Review of Attack on Titan

Attack on titan Story- The story follows humanity’s struggle of survival as it hides behind the safety of 50 metre high walls that has protected them from anthropoid beings known as titans for over 100 years. These titans are mysterious in origin and are massive in size. Their only goal is to kill humanity for seemingly no reason. After 100 years of peace, a breach in the outer of the 3 walls caused by a mysterious, previously unseen 60 metre tall titan pushes humanity to a desperate situation. We thus follow the story of 3 teenagers, Eren, Armin and Mikasa and how they fit into thischaos. The first few episodes provide the viewer with an entirely new experience that will shock and change all you will naturally expect from an anime.

The first 7 episodes were pretty much the longest Holy shit!!! moments from what I have currently seen from an intro. But after this initial promise, the actual story unravels.

Once everything settles down, the pace slows right down, the standard array of stereotypical characters are all introduced in 5 minutes and the story no longer develops. Humanity must kill the titans! Yup. That’s pretty much it. The very nature of the enemy limits the story to just that, the titans can’t talk, they have no morals. So all this anime can ever be is how Eren kills the titans. This is so unbelievably one dimensional it’s a joke. With only one end goal, there can only be a series of extremely predictable single battles against the titans. And all of these suffer some serious pace issues. In the middle of a fight, the anime would stop to hear everyone’s opinions. Or it would decide to watch countless flashbacks of traumatic family events. With the clear attraction of attack on titan being on the action, why bother showing this after we are all so pumped up?

I have also read the supposed ending of the attack on titan anime series. My armpit has more creativity than that. Message me if you want the details. 4

Art- this section is the most controversial in my books. Whilst the artwork is undoubtedly superb, i.e. the fight scenes and the environments, the underlying language of the artwork is flawed. Attack on titan is, as far as anime can be, very gory. People’s heads and limbs are flying everywhere. But fighting these grotesque beings are a group of 3 teenagers (of which Armin is apparently a boy) who all look like they’ve just worked out how to use a toilet. It’s like watching ash ketchum go ‘fuck you charizard!’ and watch him proceed to break his neck. It’s confusing. The design of the titans are, maybe intentionally, grotesque. But I am sure that there are better design potentials here. I’m pretty sure I saw Nicholas cage as one of the titans. 6

Sound- the soundtrack is amazing. Suitably epic and upbeat. But there is no other dimensional quality to the soundtrack. Even when the main character’s mum dies, an epic fight song is playing. The anime needs to learn, even in an action led story, more than action can exist. The beauty of friendships are poorly conveyed through the music for example. The voice acting is the most over the top voice acting I have ever witnessed. It’s not, ‘can you pass me the water’, its ‘ (with lines and explosions encircling the character) I have failed you mother!!! I need the water to save my friends and to kill the titans!!!!!! Calm your tits already. Blimey. 7

Characters- defiantly not the strong point of attack on titan. The main character literally just wants to kill all titans to avenge his mother. A far more powerful character, Mikasa, starts of wanting to protect Eren, yet by the end, she wants to protect Eren even more! Wait, what? The only development we see is of Armin, who starts from a complete wussy to what you expect from a main character. All other characters just fulfil the stereotypical archetype that the writers have fallen for. It was so disappointing to see this after seeing such a unique beginning. 4

Enjoyment- suffice to say, I did not enjoy attack on titan. I spent most of the time being frustrated by how slow it was all moving and how childish everything was. I was pulled in by the overwhelming popularity and amazing action scenes. What I was met with was a very childish attempt at making gore cool. Providing a lame excuse for teenagers to create a lot of carnage is not a good story. As awesome as the fight scenes were, they cannot make up for how immature it all is. 4

Overall- I’m really sorry for all the attack on titan fans reading this. But I am 18 and I have outgrown this senseless, immature and shallow genre. Whether I recommend watching it, I would actually say yes. The first 7 episodes are actually amazing. But the initial rebelling against the norm was quickly ignored and it drifted back to an average anime. 5