apoc9's avatar

apoc9

  • Joined Nov 22, 2011
  • 38 / M

Attack on Titan

Jan 20, 2021

Long time ago I’ve read several volumes of Shingeki no Kyojin manga and when anime started, I didn’t care much either. This is me giving the series second chance. Before going into the review, I have to say it has some spoilers, but for me those were good spoilers, which made me enjoy series more. I think the issue is settings as are initially presented. Putting aside some things causing lack of suspension of disbelief on my part such as how the wall was built in the first place if the people don’t really seem to be up to the task and more importantly how could they have built it, if they were constantly threatened by attacks of titans and lastly obvious inability to gather much information about the enemy. The issue is the series is not what is supposed to be according to the initial episodes or premise. When I was starting the series for the first-time expectations of story were, that of dark gritty apocalypse with mysterious and overwhelmingly powerful enemies. Well, it is nothing like that. It’s fighting shounen, where people have great aspirations and hack super powers. Strategy doesn’t seem to matter that much in the series despite how much it tries to show otherwise. Let’s not forget gore, even if it is justified. In my first experience what ruined the show, was when the concept of human turning into titan was introduced. It didn’t happen for the second time, because I already knew it. Where the anime did made mistake is in a way it arranged events around that first transformation. Trying to go over the events in reverse order from different viewpoint. It was rather confusing and added nothing to the experience. It does same thing once more later on, which is slightly better, but I don’t like this method of story-telling.
Aside from the fighting element it could be a war drama series, especially in the beginning. After all it’s about recruits, who become soldiers and see many of their friends and seniors die. After each mission there is always a stock pile of dead bodies and during battle things can go quickly south. A whole squad can be massacred in few seconds when engaging enemies. Something a training can’t really prepare you for – real battle experience. Their superiors have to order their soldiers to certain death without knowing if such sacrifice brings good outcome. All have to deal with the fact their sacrifice didn’t achieve much anything. It is obvious that some characters are plot armoured and won’t die. A viewer doesn’t know which ones, but as the story continues it’s becoming more obvious. As far as the first season goes it’s just a one large arc, which introduces story. Doesn’t really explain that much about titans and even more about humans with ability to turn into one. If you expect more you are going to be disappointed. As far as the final plot twist of the first season [1] it was predictable.

MC Eren is typical shounen protagonist so there is nothing really great about him. He talks big, then fails and has to scramble to keep going, yells a lot with emotions and gets power up from it. Pretty much typical shounen protagonist. Well, there is very few series, which do try do this differently. His friend Armin is typical nerd, who gets bullied a lot. He is physically weaker, than anyone else, but makes up with his smarts. He is not really frontline soldier. Mikasa is the most interesting from the three. Probably because she is to be the cool character at least until Levi is introduced, who is the ultimate cool character at least, where the first season is concerned. The issue with her is she is very overprotective of Eren. It’s hard to tell whether she wants to be his mum or girlfriend the way she treats him. Levi is interesting as well, because there is more to him, that just being cool and the best in combat. There are more characters some of them survive some of them die. I don’t think there is a point to talk about them in more detail. Despite having some characters being presented as smart, they don’t notice some obvious cues quickly or not at all.

Visual as are really good and dated well. Action sequences are pretty nice. Even if the technology in story and fighting style is far fetched for my liking. Character design is nice. Plus, it’s a shounen series, where female characters aren’t designed just as eye candy. Titan designs are ranging from grotesque to cool. Visuals elements is one of the things that really made the series popular.

Another thing that is greatly appreciated by the fans is music. Almost everyone knows the first opening, which is good and memorable as great OP should be. In that regard the second OP, which comes in the last third of the first season is rather subpar in comparison. If series has a great OP it should stick to it throughout the whole season. Especially if the series doesn’t have that much episodes to begin with. I didn’t care about ending song. OP/ED aside the soundtrack and effects during the episode are pretty good as well at least for greater part. There was only once or twice a moment when I though the BGM wasn’t that good and helpful to underscore atmosphere of scene.

When I picked up this series again, I’ve lowered my expectations as low as possible, because one could expect such popular series being overrated. After watching whole first season I still think it is bit overrated, but I had good time. There are some things, which could be still done better. It’s pretty enjoyable above average series, but I wouldn’t consider it to be masterpiece yet. It feels more like one big first arc introducing the main story line. The ending is anything, but concluded in some truly satisfying manner. I’m happy I don’t have to wait for next season to come out. Otherwise, it would be disappointing.

Spoilers

[1] I mean the identity of female titan. It was obvious from the way she looks and how she fights. I was surprised nobody noticed beforehand.

8/10 story
9/10 animation
9/10 sound
7/10 characters
8/10 overall
0 this review is Funny Helpful

You must be logged in to leave comments. or

There are no comments - leave one to be the first!