Using the anime Attack on Titan, learn more about how worldbuilding affects character arcs and what the term “Worldbuilding Circle” means.

Attack on Titan’s universe is expansive. | AoT Wiki

As we discussed in Part I, worldbuilding is the act of creating a fictional universe for a story to inhabit. In Part II, we continue to explore the manga and anime Attack on Titan’s worldbuilding as our teaching example. There are spoilers ahead.

Attack on Titan represents a relatively new — but increasingly common — occurrence in modern transmedia (immersive, multi-platform) storytelling. Unlike adaptations of the past, in which the old intellectual property (IP) merely served as fodder for the new version, this agile-like process has become an iterative cycle of creation for Attack on Titan. That cycle is called the “World-Building Circle.”

Let’s explore how this works, and how the world of Attack on Titan creates itself.

Worldbuilding as Storytelling

The above state is admittedly hyperbolic — it’s logically impossible for something to create itself. This is one of the reasons, among others, why the cosmological argument for the existence of God is so compelling. Just like our real universe is both specifically created and designed, so too is the sub-world of Attack on Titan.

Designing worlds is not a new concept in storytelling of any medium. In behind the scenes commentaries for film and TV, directors and production designers frequently say they want the “setting to be a character.” In the case of Attack on Titan, the world’s milieu is key to the way that the story progresses. Characters and their arcs would not be possible without the world being built for the story to inhabit, as a soul in a body. Still, a soul ain’t everything; the soul must have a physical dwelling place that is healthy for it to persist.

When Attack on Titan creator Hajime Isayama began drawing and writing the future hit, his worldbuilding was not as robust as needed. Attack on Titan is an interesting case because the creator admits he didn’t know the whole story world when he began writing the manga! The graphic novel was originally created as a “one-shot,” meaning it was a stand-alone story contained in one issue rather than a serialized story. It was his publisher who encouraged him to expand the story (and thus the world) with a definite ending in mind. More accurately, according to Looper, the manga’s editors wouldn’t publish the series until Isayama assured them he had an ending in mind.

Once the books and subsequent show grew in popularity, Isayama authorized a backstory manga to be made called Before the Fall. In addition, there are tangential, backstory episodes to the anime which expand on the plot. These side-story episodes are called OVAs (Original video animation) in anime terms and offer audiences enjoyable insights into characters’ backstories and personalities. These adventures fleshed out the world even more, ostensibly with Isayama’s involvement. Still, he admits his worldbuilding wasn’t as good as it could have been:

“Thinking about it now, I don’t think I had thought the story all the way through back when I started it. I still feel like it’s pretty shallow compared to the level of the sci-fi universes my older artist friends shared.”

While I wouldn’t describe Attack on Titan’s milieu as shallow, it’s evident that he jumped in without considering all the logical outcomes of his storyworld decisions.

Worldbuilding Problems

Here are a few problems with the worldbuilding of Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan’s Japanese name). The first comes from a Tumblr post that expounds on the lack of coherence with Attack on Titan’s architecture and technological sophistication:

“[In Before the Fall] they have a big fifty-meter tall smelting furnace in a highly ‘futuristic’ industrial complex… That’s not a mediocre level of renaissance technology, that’s as advanced as the industrial technology of the post-French revolution, and progressing toward 20th-century technology.
…They have iron smelting factories running 24/7, so why not light bulbs? Also, Sharle is shown cooking with a gas stove. This is huge information, proof that people inside the walls have advanced [knowledge of] chemical engineering, metallurgy, crafting and smith-work, civil and construction engineering, and cutting-edge mechanical technology for the construction of massive machines.
Fifty years later [in the anime], we see Eren and Mikasa collecting firewood. We see uncultivated and undeveloped land that drove the refugees from Wall Maria to die for the sake of food and land preservation. They do have the knowledge, technology, and machines to develop the agricultural sector and further expand land development, but they don’t use it? Why? How did people in the past build an industrial city when citizens still use candles and torches and firewood?”

As obtuse as it appears, I agree that there’s some confusion as to the level of technological sophistication in the world of Attack on Titan, which seems to hover around mid-19th century standards — except for the times when it doesn’t. This could be dismissed as nitpicking, especially since these details are mentioned in the Before the Fall manga and only tangentially referenced or seen in the anime. Still, this is the kind of storytelling artifact that can pull a viewer or reader out of the narrative and back into her head.

Our next two issues — which are more important to the story than just background scenery — concern the story’s inconsistency with its “magic system.” Attack on Titan never spells out specifically the magic behind its world, but the universe’s physical laws are what we’re concerned with.

For instance, there’s never any explanation given for how a shape-shifting Titan can logically grow to enormous sizes and back again. It’s admittedly a fantasy world, so the audience has already assumed that this is possible. However, in the real world, one cannot grow physically without nutrients to fuel that growth. So, with the humans who transform into Titans and back again, how do they convert the mass from their small bodies into the mass of twenty or even sixty-foot tall giants? This matter/energy problem is only hinted at early on by showing a character who has recently transformed as being hungry and tired — nothing more.

