Shingeki no Kyojin

Shingeki no Kyojin... Where do I start?

In summary, Shingeki no Kyojin is a perfect anime to get somebody who loves action started on anime- I think it is literally the most mainstream anime ever made, and that is definitely not a bad thing. But with this comes downsides- ones not apparent to the viewer at first glance, but looking back on it after watching it around the time it first came out, definitely shine through.

Shingeki no Kyojin starts off with a roar- the first 2 episodes explode right out of the gate with high-octane action that also leaves mystery to draw the viewer in. Who ... are the titans? What is in the basement? Why is Eren's dad so creepy? All this and more the viewer asks themselves as the end credits roll for episode 2.

Then episode 3 and 4 jump in. It's a training scene for Eren and his friends, and it's dead slow in comparison. But that's ok- it's episodes like this that reinforce character development and get the plot rolling. And soon, the episodes with action will begin again, right? That High-Octane, bloody, gory action we've all been waiting for!

Well, it does. But then shortly after, it grinds back to a halt. Why do I bring up the first 5 episodes out of all things to mention about Shingeki no Kyojin? Because it perfectly frames the pacing of the entire anime. First you're baited with that sweet, bloody action that makes you just stare at the screen in amazement of the beautiful animation and heart-pumping soundtrack, and next thing you know you have to sit through an hour of people arguing over the same issue over and over before going back to the action. This would be fine and acceptable if it actually resulted in plot and character development going somewhere- but rarely this bickering between Armin and Eren result in anything productive.

Actually, Shingeki no Kyojin seems to show perfectly how to pull off the ILLUSION of plot and character development- Eren struggling with his inner demons despite somehow going back to square 1 every 5 episodes, the Basement which has been explicitly mentioned as having "all the answers" being completely forgotten about while the group goes out to hunt titans, and Armin rehashing what we already know to other characters every episode or two. All of this combined create a huge mess that on first glance seems like a deep and interesting story, but only through reflection of a different lens you begin to notice how shallow the pool you're standing in really is. The characters are shallow, the story tries to go somewhere but the characters almost seem to prevent it from moving at all, and at some points the story tries to go to too many places at once, just confusing the viewer until the next trippy action scene kicks in.

I like to compare Shingeki no Kyojin to a Michael Bay film. This also makes it easier to understand what I'm trying to say (and trust me, it's not your fault- I have a hard time expressing what I feel in words sometimes).

Imagine Eren as Shia Labeouf, and Shingeki no Kyojin as a typical summer blockbuster by Michael Bay. Eren zips around the scenes of the movie, fighting bad-guys and pulling off amazing stunts with beautifully rendered graphics and an amazing ost- but then hardcut to Eren getting mad at himself and people around him but not actually advancing the plot for 1/3rd of the movie as the action grinds to a halt. Add some comedic relief (if you want a Bay comparison, the classic transformers out of place masturbation joke fits well) including possibly some potatoes after a traumatic scene and then slap on the illusion of having a deep plot and you have Shingeki no Kyojin. It's a typical summer blockbuster! You go in, watch it, enjoy it, then leave and forget about it! I'm really not saying you're not allowed to enjoy it because it's shallow and noisy, I'm just saying you shouldn't walk in expecting a revolutionary masterpiece of anime- which is what some critics are raising it up to be.

STORY- 4 : The story's foundations are put up well, but the actual progression falls flat as no questions are ever really answered and the plot never seems to want to go in a single direction.
ART- 9 : The art is amazing! There are some worse-off scenes and some animation glitches, but the art is one of the things that makes Shingeki no Kyojin stand out from the crowd. Even though I am not a huge fan of the anime itself, I have a massive poster above my computer of it as we speak.
SOUND- 10 : While the music and sound design is generic at worst, it is composed beautifully and always reinforces the mood set out by the show. I would highly recommend a download of the OST.
CHARACTER- 3 : Easily the worst part of Shingeki no Kyojin. Eren's constant back and forth attitude and behaviour that never goes anywhere, Armin's arguing with people that last an entire episode simply to recap what just happened on screen, Mikasa's constant fight to try and save everyone and pull everything together: it's just all poorly done.
ENJOYMENT- 6 : While watching Shingeki no Kyojin, I certainly enjoyed it- but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it the whole way through. Even while watching it, I noticed a lot of the fighting and arguing was going on too long, and let's not forget the 3-5 episodes of riding on horses. But the scenes that were enjoyable- notably the fight scenes and the pivotal plot twists certainly left a lot to talk about and were enjoyable enough to at least somewhat wipe away two annoying characters yelling at eachother on horses for 30 minutes.

