Review of Attack on Titan

I'm going to try and be brief, I just finished watching this. And as of right now I'm not entirely sure why it acquired the popularity it has received. Don't misunderstand, on it's own it is a decent series but there are at least a handful of things that make it less than stellar. 1. The overall atmosphere of the show, at it's best it can be described as very depressing. I can't think of a single episode that was even remotely upbeat. I'm not saying that being bleak is a bad thing for a show but with all of the death and destruction that goeson throughout it's tough not to come out a little sad after each episode.

2. The characters, while we have our main three in Eren, Armin, and Mikasa the rest of the cast is expendable. Without going into spoiler territory I found it difficult to keep track of characters and their names based on how frequently they died. I merit that to the author wishing to keep the readers, or in this case the viewers, on their toes since we won't know who is next. Kind of poetic when it comes down to it but still annoying when I shouldn't get too invested because they could be dead 2 or 3 episodes after being introduced to them. Aside from that Eren is a difficult lead to get behind, and I know this comparison will tick some people off, he reminds me of Shinji Ikari in some respects. While Eren initially is quite the opposite they both encounter these moments where Eren and Shinji have some sort of moral or ethical dilemma which slows down any momentum the show had. After a while you just tire of Eren's internal monologue because you know by the end of it he reaches the conclusion we knew was going to happen. He staggers too frequently and has to have someone constantly giving him some sort of advice to keep moving forward.

3. Pacing, the pacing of the show at times is well done and at others feels drawn out. There is about a 4-5 episode arc that should not have taken near as long as it should have other than to feature a "villain" and show many many people die in the process. I understand establishing a character but we didn't need that many episodes dedicated to it. Since this relates to pacing in a way I will mention that the ending is abrupt/inconclusive, setting up for the future second season. I'm not familiar with the manga so it's possible the anime caught up close enough they figured they should stop and give the manga-ka enough time to create more chapters. Either case what I assumed would be the end for the season and what turned out to be were two different things entirely. Not that that is a bad thing but rather I felt like it was a stalling tactic for Production I.G.

After all of my complaints I will mention the positives, the animation style was unique and, as I would expect from Production I.G., well done. The sound didn't catch my attention until I started marathon-ing the series but it was reminiscent of Hans Zimmer's score from Inception which is a good thing from my perspective. And honestly despite my complaints I did enjoy the show and invested in the characters that lasted more than an episode or two. We were left with a tease of what's to come and I plan to continue watching when the next season comes.