There’s a point early in Attack On Titan, the wildly successful manga series from Japan, where a child watches his mother being eaten alive. It happens just after his city is breached by “titans” – grotesque, man-eating giants who bumble around, naked, like toddlers, mindlessly devouring anyone they can. His mother, trapped beneath some rubble, is helpless as it approaches, a huge, deformed freak, with a face forever fixed in a rictus grin. It doesn’t stop smiling when it picks her up off the ground. It doesn’t stop smiling when it dangles her, like a mouse, into its mouth. And it doesn’t stop smiling when it chomps her in two.
As of July 2015, Attack On Titan was confirmed to have 2.5 million copies in print – spread over 15…
