Music Analysis | Aot Ending 1

Greetings AOT Community!

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back to my music analysis series! I’m your host Obi, and today I’d like to introduce you to my project for this month. If you have been following me last year, you have probably seen me analyze the current openings in Attack on Titan. During my analysis posts, I was asked a couple of times to try analyze the endings of the series and though I wanted to do it last year, Christmas & New Years prevented me from blogging and January was my exam month, thus why I am doing it in February instead. There are a total of 6 endings in the Attack on Titan series and I plan to analyze them all within this month, publishing 1 or 2 blogs each week. I hope you are looking forward to it cause I sure am so without further ado, let’s get straight to the blog.

Utsukushiki Zankoku na

by

Yōko Hikasa

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•About The Song•

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Utsukushiki Zankoku na (Beautiful Cruel World) by Yōko Hikasa is the very first ending of the animated series Attack on Titan. Yōko Hikasa is a very famous artist & voice actress not only known for her debut in the ending of Attack on Titan, but in other anime’s as well. You might recognize Yōko’s voice from popular anime series as K-On & Danganronpa where she plays one of the female protagonists of the series. You can look at this Video here to only listen to the song or if you prefer hearing it on piano like I did, then you can check this Video out. That’s also how I found out what was the name of the song and the lyrics which will be analyzed further down.

Being the vert first ending in Attack on Titan, there is an piano starting the very first seconds of ending, before some drums start to play alongside the piano in the background. Along with the loud, positive tone of the singer, this ending definitely hit me in the feels when first understanding the meaning behind the ending. The first ending is definitely appropriate and fitting for the action filled series in the 1st part of season 1.

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•Visuals•

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There are so many visuals that were very interesting in this ending, that going over them all takes persistence. They all definitely caught my eye when watching the first season.

The visuals starts by showing us a beautiful night sky as a knife is falling down towards the surface, as we see a young Mikasa running in the forest. The visuals already show us that this ending is Mikasa’s theme song, meaning that season 1 plans to show us her backstory and how these visuals fit in with her background. Mikasa run towards multiple objects around her, giving us viewers a sense of vibe what this can all be about. Just when it all seems dark for Mikasa, she looks away from the knifes and pull towards the light as we see her age drastically to her appropriate age in this season. I believe this scene here in particular is about Mikasa letting go off the past, and continue moving towards her goal.

There are a number of scenes where they show us Mikasa running/looking towards someone as the dark theme becomes more into a lighter theme. This can foreshadow her backstory in the very first season where we get to know that she was captured by thieves who wanted to sell her. The thieves in her backstory are what the dark theme of this ending represent as it represents Mikasa’s terrible backstory and how she lost her parents in the process. The forest can foreshadow that very event when she lost them, but it can also represent Eren who came later to her rescue. Which brings me to the light theme of this ending which is Eren. Mikasa is running/looking towards the person who saved her, took her in as family and looked at her as her own sister. The knife represents the people Eren & Mikasa murdered and the sin they bear together, but it doesn’t matter as long as they have each other. This ending might not have a lot of visuals as the openings, but it still represent the characters & the story in in the series very well, despite that it might not look like that.

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•Lyrics•

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When it comes to the songs, I’m personally more of a lyrical person. Lyrics are a very important part of a song. Seeing as this is the first ending of the new series, I predicted that it will be an action filled song considering this is Attack on Titan, oh how wrong I was. This song is meant to show the viewers the backstory of Mikasa for the first season of the anime by giving us a lot of visuals, characterization & foreshadowing which we absolutely love. After going over the lyrics, I am very certain about that.

Lyrics Translated To English

That dream is where my heart belongs

And it’s more fragile than my life

Again and again, I abounded and then rediscovered it

Now sleep peacefully

With my wish being ravished by my pounding heartbeats

As soon as I’m on the verge of forgetting it, I immediately recall it

In this beautiful cruel world

We merely keep on asking “why” we’re alive and living

Ah, with this strength and this weakness

If we no longer possess any rationality

Just what are we protecting?

After analyzing the lyrics, it seems as though my prediction was right. Basically this is Mikasa’s song that speaks of fighting for your own freedom and if not, what’s the point of living?

”Just what are we protecting”

This quote is definitely is definitely referred to Mikasa’s character. As we all know, Mikasa is told through Armin in season 1 that Eren was eaten by a Titan, and this mentally hurt Mikasa. The meaning behind “protecting” is very foreshadowed in this season when we see the cadets alongside the wall garrison trying their best to protect the town of Trost after the wall is destroyed by the colossal Titan. What the cadets are trying to protect are what they hold the most dear to and in this case for Mikasa, It’s Eren who she consider family. The quote can also be related to Eren in some way seeing as he was in this ending as well, and I think it would be somewhat similar to what’s already said above.

”As soon as I’m on the verge of forgetting it, I immediately recall it”

This phrase was mentioned one time throughout the song, meaning that it have some importance to the message In this opening song. In relation to the series, I can see this quote as the fear Mikasa can’t forget. Throughout the season 1, we’ve seen flashbacks of Mikasa ing her past and it’s been on times when she was trying to forget it, but it kept coming back. In other words she recalls to the moment Eren saved her from the bandits after her parents were murdered by them. It’s a quote that would taunt Mikasa until she learned to let go, which is what she does later in the season when she realize that she wants to live.

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•Finale Thoughts•

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This is one of the endings in Attack on Titan that you have a 50/50 opinion on, mainly for it's song and the way it’s composed. Like many other things in Attack on Titan, this got me feeling it was a perfect song for the first ending of the series, and later picking up and turned into a more louder and "Rock On" type of song as the seriousness begun. Very well made ending, graphics was amazing.

This is ending was... satisfactory. The lyrics were pretty straightforward and had a simple theme that fit the character for this ending, and the visuals were pretty good. The song is very well composed and fitting for the first season and the new coming arc, and I believe this will be one of THOSE endings that everyone will have a different opinion on, considering that Mikasa is a love to hate character. This song is meant to show the viewers the backstory of Mikasa in the series, and I do it that it did it fulfilled its purpose well! This will definitely be a memorable ending because it's the very first ending with the past studio being behind one of the most action filled series and quite efficient too, but for me, it's NOT VERY great. However, the Attack on Titan series will always either give us some decent music, or some absolutely amazing music because I cannot any "bad" ending songs yet. This ending might not be my favorite due to the character choice for this ending, but I won’t complain how the scenes switch in every turn of the opening because it’s stunning, and the visuals are on point! I'm already excited to write the next ending analysis for Attack on Titan. I hope you look forward to another one next week, same time, same day? Well we shall see about that.

What are your thoughts on this ending? What song should I analyze next? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Until next time ~ Obi :wave:

Credits

OPL by: Pato :revolving_hearts:

Cover Artist: Pipi

Background is the official poster for the anime

All GIF’s are official from the anime