Imagine this. It's 2011. You're me, age 16, obsessivly checking the forums for your favourite book series every ten minutes. Then someone posts a thread that grabs your attention instantly:

If Leviathan got an animated show adaptation, would you watch?

Of course you would. Obviously. Most everyone else answers that they would to (this is the Leviathan forum board, after all), and then someone says what you were already thinking:

the show would be even better if it were an anime.

this is exciting to you because you are not only a book nerd, you're an anime nerd too. the idea of an anime adaptation of your favourite book ever?? is thrilling. you and your forum friends spend hours talking about what studio should do it, should it be an episodic show or a movie, and who should voice each role? Its a lot of fun to talk about, but you know in the back of your mind that it's unlikely. Leviathan isn't a YA dystopia or a paranormal romance, the two genres of the day. It's not very popular, and you already know that Uglies, the most popular series by the same author, is struggling to get a movie deal. If even Uglies can't get picked up for an adaptation, surely Leviathan won't be either. Oh well, wouldn't it be nice though?

and then flash forward almost 15 years, you're nearly 30, and your friend tags you in a post on tumblr:

as i'm sure you can imagine, i freaked the FUCK out!!

first teaser

the first look we got of the Leviathan anime was a couple of shots from a trailer for a whole bunch of anime coming soon to Netflix. It was only a tiny amount of content, and it was all shots of Alek in the Stormwalker, and it thrilled me beyond belief. The way they animate the walker controlls is so exactly like what i imagined it took me OUT. also the shots of my BOY???? my SWEET SON ALEK????? he looks so GOOD MY GOD

Scott's blog post

of course, the fear of every fan of a book that's getting an adaptation is that it's going to be shit. They're going to fuck it all up and it'll be ruined. But there are some good signs that it'll probably be pretty good. First off, it's being made by Studio Orange, who did the Beastars anime, which I really like and think looks great. I know there's a lot of people who don't like 3D CGI anime, but tbh I think it's fine and completley capable of looking good. Either way I think Studio Orange has done great in the past and will probably do great with this. Scott's blog post about it also makes me think that it's gonna be pretty good! From that post we know the following:

• all three books are being adapted, and he says it's going to all come out in 2025 which makes it sound like it's going to be a one season anime. All I have to say about that is that it better be a 24 episode season bc there is WAY too much to fit into a 12 ep season.
• Keith Thompson was brought onto the art team at the start and "The producers love him and his work." This makes so much sense, because a lot of the shots look JUST like the illustrations from the books (more on that later).
• Scott himself was involved and was sent scripts, designs and episodes for approval and he likes it.
• Scott also says about the story, "It’s mostly super faithful! (And it’s really cool when it varies from the books.)" which I am actually super excited about. I want it to be mostly faithful of course, but some changes need to be made for adaptation and I'm really excited to see what changes they made.

obviously it's still early days, the show isn't coming out till 2025 and i'm not going to know if i'll actually like it till I start watching it of course, but I feel good about the information we have so far. Like, I'm generally a person who gets nervous about adaptations of my favourite books, but I am actually pretty excited for this one.

The Trailer
^{i lost my god damned mind}

so a teaser trailer has been released, and this is the part that it going to make this page insane because i want nothing more than to do a shot-by-shot analysis. Its practically why I wanted to make this entire shrine lol! So first, here's the trailer:

and now here are all my thoughts:

first of all, this transition from Dylan to Deryn is SO GOOD. I really love how Deryn looks, I like that they didn't make her overly feminine. Also, this transition made my wife go "Oh wow they look like exactly the same" and I had to be like YEAH bc they're the SAME PERSON!! I also love how happy and excited Deryn is in like every shot. It so fits her character, she does not dwell on much and is very exciteable. She is also just so dang cute i can't believe it.

speaking of how cute Deryn is I'm OBSESSED with the little flower she drew next to Dylan on her list of boy names and the little hot air balloon!! like, so in character for her. Also, the picture of her and her dad?? I love that detail. So cute, so in character.

