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This year’s breakout anime hit Attack on Titan snuck up on a lot of people. Sure, previews for the TV series made it look like a fun adventure, but is wasn’t until sometime after it premiered that the franchise became the international success it is today, despite the comic it’s based on having been around since 2009.

Why didn’t more people, from the very beginning, realize just how much entertainment Attack on Titan has to offer? Maybe the story’s antagonists, naked giants who look like anatomy textbook illustrations, were just too repugnantly grotesque. Maybe, being creator Hajime Isayama’s first serial, the artwork on its heroes was a little too rough around the edges. How much more immediately accessible would Attack on Titan have been if they had all been replaced with a more traditionally pleasing aesthetic, like a bunch of cute cats?

Thanks to this feline-infused recreation of the show’s opening animation, now we know.

The video was created by the owner of the cat who stars in it, and if you’re imagining all he did was take a couple of cell phone snapshots of his kitty, crop out the backgrounds, and superimpose them over the Attack on Titan opening, you’re way off, as he created an entire miniature town for his titan pet to menace.

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The video’s creator also converted a section of his home into a makeshift blue-screen studio, spending four months to get the images he needed.

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After adding a plethora of visual effects, all that was left to do was synch up Attack on Titan’s blood-pumping theme song and share the final product with world.

First, let’s take a look at the original opening.

And now it’s time for the catty version!

▼ “Attack on Giant Cat”

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The video is practically a shot-by-shot recreation of the anime’s opening, but instead of opening with a pan past the heroic members of the Recon Corps, we get a pack of cats (and also a soccer ball, for good measure).

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Trouble soon rears its head, when cat titans breach the city’s defensive walls!

▼ The original’s blood splatters on the screen are replaced by paw prints.

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Next we see the Recon Cats standing at attention, with every ounce of discipline cats can muster (which is to say all of them flick their tails in unison).

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The Recon Cats lack the high tech 3D maneuver gear that lets their human counterparts fly through the skies to battle the titans, and apparently have to make due with simply jumping really high.

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The cat titans, on the other hand, have received a significant upgrade from the humanoid originals, and have the ability to shoot exploding laser beams out of their eyes!

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The music and vocals are unchanged from Attack on Titan’s opening theme, Guren no Yumiya/Crimson Bow and Arrow. However, a series of alternate lyrics flash onscreen, substituting “run away from my wife, who wants to give you a bath,” and “I’m hungry, so I’ll have stew for dinner!” for the original’s decidedly more somber lines about stepping over corpses and dying free like a pack of wolves.

▼ Run!

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Unfortunately, Attack on Titan wrapped up its first season last month. Given the massive popularity the show has enjoyed, though, a continuation sometime in the not-too-distant future seems like a sure thing. If and when it does come, we’re hoping for two things: a few more answers regarding the mystery of the titans, and another cat-version of the new opening theme.

Sources: IT Media, FC2, YouTube
Top image: YouTube
Insert images: FC2, YouTube