OVERALL- 5: Watch it, get what you get out of it, but don't walk in expecting the next amazing revolutionary anime. Expect a summer blockbuster.

Attack on Titan is a particularly unique case for me. As such, my review needs to be broken up to properly analyze it.

Story:

Attack on Titan has an absolutely astounding setting. The sheer idea behind the setting, the exposition pieces, and the initial plot elements held the potential for it to be one of the best action anime ever. From the first three episodes, I could see how someone could believe this would be that one anime that is just absolutely amazing. It simply becomes disappointing as things continue. Long story short? The start is absolutely amazing. It's powerful. It's grabbing. It does everything ... an introduction should do. The problem after that stems from the plot slowly becoming painfully predictable and a personal dissatisfaction with the protagonists in place as well as the decisions of various members of the cast completely destroying the story's credibility at times.

Art:

Art is completely subjective. I would not actually judge art based on someone's own opinion. You would really have to see it for yourself to deem whether it is "good" or not. As for me, it seemed fairly mediocre. The effort is there, but something with the art style simply does not jive with me. The settings are well done, but the characters are quite bland.

Sound:

Finally. This is what I can praise Attack on Titan for. If anything, this series's soundtrack deserves to be remembered. It is excellent and its execution throughout the anime was not only strategic but tasteful. The tracks range from dark and depressing to powerful and moving pieces designed for a battle against a completely hopeless situation. In my opinion, the music in and of itself is the true beauty behind this anime.

Characters:

The main protagonist Eren Jeager is heavily set on his goal to a fault. Some call this good writing, but given the setting, it actually works against the story and its credibility. It is literally almost difficult to not find the main character's obsession with revenge nostalgic and downright hilarious. If you don't like avenger-type characters, you will despise Eren beyond imagination by the time the story is over. The worst part? He finally starts developing three-quarters through and goes right back to the bratty child he was in the first few eps. The same can be said of Mikasa. This anime is one of the few to portray women with some form of decency, but Mikasa's obsession with Eren is a pretty sad window of how the author wants people to worship his poorly-designed protagonist. To boot, Mikasa literally has no flaws other than her obsession with Eren. No character flaws. No ability flaws. Her only real flaw is her obsession with Eren, which usually only winds up helping them, not causing them problems like it should. Your only real likable protagonist? Armin. He is one of maybe three characters we really see that has a solid character, solid flaws, and solid development based on those flaws and his interactions with other characters due to the plot. In all honesty, Armin should have been the main protagonist.

Enjoyment:

Now we move onto enjoyment. Despite vehemently despising roughly eighty-five percent of the cast, I enjoyed Attack on Titan. Is it a great action anime? Sure. Definitely! Is it realistic? Sad to say, but no it is not. Is it the most well-written anime ever? Astronomically far from it. If you're looking for an action anime to sit down and enjoy, this is a wonderful choice. If you're looking for an action anime with a strong plot and emphasis on lovable characters, I recommend pretending that you never heard the hype and staying far away from this anime.

With a heavy heart, I cannot give the anime anything higher than a 5/10 in good conscience. It had oodles of potential, but an irritating cast, some half-baked plot elements, and predictability ruined it. Mediocre at best.

So what on earth? What have I done?
How am I not able to feel the stun?...
I will write about "Attack on Titan" here;
but yeah, I'm no fanboy trying to endear
myself to mainstream now or in the longer run.

I turned towards this show unbiased
considering its popularity at highest.
I wanted to see if this action show at least
conveys more meanings than being a bloody feast.
... But in the end: people and story at its driest.

So hundreds of years ago, the humankind
is letting itself be completely confined
by dim-witted looking titans there
inside a 50-meter wall ensnare
and is now searching for ways to get behind.

Then suddenly, a 60-meter giant attacks
and many more titans are making their tracks.
The wall can't hold it anymore
and so the humans are fighting another war.
Their enemies won't give them more time to relax!

The first few episodes are quite intense,
experiencing human's crumbling defence,
getting their normal lives torn up again,
having to survive in a diminishing den,
and nearly losing their last kind of sense.

We follow Eren, who has to sustain
his mother's loss, indeed a great pain.
He wants to kick some titan's ass
and finally falls into the shounen mass,
always acting like tightened by an angry chain.

Accompanied by one of the few
more normal humans, Mikasa, whose true
intention is to save her Eren
and so she's getting ears more barren
despite her strength she would rather sue.

The third in league, weak fair-haired Armin, stays
the cowardly one with a frightened face.
He tends to think far more than others
but is mostly hindering his brothers.
He needs lots of time to realise his place.

