Attack on Titan: The Musical heads to New York City Center

Attack on Titan: The Musical a new live 2.5D Musical entertainment based on the wildly popular manga (comic book) by Hajime Isayama and published by Kodansha, will play New York City Center (131 W. 55th Street) from October 11-13, 2024. Directed by breakdance world champion Go Ueki (HYPNOSISMIC -Division Rap Battle- Rule the Stage), ATTACK on TITAN: The Musical had its world premiere in Osaka and Tokyo in January, 2023 to great success. The New York City Center engagement marks the musical’s first international performance.

ATTACK on TITAN: The Musical was written by Masafumi Hata, music supervision by KEN THE 390, and lyrics by Kaori Miura, and combines conventional musical theatre techniques with state-of-the-art technology, performed by a cast of 35.

A century ago, the grotesque giants known as Titans appeared and consumed all but the last remnants of humanity. The survivors took refuge behind giant walls. Today, the threat of the Titans is a distant memory, and a boy named Eren Yeager yearns to explore the world beyond his current circumstances. What began as a childish dream, though, will become an all-too-real nightmare when the Titans return and humanity is once again on the brink of extinction.

Hajime Isayama had this to say about the production.

The ATTACK on TITAN manga was serialized in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine by Kodansha from 2009-2021, winning numerous awards across Japan and the US including the Kodansha Manga Award and Harvey Award. The manga is comprised of 34 volumes, and there have been many adaptations including anime television series, video games, novels & more. ATTACK on TITAN has sold 140 million copies and has been translated into 18 languages and published in over 180 countries. Over the last three years, ATTACK on TITAN has won more than 10 awards from the Crunchyroll Anime Awards for the anime version, which celebrates the creators, performers, and musicians powering the global love of anime with more than 34 million votes cast by fans this past year.

Another 2.5 the musical made its US premiere in 2019, when “Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon” The Super Live played Washington DC at Warner Theatre and New York City at PlayStation Theater.

In Japan, there are stage productions based on manga, anime, and video games, which started to be called 2.5 dimensional musicals by fans around 2000. Manga and animation are in 2D, and live theatre is in 3D. Therefore, they call performances based on manga and animations 2.5D.