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Vicktus

  • Joined Nov 23, 2011
  • 36 / M

Attack on Titan

Jan 22, 2014

I feel almost obligated to begin my review with this simple statement:  Attack on Titan is absurdly overrated.  There, it’s done, and now I can get on to explaining the very many reasons why.

Art/Animation: – So the animation is top notch.  Yay 2013.  Definitely this anime’s strong suit, probably this anime’s only strong suit.  The characters were well drawn, and well proportioned.  It is worth noting that even secondary, and tertiary characters appeared well designed (as opposed to some anime’s where the character’s detail is a direct correlation with the size of their role).  The city was amazingly well drawn, too.  The backgrounds were rich, the monsters were well done, and the animation was crisp.  While I have no complaints here, it occurs to me that decent animation should be expected at this point.  That, and animation alone does not make a story.  This category is not weighted as heavily.

Sound:  – For the most part, I enjoyed the OT’s, and the BGM.  I would like to point out that the BGM seemed overly dramatic at times, especially during the very many deaths of characters you care nothing about.  Additionally, the voice acting/dialogue was subpar:  Mikasa sounded like a drone.  Eren was a excruciatingly screamy and ragey.  Armin was a whiny bitch.  And that’s our three main characters.

Synopsis:  -  While AOT certainly doesn’t invent the wheel here, the story does have a fairly interesting premise.  Humanity is on the brink of extinction, resulting from these nearly invincible monsters who inhabit the planet, sans for one giant, walled city.  I feel this is about the full extent of this story’s interest, and the reasons are as follows:

1.     Even assuming they’re going to pick this story back up for another season, you learn absolutely nothing about the titans in the first 25 episodes. 

2.      The extent to which humanity is useless and powerless (sans for a couple of the main protagonists) is painstakingly overblown.  The first question that struck me, was “where did these walls come from?”  The wall struck me as damn near the only thing they did right in the last hundred years.  The walls had me begging the question of why the Recon corps weren’t guarding constructive expeditions to continually extend the city… …that would have seemed to make sense to me.  In fact, what it was that the Recon corps really did during their expeditions never seemed explained at all.  All you know is that lots of people died every time… for apparently nothing.

3.      The story is almost entirely plot driven, not character driven.  Sometimes plot drives can be exciting and unexpected.  But AOT, as it seems, is a one-trick-pony.  It repeatedly followed the formula of creating these trite calms, to suddenly everything going wrong in the matter of seconds.  The characters scarcely made any decisions that advanced the plot, rather we spent the entire 25 episodes watching them react (or rather try to react) to disaster.  The series seems very fatalistic in that sense.

4.      The pacing is utterly horrible.  In the first episode, 100 years of peace are brutally broken, as monsters overrun the outer city, killing thousands of people, including the main character’s mother.  Flash forward a mere few episodes, to waste an entire episode of the main character continually failing to pass his military test, just to simply be concluded that his gear was broken…  They almost allowed for some character development… Almost.  Then you’ll spend half the anime watching them feebly attempt to retake the city, just for that to be neatly concluded with Eren’s super powers.  Then the final half of the anime on a failed mission where you learn nothing about the Titans, or the main character’s superpowers for that matter.

5.      The less perceptive viewer might have identified all the on-screen deaths as shocking, or as keeping the watcher on the edge of their seat.  But the fact is, the main characters are invincible.  They tried so hard to convince the viewer that the main character was killed early on, but the fact is, it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t.  After learning of his superpowers, and healing abilities, it was easy to discern he was immortal.  The show did well to kill very many tertiary characters, but that was about it.  The main characters were invincible.  Even the secondary characters (Jean, Annie, Connie, Potato Girl, etc.. etc..) were safe.  The fact is, they did not kill any character that you had any connection with whatsoever.  Instead they continually introduced new characters who weren't even likable in the first place, to use as fodder.  By the time the series was over, the formula was tired, and the viewer was desensitized.

6.      It was also terribly corny the way most classes and factions were portrayed (save for the recon corps).  Let’s take the wall worshippers, for instance.  They were fanatical, but served virtually no purpose to bolster the story.  The military police felt this way, too.  Even assuming that the aristocracy was corrupt to the core, it did not seem plausible that the MP, their personal protectors, would be allowed to be as lazy, and useless as they appeared.  It occurs to me, that those people would be punished.  The upperclass and the merchants were way overblown as well.  When the guy blocked the gate with his carriage, and literally told people that it was the poor and the military’s job to die protecting his wealth, it was so corny and implausible I thought about stopping right there.  I was face-palming.  Even if that was what that character was thinking, it made no sense he would say that aloud.

Characters: 2/10 -  This series’ glaring weakness.  The characters, quite frankly, sucked.  They were painfully one-dimensional, their dialogues were boring, their abilities (for some) were implausible, and their ojbectives were unfounded and unrealistic.  This show seemed to be geared towards immature audiences, because rather than demonstrating the character’s persona through actions and development, their chief (and often singular) definable trait was instead just repeatedly slammed over our heads.   Let’s break some of the big ones down, shall we?