So maybe you would think that some other
guys inside these walls don't try to bother,
but instead act more heroic inside this hell.
You see, Commander Levi's the only one memorable;
he wouldn't even trade his tenacity for his mother.

All in all, these characters just won't try
to develop properly and we ask why?
Why haven't they used episodes five to twelve
to let them build some features or delve
into their motivations or what they go by?

Seriously, you won't remember any other names.
They die like flies and only the main remains.
So I really wondered the whole time where
the more seasoned soldiers would deign to dare
to get into the fight, but you know what it claims...

And then, the probably most important thing:
What are the titans? Ruled by a king?
What are their bloody true intentions?
Hinder humanity from some kind of interventions?
We aren't informed, and that's a serious sting.

However, the style and art does kind of save all it
from falling into a much more deeper pit.
Detailed architecture and nice quality,
although the animations strive for equality,
but the art got me astounded, I must admit!

What you will hear is mostly amazing.
The music improves the already fast pacing
but cannot reach my most favourite sides
like Code Geass with "Stories" provides.
So it's epic, and rather the common saving.

Special mention for an awesome opening theme
mixing German and Japanese for deserved esteem.
It conveys this rather intimidating mood,
lets us taste of the upcoming action food.
Believing the whole show's that epic: it stays a dream.

Now summarizing art and sound: they're nice;
but paying with a decent story at least twice.
Man, there are so many episodes for fill,
the pacing is off, the direction needs skill,
inferring that eight episodes clearly would suffice.

Some people will ask how I can say
this show is average and carried away...
It has nothing like a memorable plot
and tends to dramatize quite a lot,
just not worth for every fan to stay!

I can't deny the certain amount of joy
the first few episodes deliver, oh boy!
But after that, it's nothing new...
No inspirations I aim to pursue...
Its part to perplex hardly evens the one to annoy.

So this practically concludes my review.
"Do not believe the hype" became so true!
If you like some standard action shows,
then Attack on Titan doesn't have much to oppose,
but otherwise it isn't worth any ballyhoo.

It's nice to have an anime this popular that isn't just tsundere school rom-com no' 10746 for a change. But does that alone make said anime great? No, not really.

This is a spoiler free review.

*Story*

*Insert synopsis here*

Aside from the monsters being replaced with Titans and the interesting weaponry the people have, we've definitely seen similar stories in anime before, whether it's Claymore, Blue Gender and maybe even Highschool of the Dead.

Leaving that aside though, it doesn't do a very good job with its narrative. The story relies on coincidences, has forced exposition, uneventful pacing and it also has unexplored themes that are tossed away as ... soon as they're raised.

The setting in general is poorly explored. For example, they make it clear that there's a slave trade going on within these walls, but that issue is never raised again. Apparently they also have religious sects that worship these walls as deities or something, but that's never explored either, aside from killing them off in an ironic and disrespectful manner (hah! that'll teach those religious people for having faith and hope!). There are even social classes among citizens, and of course, the higher the class, the more evil you are (that's how it works in cliché land), but even that is just there to show us what good people the main characters are by comparison.. They also present corruption within the military and competition amongst its different branches. Granted, the latter is explored a little, but the former is hardly touched and is just there to shock you. So despite how rich the setting seems at first, at the end of the day all you will care for is the fight against the titans since the rest just remains background decoration.

It's a common thing to say that the first episode is Amazing, but I wasn't impressed. To me, the first episode is also the first mistake it made. It seemed deliberately rushed in an attempt to make the audience gasp at the sudden deaths of characters we know nothing about (pure shock effect).

This is the first mistake because the pacing does slow down significantly later on and I think the first episode was the only one worthy of getting fleshed out more, instead of diving in to the massacre straight away. The rest of the episodes don't even exploit most of their slow pacing very well. It has a habit of slowing down deliberately in order to end most episodes on a cliffhanger. Sure, it might raise the tension, but it also serves to make the series less eventful inside its already limited number of episodes (which means less of a story).

And maybe I'm just nitpicking here, but the exposition insults me. It assumes I'm a retard who can't put 2 and 2 together and the characters have to go out of their way to explain things about their world that they should already know just by being born there. This show could've had no dialogue whatsoever and I still could've picked up on a great deal of what's going on. So the script just comes off as amaturish.

And like I said, the story also relies on occurrences that are not very likely, but because it involves the main characters, anything is possible. It's nothing that bad or distracting, but I'm still gonna go on a limb here and say; that's not good storytelling.

