Written by Ryō Suzukaze Demographic Male | Illustrated by THORES Shibamoto English publisher Vertical Imprint Kodansha Ranobe Bunko | |
 | ||
Books Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, Vol. 1, Attack on Titan: Before the Fall 3 Publishers Vertical (NA), Kodansha USA (US), Kodansha | ||
Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (進撃の巨人 Before the fall, Shingeki no Kyojin: Before the Fall) is a series of Japanese light novels written by Ryō Suzukaze and illustrated by THORES Shibamoto. The novels began publication in 2011. The series is a prequel to Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan manga.
Contents
A manga adaptation by Satoshi Shiki began serialization in 2013.
Plot
The series is set 70 years before the events of Attack on Titan, and is divided into two parts: the first focuses on Angel Aaltonen, the developer of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment; the second part follows the life of Kuklo, a boy who was found as a baby in a pile of Titan vomit, having been birthed by one of the Titan's victims after they were eaten. He is labelled the "Titan's son" and imprisoned for many of his younger years, before being freed by his owner's daughter, Sharle, and eventually joining the Survey Corps.
Light novel
The series of light novels is written by Ryō Suzukaze, with illustrations by THORES Shibamoto. Three volumes were released between 2011 and 2012. It serves as a prequel to the Attack on Titan manga, written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama.
The series was licensed in North America by Vertical, who published the first volume in summer 2014, followed by the second and third volumes in a 2-in-1 omnibus format in summer 2015.
Manga
A manga adaptation, written by Suzukaze and illustrated by Satoshi Shiki, began publication in Kodansha's Monthly Shōnen Sirius magazine on August 26, 2013. The series received a special chapter in the May issue of Monthly Shōnen Sirius on March 25, 2014.
Kodansha Comics USA announced in October 2013 that it had licensed the series, and began releasing it in North America in spring 2014.
Volume list
The series has been collected into nine volumes as of August 2016, seven of which have been republished in English.
Reception
The manga had 1.4 million copies in print in August 2015.
A number of volumes of the manga have made it onto The New York Times manga best-sellers list:
Reviewing the first novel for Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman called it "well-written, engrossing, and with the feel of historical fiction rather than fantasy". She wrote that "Suzukaze's writing style is very visual ... the prose can make your stomach churn and hair stand on end, not so much in a straight horror way, but more in the sense of a nightmare coming true when you had convinced yourself that it was just a dream." She concluded by saying "If you aren't tired of Attack on Titan or perhaps just want a boost to flagging interest, Before the Fall is absolutely worth reading", and gave the book a grade of A-. Reviewing the second, omnibus volume, she also gave it a grade of A-, calling the book "an exciting read that requires little prior knowledge of the AoT world." She was critical of the fact that "Sharle, who begins as a promising character, is woefully underdeveloped and underutilized", but concluded her review by saying that the story "gives us what the original manga does in novel form, and there really isn't much higher praise that an adaptation can get than that."