Anime Anime Global

A collaboration between “Attack on Titan,” one of the most famous comics in Japan, and craftsmen of the traditional Japanese art of “ukiyo-e wood-block paint” has been realized. “Attack on Titan Ukiyo-e Woodblock Paint ‘Kyojin Shuurai no Zu (Attack of the Titan)'” will be on sale simultaneously worldwide on February 25, 2023, at noon JST.

“Attack on Titan” is a dark fantasy manga by Isayama Hajime which was serialized in “Bessatsu Shonen Magazine” from 2009 to 2021. The 34-volume manga sold more than 110 million copies worldwide and was such a huge hit that it became a social phenomenon, creating a sensation both in Japan and overseas.
The series has become a TV anime series and various other media mixes, and it continues to boast enormous popularity despite the end of serialization.

The first part of the TV anime “The Final Season: Conclusion Arc” will be broadcast as a one-hour special on March 3, 2023, at 0:25 AM on NHK Sogo. Eren, who is trying to destroy the world, launches the “Rumbling,” which causes countless Titans to begin their march, trampling down everything in their path.
The survivors, including Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Hange, Reiner, Annie, Pieck, and the mortally wounded Levi, begin a final battle to stop Eren.

The collaboration announced this time focuses on the similarities between Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s masterpiece “The Haunted Old Palace at Soma” and “Attack on Titan” as a motif to convey the excellence of ukiyo-e from Japan to the world.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi was an ukiyo-e artist who led the late Edo period. He is known as “the painter of strange ideas” and is still extremely popular today. His masterpiece “The Haunted Old Palace at Soma” (1845-46,) which depicts Ooya Tarou Mitsukuni, a vassal of Minamoto no Yorinobu, exterminating a starving skeleton, is one of the most famous ukiyo-e paintings in Japan. It remains extremely popular even today because of its unique composition and power.

This time, Japanese-style painter Shiozaki Ken created an original painting that perfectly intersected the worldview of “Attack on Titan” and that of this famous painting. Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Levi, and the others who stand up to the Titans are recreated in the Japanese-style painting without losing any characterizations, down to the details of their uniforms and capes.
Also, the storyline is based on the original but has been rewritten to the story of Attack on Titan.

The composition of this work was arranged as a battle between the Survey Corps and the Titans to match the worldview of “Attack on Titan.” By making the size of the picture angle about twice that of a normal ukiyo-e, it created an overwhelming sense of power and presence.

Ukiyo-e Wood-Block Paint “Kyojin Shuurai no Zu (Attack of the Titan)”
Price: 60,000 yen + tax and shipping
Sales quantity: Limited to 300 copies worldwide
Specifications:
Picture (W:approx. 510mm x H:approx. 245mm)
Frame (W:approx. 653mm x H:approx. 383mm) with an exclusive frame
Frame: wood, backplate/wooden plywood
Mat: Paper
Washi: Living National Treasure Iwano Ichibei, Echizen Kizuki Housho
Painter: Shiozaki Ken
Woodcarver: Kitamura Shoichi
Printer: Nakayama Makoto

© Isayama Hajime・Kodansha/ “Attack on Titan” The Final Season Production Committee