Lastly, it just ends in the middle of nowhere and leaves you with nothing but another cliffhanger (surprise, surprise).

To be fair though, the setting is still pretty creative (as unexplored as it is) and it does do a decent job in foreshadowing some interesting plot twists and gradually revealing mysteries, mainly about the Titans. But that's pretty much it and even that is incomplete for now.

*Characters*

These are tired shonen characters who are completely out of place.
You have a Mary Sue who's super strong for no good reason, the smart one and mr angry pants.

Granted, Eren, the angry one has good reasons to be angry, it's completely understandable. Unfortunately, that's pretty much all he is and it's probably not the best idea to have him as a main character since it gets old really fast.

You also have Mikasa who's an absolute perfect being for some reason (I gave up on questioning it). We can't make her flawed of course since that'd mean she'll have room for character depth, we can't have that. And there's simply nothing to remember her for besides her relationship with Eren, being perfect and her sexy lips. So yeah, a lame character with no development and the most ludicrous backstory I've seen in a while, which also happens to be Eren's backstory. Which explains why she's his pet.
Nice..

The third character is Armin, the weak but smart one. I guess he's ok, since he does seem to grow more than the other two.. Aside from that he's forgettable as well since this show's characterization in general is very shonenish and obnoxious in an otherwise dark setting. "The power of friendship!" (ok, they don't actually say that, but they come pretty close).

By the way, these 3 characters are each supposed to complete each other with their traits, which is a nice idea, but that fact is stated directly to the viewer, much like everything else in this series (so much for subtlety).

There's also another notable character named Jean, who's kinda like the Vegeta or the rival in a shonen series. And much like Vegeta, he's the only one who goes through actual growth and he even reacts to the events in a way that resembles a human being. Too bad he wasn't the main character, he suits the grim setting much better than the others.

The secondary characters are defined mainly by their quirks or their looks and there are others who are just evil for the sake of being hated by the audience and aren't shown more than once. Many secondary characters aren't fleshed out and the vast majority of deaths in this series are of nameless characters or ones you don't remember. It's understandable considering the circumstances, but that just makes the main cast appear more plot armored than they already are.

On the other hand, the characterization of common people during the intense moments is pretty decent. Probably a little over the top at times, but I still think it was handled rather well with how they panic and such.

Overall the characters could've been worse, I mean at least they have character consistency, they are given some focus and I should probably applaud them for not being overly sexualized, which is a very rare thing in anime these days. But I have no clue what people see in them since most of them are pretty simple and feel ridiculously out of place.

*Art & Sound*

I'll cover this part more briefly.

The character designs are kind of unique, I guess. I actually like the thick outlines the artwork has, you really don't see those much anymore. The surroundings look beautiful, both the forests and the towns. Everything just seems gigantic. The animation itself (while not always consistent) is great and the battles with the 3d camera movement is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Though I wasn't too thrilled about most of the Titan designs, and some are significantly cooler than others.

The opening song is arguably one of the best openings in recent years, it's just masterful (too bad opening 2 happened midway). Same goes for the soundtrack in general which is beautifully intense and makes everything seem more epic. The voice acting is nothing special and maybe even over the top, but I realize that the script probably told them to scream a lot, which is not always easy to pull off so give them some slack.


*Enjoyment*

I enjoyed some of it, but from a point on I mainly just watched it apathetically. I do concede that it's not a boring watch, that's for sure.

*Overall* 6/10

I've been mostly negative in this review, but to be fair it was still a fine show, or at least passable in some respects and the production values are great. But I doubt it will stand the test of time

During that adrenaline rush stage of viewing fast, heavy-hitting content, we tend to lose all train of thought for the pixelated images flooding our screen. We are blindsided by the idea of what could happen next. Our brain racing to process new information as the stakes of any given set-piece is further compounded. When boiled down to its essentials, this rapid succession of quick build up and an immediate payoff is the cornerstone for many successful action titles. That "rush," that moment, is the pleasures we seek out in them; the very thing that makes the action genre so appealing, to begin with. It's for ... that reason that they remain significant breadwinners across many storytelling mediums. Once we're locked in and find ourselves immersed in the experience, everything else becomes secondary. Who has time to question the practicality of James Bond dispatching henchmen on top a speeding bullet train when we could just sit back and enjoy the spectacle? No one does, that's who! We're too busy living in the moment-to-moment rush to be bothered with any other details. So understandably, this can cause a false sense of judgment when trying to gauge the subject matter's level of quality control. It's easy to buy into the absurdity of any given situation when you're caught up in the middle of it. Thematically, you may just be consuming something that's 90% hot hair and 10% gray matter, but God be damned if that isn't the best 10% mass of gray matter you've ever consumed!