Moreover, there’s inconsistency concerning the Colossal Titan, pictured in the far left of the above diagram. Sometimes he generates a large explosion when he transforms and sometimes not, as demanded by the plot.

These types of head-scratchers are sometimes merely minor “refrigerator questions,” but developing consistent rules is paramount to a story’s believability. Worldbuilding expert and famed science-fiction novelist Orson Scott Card (who wrote Ender’s Game, among others) put it thusly in his worldbuilding treatise The Writer’s Digest Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy:

“Before you can tell a meaningful story, you have to hone and sharpen your understanding of the world, and that begins with the fundamental rules, the natural light. Remember, because speculative fiction always differs from the knowable world, the reader is uncertain about what can and can’t happen in the story until the reader has spelled out the rules. And you, as a writer, can’t be certain of anything until you know the rules as well.”

The commercial success of Isayama’s created world indicates he knew what he was doing — at least in a partial sense. His Shingeki no Kyojin narrative appears to be more focused on the characters than the world in which they live, which works to a point (more on this later). This raises the question: did he know his characters fully before he wrote the story? This brings us…ah-hem…full-circle.

The Worldbuilding Circle Explained

Like any other artistic endeavor, storytelling is iterative; Shingeki no Kyojinis doubly so since it was adapted for animation before the original manga had been completed. This has a “cross-pollination” effect on Attack on Titan because of the overlap between the old medium and the new. So, Attack on Titan influences itself because the television show affected the main character’s growth and identity.

Isayama explains:

“The anime influenced the characters in the manga when the characters move and come to life with the actors’ voices. That helps me understand the characters in more detail when I’m drawing the manga, especially for Eren. Even though he was the protagonist, I didn’t really get his character at the beginning.
With [the actor’s] voice acting, it seems like there was more bluster to him…but there was also a weakness to him. They were nuances that didn’t come across in the manga, and can only come from a real voice. So I think I was able to better understand the characters thanks to the anime.
If I’m only working from what’s in my head, of course, I can imagine the characters somewhere in there other people draw them, make them move, and they have voices, it makes me feel like they are much more alive living somewhere outside of my own head.”

The Colossal Titan | AoT Wiki

The anime didn’t just change the character being drawn; the anime also affected the narrative’s plot. Isayama continues:

“[For a certain character’s death], I always had an image of what happened in my head, so I put it down on paper [for the anime team]. It ended up connecting to where I was in the [manga] serialization. I still think that was the right time to put that flashback in the manga. I was able to put in at that time because they asked me to think about it for the anime script.”

Isayama’s words also highlight an interesting fact of transmedia storytelling (assuming that adapting the manga into an anime counts as transmedia). Various artists are iterating on one another’s work, except this time, the adaptation influences the source material in a kind of reverse synergy. This has far-reaching ramifications for the audience, too.

Redditor MartinaS90 observes:

“If the anime is supposed to retcon the anime in every change, then he would have used the anime version. That doesn’t mean Isayama doesn’t pick certain things from the anime to retcon in the manga, he has done it with Armin’s parents for example. But there is not a rule about what medium has a higher hierarchy in the canon. When there is a difference between manga and anime, sometimes it’s the anime version the canon one, other times it’s the manga version.”

This goes to show how essential worldbuilding is for rich and realistic storytelling. With Attack on Titan, Isayama left himself enough room to go back and alter the gaps in his story to make it more coherent. It seems many of these were cases of Isayama having an idea in his head about what had taken place, but had not codified it until necessary. This type of haphazard storytelling is not ideal when forming a serialized narrative as vast as Attack on Titan.

I’m in no way trying to impugn the creative abilities of Isayama; I’m captivated by the world and the characters of the anime based on his craftsmanship. I’m simply trying to remind my fellow storytellers of the importance of worldbuilding and its relation to character development. If they aren’t connected in your story, you’re selling your story short.

Has the anime eclipsed its source material? Yes and no. Attack on Titan profoundly conveys the Worldbuilding Circle. The anime wouldn’t be possible without the manga. Now, the anime has influenced the manga’s creation — manga which will itself become anime in the future! The anime deepened its source material to make it richer and more life-like. Isayama now sees his characters based on the way they act in the anime and he hears her voice is as if they’re real people. I’ll be curious to see how these changes transfer to the last and fourth season of the story as it’s being created right now.

Summary

Despite the minor conundrums and dismay of serious fans around Attack on Titan’s worldbuilding, it’s clear that Isayama had a strong vision in mind when he created his story world — just not as airtight as it needed to be in hindsight. In a fascinating creative twist, the anime based on the manga now influences the manga still being made. This synergistic Worldbuilding Circle of ironically-called “self-creation” is a trend we’ll continue to see in storytelling as adaptations are created before the source material has reached “the end.”

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Crush Writer's Block

How the Fictional World of Attack on Titan Builds Itself

Worldbuilding as Storytelling

Worldbuilding Problems

The Worldbuilding Circle Explained

Summary