Review of Attack on Titan

Perhaps what more than anything characterizes Attack on Titan is the same which characterizes the eponymous villains as opposed to ordinary humans, namely overabundances. There are so many promising concepts, mysteries, interesting characters, so much excellent music and well-done action. Yet even so, at the end of this first part of the story, one doesn't feel quite satisfied. Many shows complete their stories after 25 episodes, but at the end of Attack on Titan we don't really know anything more about what is going on than we did seeing the main character and his sister in the beginning, as children, awing over the part ofthe military they would join as grown-ups. New questions are being raised up until the very end of the last episode, while few previous are resolved, and thus it's difficult to see it all as anything but a beginning.

It's an outstanding beginning though. The animation occasionally suffers too much from cost-reducing stills, but the 19th century-looking world of Attack on Titan is vividly brought out, and the visuals particularly impressively manage to make the many characters easy both to remember and love. The powerful soundtrack also deserves special mention, even if the opening and ending songs of the second half of the show do not stand up to the ones of the first half, but I guess that's just an excuse to skip them and get along with the story quicker.

In a way, it's pretty silly. Humankind lives behind colossal, dam-like walls after giants began attacking them, and it's up to young, attractive, but all very idiosyncratic people dressed in dark green raincoats, carrying something like steampunk jetpacks, to hit the giants not necessarily stopped by the wall at the back of their necks, their only weak spots. What makes the story gripping, aside from the many awe-inducing action scenes the plot justifies, is some of the ingenious ways the concept is put to use to create rather original situations, but just as much the meticulousness of the plot's execution. Few proper war films manage to even get close to the dread Attack on Titan associates with the giants after only a single episode, partly in thanks to the almost surreal ridiculousness of their appearance, but also by the willingness to confront the characters fully with the brutality of conflict, among other things by unexpected killings. Yet it's perhaps a six-episode arc of the series, taking place entirely on the move, that manages to impress the most in terms of construction. All these things make it easy to forgive the occasional outrageous plot manoeuvres done to keep the show's pace as high as it is.

In the end though, it's hard to say what to make of Attack on Titan. At this point it's not even quite completely obvious what it is. While the show's mysteries and characters are probably its most interesting aspects, the focus on action of the last episode makes one wonder whether perhaps it's really first and foremostly about this. Then again, maybe the plot cash-outs are being saved for the upcoming movie. What's in any case quite clear about Attack on Titan is that it's a fresh breath of air in the shonen genre with a promising future hard not to look forward to.