But what happens when we do bother to give ourselves a moment to question it? When all those problematic aspects that we once shoved to the wayside has now been given time to be mulled over? All of a sudden, an immersive experience can become questionable to what was there all along. As we settle down and pull ourselves out of the situation, that excitement once offered by that clump of gray mass has now been slowly revealed for what it truly was all along. We pull back slowly to see the bigger picture, to see the 90% that we ignored; and to our surprises, there it is, the puckered out rear-end of the elephant in the room. Rationality kicks in and the spell that was once hanging over our heads have now been broken. For better or for worse, our blind appraisal has now dialed back to something more rational. The enjoyment that the content offered us may still remain intact, but our assessment of it have changed accordingly. This discernment comes as a result of separating individual enjoyment from that of impartial analysis—or as we regular folks like to call it—"using common sense." We shift from living in the moment to retroactively assimilating the moment. Basically, we as viewers begin to establish our own form of quality-control standards, in more words or less; an act that's too often mistaken as "hating on something" when in actuality, it's quite the opposite. It's the act of fully appreciating and digesting the content, for both its good and bad attributes, instead of pretending those attributes don't coexist in the same body of work.

Ignorance may be bliss, but a proper understanding of the content you consume is true satisfaction.

Today, we'll attempt to do just that with Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), as we snap out our trances, wipe the drool off our faces, and take a step back to view the elephant, or in this case, the clumsy naked giant in the room. And by doing so, we'll aim to comprehend what's become one of the most popular anime titles of all time.

Whether you adore or loathe it, Attack on Titan's prominence in the 2010s has made it an ambassador for anime-related content, both in and out of the anime community. And really, it's not hard to see why. It's a show that presented itself as a typical shounen product, but when viewed, comes gift-wrapped in the aesthetic sensibilities of a hardcore, grindhouse seinen feature. The equivalent of which is like parents taking their 10-year old kid to watch 2010's Kick-Ass or Super under the presumption that "it's just another Marvel family-friendly superhero film," only to be greeted with the grim reality that it's anything but. Their newly found realization of this fact coming in the form of bloody entrails being sprayed across the movie screen like celebratory confetti; a consolation prize offered up by the director for getting their assumptions wrong.

Keeping that in mind, Attack on Titan's marketing strategy was nothing short of a stroke of genius. In its 1st episode—where the falsehood of stability within a medieval town was instantly flipped on its head—an act that's commenced by a stampede of carnivorous giants tearing citizens apart in the most gruesome fashion possible; the anime community collectively "lost their shit." Seemingly overnight, viewing the show became something like a cultural event. As the selling point given to the uninitiated went something along the lines of "just wait for the twist bro!" An organic marketing tactic driven by word of mouth was born, the likes of which eventually led to it being in the top 5 most viewed anime titles, on all, if not most anime-database websites by the time the final episode aired. And now, after a few years have passed to see the effects of it in retrospect, it turns out we were witnessing the birth of a new gateway title in the making, as the show became an outsider window into the anime medium and how it falls into the current pop culture landscape at large. All of a sudden, there was a renewed interest for the Japanese import, made all the more obvious when you consider the growing number of companies that are trying to tap into the potentially lucrative market that might present itself to those willing to unearth it. A cultural bubble that's been steadily flowing beneath the business world's feet since the late 80s but with a modern-day face finally being attached, making exhuming it for profit easier than ever. This was no longer "our thing" fellow members of the anime community, this was now on its way to becoming a marketable sub-culture once again, thanks in large part to titles like AoT bringing back visibility to the medium, with its tentpole pitched high for all to see.

This slight removal of fan ownership may have led to the first noticeable wave of backlash for the show. The delicate bruised egos of long-time anime fans that don't want "their thing" being associated with the loud, brutish thrashing of AoT's typical portrayal. And honestly, it might stand to be the most superficial reason to dislike any piece of media as well. Anime as a medium doesn't get to decide what face it will wear in the public's eye, in the same way, no honest-to-God movie-buff like the face of their past-time being represented by any bloated Hollywood remake of a beloved classic.

