TITLE: Attack on Titan: Lost Girls vol. 1
YEAR OF RELEASE (IN THE USA): August 2016
COMPANY: Kodansha Comics
Art by Ryosuke Fuji
Story by Hiroshi Seko
Back in 2006, Hajime Isayama wrote a 65-page one-shot of “Shingeki no Kyojin”. Inspired during an encounter with an irate customer while working at an internet cafe, the encounter would eventually be the basis of his hit series which is known internationally as “Attack on Titan”.
In 2009, “Shingeki no Kyojin” began serialization in Kodanasha’s “Bessatsu Shonen Magazine” and has spawned a popular manga and anime series, several light novel volumes, multiple video games, manga spin-offs and live-action films.
In 2016, a recent side-story to “Shingeki no Kyojin” (Attack on Titan) titled “Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” was released in Japan and now the the two-part graphic novels (volume one featuring Annie Leonhart and volume two featuring Mikasa Ackerman) will be released in the U.S. courtesy of Kodansha Comics.
NOTE: “Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” is meant to be read if you have read or watched the anime series as this volume has spoilers.
The first volume focuses on Annie Leonhart, a graduate of the 104th Training Corps and member of the Military Police Brigade.
Her specialty is swords and unarmed combat, something she was trained since she was a young girl.
But she has always been a lone wolf and not a sociable person.
She also one of the main antagonists to the “Attack on Titan” series as she harbors a secret…she is a titan.
The story of “Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” takes place on the day before she is to go and capture Eren Yeager (the series main protagonist).
Annie is given an order to find Carly Stratman, the only daughter of the chair of the Marleen Company, Sir Elliot G. Stratmann.
Carly has been missing and the Military Police has been tasked to find her, but the search has been passed around and Annie is the third person to receive the order and she wants to complete this case.
And as Annie investigates alone, she finds out that there is more to the missing Carly Stratman than she has anticipated and the search for her will put her on a dangerous path.
With “Attack on Titan: Lost Girls”, this side-story by Hiroshi Seko and artist Ryosuke Fuji, is a story meant to humanize Annie Leonhart.
One of the primary antagonists of “Attack on Titan”, she is a woman dedicated to her duty and job, but the problem is that she holds a horrible secret.
Having been trained all her life by her father, only doing rigorous training for her mission against humanity, she was taught one thing…to treat the world as her enemy. And her main mission is to lead a group of titans to capture Eren Yeager.
“Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” is less about Annie as a titan but more about her being on a mystery mission in which she is tasked to find a missing young woman.
We see Annie as not only as a person dedicated to her job, showing her as an excellent fighter but a person that has emotions and is often thinking about her own upbringing, her relationship with her father who made her fight and dreams of coming home to her father, but knows that she can’t unless her mission is over.
You can’t help but feel sympathy for Annie being raised to be a killing machine and to hate the world and she just desires to be normal, to finish her mission so she can gain some sort of normalcy.
“Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” also gives readers a chance to see life in other villages and how drug-use has become rampant and how everything is somewhat connected to the person that Annie is searching for.
While the storyline is predictable earlier on, it’s the development of Annie Leonhart’s character that I found interesting to read and how it connects to Hajime Isayama’s story. As for the artwork, Ryosuke Fuji has done a solid job with overall character design and showcasing the action in the series.
Overall, “Attack on Titan: Lost Girls” is a story meant to be read after one gets farther into the series and after one knows more about Annie Leonhart’s part in the primary series. But this entertaining one-shot mystery story featuring Annie Leonhart will no doubt appeal to “Attack on Titan” fans.