 1.    Eren – Our Series lead, he might just be my very least favorite character on this list.  I seriously hated him within minutes of watching the show.  Even before the attack, he was filled with anger and hate for absolutely no apparent reason.  Rage is really the only definable trait of Eren.  He scantly shows and affection or otherwise positively interacts with Mikasa.  Rather, he just continually rages about how he hates and wants to kill the Titans.  He is very 1 dimensional, showing little change or development over the whole series.  Terrible protagonist.

2.      Mikasa – Our female lead, she is basically a robot.  Mikasa has no goals, interests, or personality to speak of.  She is just this mega-warrior-genius whose only interest in the entire universe, is Eren.  She serves as his protector, and obessor.  These facts are made even more boring by how brutally underdeveloped the relationship between Eren and Mikasa is.  Their relationship is basically entirely non-existent, making her entire character’s existence pretty much pointless.

3.      Armin – He’s probably the secondary lead.  Out of the three, he was the most plausible character.  I mean, at least he didn’t have superpowers like the other two, and had some capacity to fear the gigantic monsters they were contending with.  Still, his character was basically one dimensional, too.  They kept trying to label him a “genius” simply because unlike the other leads he had the smallest modicum of cognitive ability.  Rather than charging headlong after monsters the way Eren or Mikasa would, he would form little plans that were honestly elementary, and nothing to be considered genius.  Rather than showing his character’s genius, the show instead chose to remind us he was smart, via pseudo-tactical plans he made.

4.      Jean – He was by far my favorite character in the show.  Jean is the only dynamic character present.  He is pragmatic and grounded, he actually has some sort of realistic sense of the danger they face.  He served as Eren’s foil, mostly because he had the cognitive ability to think about things other than rage against Titans.  He pointed out how futile most military missions were (and the show aptly demonstrated this), and focused more on self-survival.  Still, he developed to stick with his comrades, despite his own desire to find safer posts.  He was actually a pleasure to watch, and probably the only reason I stuck with the show.

5.      Levi – Levi was your basic untouchable super hero who killed Titans, monsters that 99.9% of the soldiers couldn’t touch; and he did so more easily than a normal person could step on an ant.  He had the sole quirk of being a "clean freak", which was not at all entertaining, given how trivial of a quirk it was when surrounded by the show's atmosphere.

Overall: 4/10 If you like blood of characters you care nothing for, boring immature themes and personalities, one-dimensional leads, little story development, and even less character development, decent music, and great art, well then you have yourself a show.  Everyone ranted and raved about this show, which makes me even more frustrated with how truly subpar this show was.  We have Jean, the music, and the animation to thank that I'm giving any points here at all.  They can't all be Cowboy Bebop's I guess.

      And Now here are some excused scorings (thanks to Roriconfan for the template)

ART SECTION: 9/10
General Artwork 2/2 (outstanding)
Character Figures 1/2 (kind of mundane)
Backgrounds 2/2 (incredibly detailed)
Animation 2/2 (crisp)
Visual Effects 2/2 (great for the most part)

SOUND SECTION: 5/10
Voice Acting 0/3 (insufferably bad, inexplicable screaming)
Music Themes 3/4 (OTs were great, BGM was ok)
Sound Effects 2/3 (fine)

STORY SECTION: 2/10
Premise 2/2 (interesting)
Pacing 0/2 (erratic and slow)
Complexity 0/2 (boring and immature with nothing interesting discovered)
Plausibility 0/2 (none)
Conclusion 0/2 (unfinished, horrible first season ending)

CHARACTER SECTION: 1/10
Presence 1/2 (weak)
Personality 0/2 (unfounded and one-dimensional)
Backdrop 0/2 (a little, and it was overblown and immature)
Development 0/2 (none, Eren was pissed at life even before bad things happened)
Catharsis 0/2 (none, though it is unfinsihed)

VALUE SECTION: 5/10
Historical Value 1/3 (I believe in time people will recognize this as mediocrity)
Rewatchability 0/3 (terrible pacing, undeveloped characters and story)
Memorability 4/4 (I've never seen more hype for a show before)

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 4/10
Art 1/1 (outstanding)
Sound 1/2 (great music, horrible voice acting)
Story 1/3 (predictable, pointless shock factor)
Characters 1/4 (terrible, except for Jean)

VERDICT: 4/10

 

2/10 story
9/10 animation
7/10 sound
1/10 characters
4/10 overall

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Sirscaredyclaude Oct 16, 2023

Nothing but edgy, millennial writing.

Sirscaredyclaude May 29, 2023

Too pubescent and too unoriginal to be in my top 30 anime. Thanks for the review.

kamenriderdarkglass Mar 5, 2023

I bet you're regretting posting this little rant of yours. You were probably 12 years old at the time, or you're a Western Twitter user looking for something to bitch about since everyone else in the world is normal and knows a good show when they see it. Have fun getting roasted. 

MG20010604 Jan 15, 2022

still overrated lol

marmares Oct 29, 2021

Try watching season 2,you wil change your opinion.