Popular media, whether that be for music, movies, TV shows or books, are usually represented by the loudest, most accessible examples of their respective medium. Their credibility in these cases is usually secondary to their marketability. So whether you like or dislike the show, just make sure you're not doing so under the pretext of its popularity, because at that point, whatever you have to say will just fall on deaf ears, as this discernment of media is a very rudimentary fact that should be understood by most. With that being said, in an effort to get ahead of the inevitable shit show that accompanies the discussion of any popular anime, let me make my stance on the matter very clear: I LOVE Attack on Titan like a fat boy loves cake. As of the time of this writing, it's on my "top 100" favorite anime titles, while far more critically acclaimed works don't even make the final cut. It may not be seen as a substantive viewing experience, but let's face it, we all need our comfort food, and in the case of AoT, it's the show that serves that role for me—it's my McDonalds.

I see no reason to bastardize the title for its inherent mainstream appeal. That's just how it is. Any criticism or appraisal I will offer towards it from here on out will be based on what it had to offer and NOT the role projected onto it by outside forces. A true critical evaluation of anything, (favorites included), comes with the acknowledgment of both its strengths and weaknesses, not from pretending a work is lacking in either attribute. Now with that long-winded precursor out of the way, let's get on with the review.

The first and perhaps most prominent feature of AoT was its audiovisual output. It may not seem like it today, with the advent of consistently grander looking animated productions, but at the time of AoT's release, the show was seen as a high watermark for televised animated works. Alongside titles like 2011's Fate/Zero, AoT's visual presentation output took on, what was seen at that time, as the kind of attention to detail that was only afforded to animated movies. Before face-palming terms like "sakuga" was widely popularized for describing well-animated sequences for anime series, it was usually narrowed down to just a handful of moments throughout a show's run-time. With the rise of the aforementioned titles, that thought process changed, as well-animated sequences were dispersed throughout the entire runtime, at what seemed to be random intervals, as opposed to before where such efforts were reserved on the basis of selling some penultimate climactic act. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, moments that truly didn't need any extra flair was also getting the same attention-to-detail that would usually be reserved for the first and last episode of any other show. Whether you care to admit it or not, AoT's massive success played its part in paving the way for more flair in directing and presentation in anime shows to follow. But where titles like Fate/Zero only found popularity in the anime community's upper echelons, AoT went on to find even greater success, becoming a household name for even those unfamiliar with the anime culture altogether.

The art and animation were simply boundary-pushing. For the first time in a long time, fluidity wasn't treated as a secondary concern. Layered textures and shading weren't placed on limited supply. Choreography wasn't immediately reduced to speed-lines and the infamous "cut to black" shots to insinuate movement. Backgrounds weren't just scene-placeholders to avoid figuring out the topography of the land in order to give locations a sense of existence. Wonky character models weren't just accepted as a byproduct of "because of the budget." AoT proved that there was a better standard worth aiming for. And no, I'm not saying these techniques or shortcomings weren't found in AoT, they certainly were, but the degree to which the show relied on these techniques to avoid having to extensively animate, direct, or compose scenes, were significantly less, while at the same time, having a noticeable increase in favorable choices usually thought of as rare exceptions.

The bombastic orchestral musical selection, cleanly rendered 3D animation, well-choreographed action scenes, great use of cinematography, anatomically precise character movement, directing tricks usually reserved for live-action films; all of this and more made it an immediate hit with viewers.

It was grand, dare I say it, even "epic." A sense of scale that felt absent in too many shows at the time. Where most action-orientated anime settled for locations that didn't amount to anything but battlefield backdrops, AoT tapped into a storytelling fundamental that the shounen genre all but abandoned: worldbuilding. This may not seem all that significant for a seasoned viewer that bothers to forage through the entries of yesteryear, but for the less-experienced viewer who've only accustomed themselves to the drab landscape offered up by a limited selection of underbaked locations usually presented by this genre; effectively, what AoT did was stimulate an interest that many viewers didn't realize they were yearning for. An interest that makes the biggest difference between memorable or forgettable stories. This creative decision was perhaps the biggest reason owed towards the show's continued success beyond its audiovisual marketing.

But before we could dive into how cool those Spiderman-like web-slinging city-dive shots were or what it meant for the action scenes, we must first examine the massive undertaking that the creators dedicated towards AoT's worldbuilding that made all of it possible.

It's no coincidence that the show effectively opens up by introducing us to the walled-off city and the architectural structures of the buildings inside. Or better yet, the scale of these structures when pitted against the monstrous threat that inhabits this world. All of this was done to help start the process of setting the stage. Something the anime will continuously do throughout its run. You see, proper worldbuilding doesn't just stop with establishing shots, it's something that's supposed to expand alongside the story to help accommodate the content placed in it. And in the case of AoT, that means a whole lot of inventive action, intriguing locations, and tactile environments that feel every bit as convincing to anything found in the real world.

