own children think is cool.
Nakatake: My main job was probably bringing in the animators and directors. I feel as though all of the core staff poured all of their energy into the project. It was difficult, but everyone was trying to live up to the storyboards Araki created.
In America, we have a phrase called “Type 2 Fun.” It describes something that isn't enjoyable while you're doing it, like climbing a mountain, but once you reach the top, you look back and think it was fun after all. Was producing Attack on Titan something like that?
Araki: When it ended, everyone said, “Just because the work was successful doesn't mean we should decide that everything was fine.” They said, “This must never happen again.” There was a feeling that everyone needed to reflect on how it had been made.
Nakatake: That sounds like Attack on Titan: “Reflect on what you've done.”
When you first began working on Season 1, did you have any sense that you were creating something special?
Araki: At the beginning, I didn't think it would sell. I didn't think it was the kind of work that would sell a lot of DVDs or Blu-rays. But I did believe we were making something very good. We made it with that intention, and the fact that what we were aiming for turned out to be right feels like a validation. It will continue to gain new fans even after we're gone.
In America, the anime was largely responsible for making Attack on Titan popular. The manga had not initially reached a large audience, but when the anime appeared, it felt as though everyone became excited about it all at once.
Araki: Of course, that was because the original manga was excellent. But as a medium, animation has greater power to reach a large number of people. If we were able to help spread the appeal of the original work, then I'm truly happy about that.
Attack on Titan is still so well known for its movement, particularly the way the characters fly through the air using their ODM gear and fight the Titans. When you were creating the adaptation, what were those early conversations like about how you wanted to portray that action?
Araki: If we're talking about the relationship between action and drama, I think large-scale events and intense action allow the drama to hit the audience more deeply. They're like two wheels working together. In order for the drama to really strike the audience emotionally, it's better to also have visually intense action scenes. That's the approach I took with this series.
Were there any particular artists or works that inspired you when you were deciding how to create the distinctive movement in Attack on Titan?
Araki: Not particularly. It was more a matter of encouraging the spontaneous ideas and improvisations that came from the staff. We had people like 3D director Shūhei Yabuta and animator Arifumi Imai who would try all sorts of wild things. We'd see something and say, "That's it. That's really good," or, "Wait, we can do that? Show me more of that." We picked up on everyone's improvisations and made use of them, and that's how it took shape. When we saw the finished result, even we were surprised. We thought, "Wow, we really made something incredible."
Did the enormous global success of the first season change how you approached the later seasons, or even how you thought about future projects?
Nakatake: Immediately after Season 1 ended, as Araki said earlier, we were in a situation where we knew we couldn't continue doing things the same way. So, in terms of what came immediately afterward, we changed the production structure beginning with Season 2. George Wada did a tremendous amount of negotiating to reset the broadcast schedule, and we also reorganized the staff. Because of that, the production as a whole became much more stable in Season 2.
Araki: Season 2 was probably the season where we were able to maintain the highest quality while also keeping the production stable. It was a wonderful series.
Nakatake: We spent too much money, though. We knew we were going to get in trouble for that later.
(At this point in the interview, Nakatake laughed merrily and repeated after the interpreter, “Too much money, too much money,” jotting it down and circling it several times.)
As a viewer, when you look at a finished project, everything looks polished and complete. It can almost look easy. But during those early years, were there moments when you thought, "This might be impossible"?
Nakatake: There were a lot of them. I'd especially like to hear this from Araki's perspective, because his storyboard work took a very long time.
Araki: I take a long time. For me, if the storyboards for every episode reach a level I'm satisfied with, I believe the finished work will somehow turn out well. But when those storyboards come out too close to the broadcast date, you can't exactly sit there smiling. From that point on, it became a battle where Mr. Nakatake really had to work hard or we weren't going to make it to air.
Nakatake: Once we received the storyboards, the work then went to the animators. We had people like main animator Kyōhei Tezuka, Kyoji Asano, Ayumi Yamada, Satoshi Kadowaki, and others. The staff themselves began discussing how we could keep the drawings consistent. They would determine where corrections needed to be made, taking the animation directors' intentions into account, and that's how the production moved forward.
I think there's something almost poetic about the fact that making the series was so difficult. Nowadays, when people face something that seems impossible, they sometimes talk about "attacking their Titans" in a way that's clearly referencing the property. In a way, by overcoming your own challenges during production, you've shown other creators that seemingly impossible things can be done.
Araki: I think that, in 2013, we definitely raised the upper limit of the quality that could be achieved in a television series. But I also think the industry has continued to push that limit higher and higher since then.
After everything you've accomplished together, what do you hope people will remember most about Attack on Titan another fourteen years from now?
Araki: We were responsible for the series through Season 3, and we began making it with the intention of creating something that would become a cultural legacy. Then, for various reasons, MAPPA took over the series. They continued it with a level of quality that didn't fall short of ours. If anything, I think they achieved an even higher level of quality. When you look at the story as a whole, everything fits together. You can watch all of the episodes straight through.
In the end, MAPPA brought the series to its conclusion, and that cultural legacy was completed. I think that's an incredibly rare thing. I think Attack on Titan is a miraculous work, and I don't think something like it will come along again very easily.
It wasn't a miracle that we created by ourselves. It was a miracle that also included MAPPA and Director Yuichiro Hayashi. Taking all of that together, I think it's something incredibly precious.
What upcoming works at the studio are you excited for audiences to experience?
Nakatake: We just announced a project called LONA. It will begin airing in April 2027, next spring. It's completely original. Araki also has a new project in development, and part of the reason we came to Los Angeles this time was to do research for it. There's a scene involving rifles and guns, so we wanted to get some firsthand experience.
Araki: Another cultural legacy is going to be born.
I'm very excited. I think anime fans are going to be excited too.
Araki: I'll do my best.
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