Attack on Titan Gets 6-episode Special J-dorama Starring Ishihara Satomi

Attack on Titan is arguably the most popular manga in the world right now, with One Piece aging and Naruto just ended. Those reading along with the manga (me!) can see the story headed towards a final arc, or at least there is a conclusion in the foreseeable future as the final battle looms. There’s no better time to milk this baby by releasing two back-to-back live-action humongous sized budget movies, arriving in August and September of 2015. In conjunction with the big screen movies, the manga is getting a six-episode live-action dorama series airing exclusively on Docomo’s rebranded dTV streaming video service.

It’ll premiere at the same time the first movie hits and is being described as a companion piece which was filmed on the same production set as the movie. While the movie focuses on the macro plot points of the manga, the short dorama series will feature Ishihara Satomi‘s supporting character Hans (Hanji) as the lead and will be set exclusively in the daily lives of the young soldiers of the military. In addition to Hans, potato loving Sasha played by Sakuraba Nanami will make an appearance, along with movie characters Hiana, Lil, and Fukushi. The dorama will also add a brand new character Isuzu played by Hiraoka Yuta. The cast made an appearance at the press conference to announce this dorama and showed off a few exciting official stills.

I actually think this manga could use the additional dorama compendium to the live-action movies. The mythology is so thick and dense there is no way the movie could even come close to delving into the nitty gritty that makes AoT so riveting to read. The dorama will not have any thrilling battle sequences but will reveal the lives of the young soldiers, give insight to the vertical maneuvering equipment, and showcase the friendships and rivalries in a world stuck behind walls. Once you take away the three lead characters of Eren, Mikasa and Armin, I think the focus on Hans in the dorama over the other supporting characters is solely due to Ishihara Satomi’s star power and not necessarily that Hans is more critical to the storyline than, say, Sasha or Annie or Historia. I do love Satomi and find Hans batshit crazy fun so this ought to be an unexpected but much welcomed treat.


Comments

Attack on Titan Gets 6-episode Special J-dorama Starring Ishihara Satomi — 13 Comments

      • couldn’t have said it better. maybe he’ll appear in the movies like, “surprise!”.

  1. Just reads your blog posts again, and find a lot of exciting news, included this one.
    I usually like side-story, and ishihara satomi is my bae. Can’t wait to see it ^o^

  2. Lol. While i agree it is one of the more popular manga right now I wouldn’t put myself out there and say its the most popular one in the world. As a frequent visitor to manga and anime sites I doubt they will ever reach the heights of naruto or onepiece…or even bleach. Even fairy tail is just playing catch up. Luckily this is a drama blog and not an anime blog or else you might have ignited a fanwar. But I guess its a sentiment ridden statement for you since you clearly adore this manga. Well or maybe I’m that out of touch already?

  3. More Hanji for me is always better! Though some loving from Armin won’t hurt(Armin fangirl here)i wonder if they are going to adapt the side stories, like the animated side stories.

  4. I don’t quite agree that it’s the most popular manga right now haha but I am very interested in side stories that is only tangential to the main plot in the manga right now which I personally find to be :/ especially one involving Hanji, my favorite female character 😀
    (although I do find it weird I’m actually pretty glad Levi is not included in either the movie or the drama lol. he’s been in too many spin-offs. I find him extremely overrated anyway and I would rather hear about other stories that doesn’t involve him.)

  5. Have mixed feeling with all the AoT hype since I prefer they wait for much longer story to tell or anime version to reach better deveopment

    So far the story is pretty general and entertaining for shounen but the characters development should be handle better, it just many more anime is better to give shout out in live action or series when AoT seriously need more story.

  6. I quite agree that AoT is quite popular today mainly because of the upcoming live action film. But for me,AoT still can’t match One Piece, Bleach or Naruto in popularity and sales.

  7. Actually there’s nothing much interesting other than Shingeki no Kyoujin (AoT to most), similar like Tokyo Ghouls. It might get a short hiccup later on as most manga-spurned-dramas or movies dun usually ends well.

    A very good recent example is Kenshin movie 3 or Ultraman.

    Keen eye viewers who don’t really follow the series will probably wonder how a character in the movie is able to change clothes in 1 sec scene or a classic fight ending in a lame move by hammering opponent’s legs with a blunt sword or flames appearing on and off from a normal jagged edge sword even when its not in abrasion/friction with anything but air.

    Almost like watching a live-action Ultraman where one punch from the monster will render him low power and always finish off opponents with 1 same move.

  8. Let me tell you something..!
    Naruto, one piece, fairy tail and Bleach is old manga
    But SnK is new but this manga has beats one piece in first manga sales..
    Not just SnK, one Punch Man too,,

    It’s ok if u can move on from Naruto old guy –”

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