From the title cards inserted at the halfway point to the medieval-inspired European houses, there's not a moment where the show isn't making the viewer privy to new world details, visual landmarks, and macroeconomic world functions. It cultivated a lived-in world for its inhabitants by reinforcing the means of living, the area layout of its civilians, even things that may be perceived as trivial, like the functionality of the weapons that the military uses. You see, in order for things to feel important, you must first give the viewer a sense of existence in the world, to be able to grasp what's at stake for those within it. So later on, when this once considered "useless" knowledge festers in the back of the viewer's mind — seeing the limitations of citizen mobility, the seemingly endless maze of alleyways, and the sense of hopelessness experienced by humanity when cornered by the evil forces out to get them — all of a sudden, the viewer is now standing there with them and not simply on the outside looking in.

Many action movies like 2006's Casino Royale or 2008's Taken don't have to worry about most of this because its world and locations are already accepted as is; this is the true advantage of live-action. This is why James Bond and his antics have very little hurdles to cross to make the audience accept what's going on because the world they're placed in is our own world. It's "real." AoT, and similarly any animated feature, isn't alotted that immediate acceptance, something that's often taken for granted. If the world isn't thought out, it's hard to get enveloped in it. So when you're running your fingers across the rough surface of a moss-covered stone, creeping through the back streets occupied by the dilapidated housing of the common people; their homes built up by lumber that's slightly weathered by decay; contrasted by the sturdy, clutter-free appearance of the religious facility, with its towering structure shooting up over the houses dwarfed below. Or simply lying under a tree, as the grass and blue wildflowers surrounding you are rustled by the breeze, the endless stretch of Wall Maria looming in the background, registering no comment from the citizens, as they accept it just as much as you accept the Pyramids or Eiffel Tower as real-life landmarks; you're getting a firsthand experience of all of this worldbuilding detail at play. You may not be aware of it, but somewhere in your subconscious, these registered efforts are sinking in.

Regardless of what tonal issues the show may have towards the interaction of its world — and trust me, there are some serious issues — the actual worldbuilding itself is pretty solid.

But enough talk about the important things in the background that makes this all work, let's discuss the fun shit that everyone could comprehend; those awesome ass Spiderman-like, web-slinging city-dive shots! Tetsurou Araki, the madman behind this stroke of directorial genius, is no stranger to over-heightened, summer blockbuster-style action. Before AoT, he gave us the most unnecessarily intense, borderline comical potato chip eating scene in Death Note; the physics-defying Matrix boobs bullet-time effects of High School of the Dead; and who could forget, the booty-shorts wearing, boat-hopping leapfrog shoot-out scene from episode 3 of Black Lagoon. When it comes to directing the hell out of an action scene, regardless of how ridiculous the final outcome may be, very few come close to Araki. He's basically the self-aware version of Michael Bay/Zach Synder for anime.

But there's a lot more that goes into making these action scenes work. For one, Araki seemed to have a good grasp on capturing field-of-depth by allowing the foreground and background enough space to properly breathe. Without that discernment, the show could have easily become a muddled mess of incomprehensible motion (think most shaky-cam scenes for action movies). Where it could have turned into a nauseating rollercoaster ride of unnecessary directing techniques, Araki was able to demonstrate restraint when the scene called for it. Which may seem like an odd thing to say with a show that quite literally has people flying across cities and giant naked people trying to eat them.

Another aspect that helped give the action scenes staying power was the sheer amount of diversity given to not only the battle locations but also the titans themselves. From the claustrophobic feeling given off by the town environment to the woodland dominated by towering trees, every battlefield is given careful consideration for the fighting forces of humanity and the titans they come against.

But what good is all of this appraisal of the show's action scenes without addressing the second biggest highlight: the music. "Heavy-hitting" is possibly the best way to quickly describe what the music selection here has to offer. Like Araki, who's reputable track record has brought him fame and appraisal within the anime industry, so too is the case for the man behind the music of AoT, Hiroyuki Sawano. Sawano's musical style can best be described as a mixture of orchestral and electronic. By blending the traditional with that of contemporary music, he's able to give a feeling of timeless familiarity, while simultaneously retrofitting it for a modern audience. With booming brass instruments starting off the charge, primal drums flowing in the undercurrent like a steady heartbeat, the crooning of an incoming choir ascending from the center, and string sections that cascade into the mix with a signature snare; this soundtrack elevates the anime like a shot of pure adrenaline! Riling up the viewer for the events to come.

