„I Wasn’t Really Motivated to Go in That Direction.” Hajime Isayama Described Why He Strayed Form Romance Themes in Attack on Titan
The creator of Attack on Titan, Hajime Isayama, shared in an interview the reason why he shied away from any direct romantic themes in Attack on Titan.
In April 2021, the Attack on Titan manga came to its conclusion. After 11 years and 139 chapters, the story of Eren and his friends ended in a way that many fans initially disliked. However, over time, many manga fans came to accept the ending. The anime, on the other hand, concluded on November 4, nearly a year ago.
The creator of the manga is the renowned mangaka Hajime Isayama, who became one of the most recognizable figures in Japan around the time of Attack on Titan’s manga finale. His work stirred emotions not only within the manga and anime community but also beyond. In 2023, Isayama received an invitation to New York City, where he attended the Anime NYC convention, which lasted for three days. There, he gave an interview to the Crunchyroll editorial team, during which he explained why he was hesitant to delve into more direct romantic themes within the Attack on Titan story.
Table of contents:
Love themes in Attack on Titan
WARNING: Below you’ll find some major spoilers form Attack on Titan manga and anime.
Everyone who has watched the Attack on Titan anime or read the manga knows that romantic threads aren’t the strongest aspect of Isayama’s creation. The author also avoided this topic as much as possible. However, some romances did appear in the manga, leading to mixed opinions about their quality. In the aforementioned interview, Hajime Isayama was asked why he shied away from any direct romantic themes in Attack on Titan. To this question, the mangaka replied:
Number one, it was embarrassing to me to write stories about love between characters. The other reason is that if I continued to go into those kinds of tangent stories, we might lose focus on the immediate main plot of the story. So I wasn’t really motivated to go in that direction.
As we can see, Isayama didn’t want to write a love story between specific characters; he preferred to focus on the main plot, viewing it as the most important theme. Modern shounen mangas often include some form of romantic subplot, but these are usually just side arcs that aren't very well developed. Isayama approach wasn’t different in this respect.
Isyama’s “new project”
On September 2nd, the creator of Attack on Titan announced on X that a “new project” is in the works to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the series at the end of the year. This news has generated a lot of excitement within the fandom, sparking various theories about what this “new project” might be.
Users have proposed different ideas, including a prequel focusing on the Great Titan War, which could provide deeper insights into the history of the Eldians and the conflicts present in the main story of the manga. Another theory even suggested the possibility of Eren’s comeback and an alternate ending. As we can see, fan theories are only limited by their imaginations. For now, all we can do is wait for the official announcement regarding Isayama’s “new project.”