I can't wait to hear her voice, I'm assuming that they don't have any voices in this trailer because the voice acting isn't done yet? or idk, maybe there's another reason, but i can not WAIT to hear the voices. Do you think they'll give her a scottish accent? I mean, in the english dub at least. but if they do that they'd have to do all the austria-hungarian accents and idk if they're gonna... i guess we'll see though!!

so after the Deryn establishing shots we get the Alek ones and BOY HOWDY i love how they've animated him!!! I think he is SO CUTE!!! I'm so obsessed with him. that's my friggen GUY. *ahem* anyway...

so I know this Alek scene is when he's woken up by his men and they sneak him out of the house in the middle of the night. Also like, omg okay this Klopp??? Literally perfect. He's just like he should be. he looks like his name is Otto Klopp. And like, I love that guy for some reason. He's just such a cool guy, and how he is with Alek is how I'd like to be. Sweet, fatherly, would protect him with his life. Am I projecting? ahh..... maybe lol

Okay okay so please excuse my shitty splicing but look at this HUXLEY!!!! literally this shot was the thing that made me tear up for the first time watching this trailer, it looks so INCREDIBLY GOOD!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS!!!!! Huxleys are such a fun beastie, and I love love love how good it looks here. There's another shot of it later too, and ooooooh boy i love it. the COLOUR is so incredible to me. like, yes, bright ass blue!! so fun.

Also, I just want to mention here that I love how in the trailer most of Alek's scenes are at night and cool toned, and Deryn's are mostly warm toned and much brighter. like, that is so on point and fits their characters so good. Alek is such a moody boy and Deryn is just like, having so much fun flying and caring for the beasties. like, they're so opposites in so many ways and i love that.

anyway back to the huxleys. It's pretty funny to me that the huxley in this show is so pretty when the huxley's in the series look like this bag of slop. Like, Keith Thompson does a lot of horror art so it makes sense that they look kina yucky, but I'm THRILLED that in the anime they're cute bc I love them.

now onto the thing that made me go, oh okay so they're STUDYING the original art: the introduction of the Cyklop Stormwalker.

like I'm sorry, look at the screenshot next to the illustration from the book. That is INCREDIBLE. it looks just like it should and I'm obsessed with it. They got the crest exactly right and everything, which is great bc that has Plot Significance later on. I absolutley flipped at this shot because it looks so good, and honestly I think the way the walkers are done is literally incredible. They're incredibly complicated machines with a lot of moving, non-organic parts, and i can only image that's very difficult to animate. But truly I think they look so good.

like idk how good the Stormwalker looks really speaks to me about the amout of respect for the source material the animators had. It really seems like they went above and beyond to stay faithful to the original designs for the machines. Not to get ahead of myself, but this is also demonstrated in the scenes where they show the walker controls. The way the foot and hand controls work, it's literally exactly how it's described in the book and how I imagined it.

it's a shame that idk how to make gifs lol because i would watch gifs of just the hand and foot controls of the Stormwalker all god damn day. And like, these parts were never illustrated, they were just described in the book. But it really feels like the animators reached into my mind and pulled out how I imagined the controls looking and working. Which like, idk maybe they just know how mechs work and then steampunked them, which is generally how the Stormwalker is controled. It's really just a steampunk mech. But idk, I'm just so genuinly excited about this one little animation. It just makes me feel like they're treating this book that is so important to me with the respect I would want it treated with. Maybe I'm putting to much faith into a little piece of animation, but hey, I'm an optimist at heart.

anyway here's the other shot of the Huxley I promised earlier, look at how the light shines through the silly little top part:

Okay, so this next shot I'm a little confused about, because it seems so out of place? like, most of the shots from this trailer are, most likely, from the first one or two episodes. I can place nearly every shot into the story as a whole bc I know this story inside and out (I'm relistening to the audiobooks for the millionth time currently), and they're all most likely from very early on. but this shot?? of Alek in the snow??? this is probably from when he and his men are in Switzerland, which is near the end of the first book. I'm not sure how much to read into this, but I'm hoping it doesn't mean that they're cutting a lot out of the first book so they get to Switzerland super fast. Like, I'll be real, I'd understand if they did do that, or rearranged some bits of the first book to take place after Switzerland, because our two main characters spend most of that first book having not met each other yet, and I don't think that's a very appealing thing for a TV show to do. They probably want to get these two crazy kids together as fast as possible. And like, that makes sense, but there's so much cool stuff that happens before they meet in Leviathan. But also, it could just be that they liked this shot (its very good Alek looks cute as hell) and wanted to include it in the trailer and it actually has no bearing on how soon into the series it takes place. I'm probably just reading way too much into this whole thing, but I've been obsessing over this trailer ever since I watched it the first time so I'm just gonna put too much thought into it and that's going to have to be fine with yall :p

the one thing i don't like about this trailer is how they just kinda, toss the Leviathan herself in there. In the books the first time you see the Leviathan is a whole Moment, and I have reason to believe it's gonna the same in the anime (again, more on that later), but in the trailer she's just... there. Like, cmon guys, give her her Moment! ah well, it's just a trailer after all, and I can't be too mad because she looks FANTASTIC. like seriously, she looks so good and we get so many good angles of her.

From what I can see I THINK all the shots of the Leviathan are from before Switzerland, because i THINK the engines she has in all the shots are the smaller helper engines. I really don't think those are the Clanker engines she gets in Switzerland, because those are supposed to be much bigger and bulkier. Idk, I guess we'll see. Mostly I just think she looks so incredibly good in all the shots we get. she's my pretty best friend that steals all the boys I try to flirt with or something.

This next thing is not at all book acurate, but I do think it's pretty funny that this is a change they made. The Flechette Bats. I don't even care that they made them look less freaky than Keith's original illustrations, but I think it's so funny that they made them spit up the spikes. You can read more about this in the beasties tab, but Flechette Bats are supposed to shit out the spikes. Scott literally calls them poo bats all the time. But I guess that's too blue for Netflix, so they just cough up iron spikes instead. Seems more damaging to their insides, but hey what do I know, I'm not a Darwinist Boffin.

I love this shot of Deryn running horizantal along the Leviathan's flank. she's so cool. Acting without thinking whatsoever, jumping off the side of an airship, is SOOO Deryn Sharp coded. Scott has said in the past that whenever he doesn't know what to do in the plot he makes someone jump off of a high place. I can attest, as someone who's read nearly all of his books, it is absolutley something that happens in practically all of them. Also, check out this shot I got of (who i assume is) Newkirk. Perfect tbh

This shot of what i BELIEVE is the SMS Herkules is so fucking cool. The thing about the huge German walkers in the books is that it's kind of hard to picture how huge they are. Like, I know that the Herkules is taller than the trees, but actually seeing it??? is so awesome. In this image from the books you can see the tents underneath her, so there's some sense of scale, but actually seeing it moving around??? It's truly incredible.

Also, I'm back with more Klopp apreciation. Look at this bad ass old man. I saved this screenshot as 'pokemon professor lookin ass' because like.... sorry but that hair style?? SCREAMS pokemon professor. Maybe Elite Four if you're nasty. doesn't change the fact that he's my favourite of Alek's men. Fight me Volger stans. i like volger too but i love a soft man more sue me

I feel like my brain has been getting more and more feral over the course of writing this analysis. I swear I started this with serious intentions, but I can't fight who I am I guess lmao, anyway........

WHERE ARE HIS SOLDIER TOYS. what is this, playing timed chess against himself??? like some kind of INTELECTUAL????? Alek is staying up past bedtime to play pretend with his little toy soldiers!!! just look at this little shit!! he's planning a pretend advance on the godless Darwinists with tin soldiers and pretend elephantines!!! He can claim he's practicing battle strategy all he wants, I know the truth.

I swear I don't actually care that much about what exactly Alek is staying up late for, it's fine. but I like the staying up late playing with toys bit, I think it's charming. Chess isn't charming I'm afraid. thank goodness he looks so fricken cute so he gets all those charm points right back.

okay, I'm almost done. This bit here is why I think that the Leviathan will be getting her awe-inspiring first appearance that they STOLE from her in this trailer. I know the trailer has this shot close to the end because it's supposed to be like, oh my god what is Deryn looking at??? but I know exactly what Deryn is looking at. She's obviously still on the Huxley (hello beautiful blue tenticles) so I'd bet any money that this is her reaction to seeing the Leviathan for the first time. So yeah, she's gonna get her moment in the sun, coming out of the clouds, huge and beautiful and saving Deryn's life and shit. I'm so fucking incredibly excited omg this show is going to be so good ahhhhhhhhhhhh

okay. I can be normal again. Basically what I get from this trailer is that, even if some things are not exactly like the books, I think I'm really going to like this show. I mean, how could I not to be fair, these are my children and I'm not TOO picky about a faithful adaptation. I like both the HTTYD books and movie, after all, and those are about as different as you can get. What I'm saying is, I love these characters, I love this world, and I'm excited to see it in a new medium. An adaptation is, as far as I'm concerned, a bit like fanfic anyway. And I love fanfic. IDK, I'm a lover by nature, and I'm primed and ready to love this anime.

that's all we know about the anime for now, but I'll probably have some section either here or elsewhere on my site to record what I think about the anime as it's airing. If you want to gush with me, or fight me on some of my opinions, 100% you should email mefeatherfae∅@gmail.com!!. Or like, is there a Leviathan discord or smth out there? let me in! i wanna gush about my baby children TT-TT