There's a wonderful symbiotic relationship shared between the audio and visual department of AoT; the kind of dance between elements that's rarely ever this unified. Given Sawano's work on Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Guilty Crown and several other projects before getting involved with AoT, the vetting process was far behind him. What we got, as a result, was someone comfortable with his craft. A kind of swagger only obtainable by true experience.

With the directing of Araki at the helm, Sawano's musical prowess propelling it even further, and the efforts of every other crew member involved, the end result was a type of synchronicity that felt every bit as planned as it did coincidental gatherings of the right people for the job. Sawano's sense of auditory dramatics melded perfectly with Araki's pension for high-octane content, both of which lend itself perfectly to Hajime's writing style that focuses on melodrama and theatrics. What we have on display here was a perfect storm of individual thinkers all working towards the same core sentiments. And while that flare for the dramatic may have worked in the favor of most of what was presented, in some aspects, the outcome was a bit... juvenile.

Which brings me to a presentation decision that may have served as the first point of contention for most viewers of the show: the hammy, over-the-top voice-acting.

The screenplay for this anime seemed to have been composed entirely of capital letters and exclamation marks. It's the kind of absurd overacting that someone like Nicolas Cage might employ on one of his many B-movie escapades. But here, it's played without the slightest hint of sarcasm. And while I found this to be an amusing attribute, and honestly another reason why I enjoyed AoT, given my soft spot for schlock/B-grade content. For most not acclimated into that realm of entertainment, scoffing at these performances may be an involuntary reaction. And for those that do find this annoying, I completely understand.

The general approach taken went something along the lines of this:

-Any other anime: "Let's come up with a plan to get out of this situation."
V.S
-Attack on Titan: "OMFG BRO, LIKE WTF, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!! LET'S THINK OF SOMETHING WHILE SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF OUR LUNGS, EVEN IF WE'RE SURROUNDED BY TITANS AND TRYING NOT TO DRAW ATTENTION TO OURSELVES AT THE MOMENT!!!! OK!?!??!"

I wish I was being hyperbolic here, but this is what AoT does on constant repeat. The concept of "inside voices" was completely lost in this universe. So while I may laugh hysterically at the sheer madness of the voice actors seemingly being prompted to "unleash their inner crackhead," I'm in no way condoning this as some positive aspect.

And since we're addressing the issues of AoT at this point, I guess it's time we address the clumsy naked giants in the room: the story and characters.

For every appraisal I've lobbied at AoT for its worldbuilding, the same number of issues can be found with the story that takes place in it. In the process of picking up the ball dropped by many other shounens, AoT accidentally tossed the story down a flight of stairs, where it seemingly suffered a concussion on its long way down. AoT's story was plagued with several issues, one of which may perhaps be one of the worst kinds of narrative conceits: the mystery box. And what I mean by that is that you're watching 25 episodes of "stuff" happen, but nowhere is there a conclusion, or better yet, a sense of purpose or finality to any of it. Cohesiveness is missing, instead, what we have is a series of "and then" plotting choices, as is usually the symptom of anything relying on the mystery box appeal to sell its feature.

If you're reading this, you've either seen AoT or heard enough about it to understand the general idea, so I won't waste my time regurgitating information you could simply find in a synopsis. What we will discuss, however, are the ways these narrative decisions ended up hurting the show. And if that means exposing the number of calories in my unhealthy comfort food as a result, so be it.

AoT is erratic. Having nothing to truly say or no insurmountable goal it's trying to get to means that it could, and did, become one hell of a journey. When your story becomes akin to an unpredictable roller coaster ride of happenings, all to reach an elusive mystery that's ill-defined, yet naked to all those paying attention to it; the sheer level of sensationalized theatrics that the creators could tap into is bound only by their ability to imagine it. This, as a result, ensured that every episode of AoT was marked off with a huge cliffhanger. It basically became voluntary visual entropy. Like the genius behind its organic viral marketing, this scatterbrained approach to "just go with it" storytelling, under the guise of knowing what exactly you're doing, ended up creating some truly spectacular firework displays. It worked in the past for live-action TV shows like Lost, is currently the reason that One Piece can span onward for eons, and will be the reason that AoT will carry that baton into the future.

Success in the eyes of the business world breathes this dilemma: make a true-to-self statement or appease others for personal benefit. You could try to have it both, but that's a goal rarely obtainable; compromise is almost inevitable. If this wasn't apparent enough, AoT's creator, Hajime Isayama, has also gone on record many times admitting to several changes he's made to his original idea for the material, all of which correlate with the reaction given by outside forces. This wasn't done out of an artistic effort to give the "true" experience he envisioned, but simply because the studio heads and newfound fanbase surrounding the project started yelling "we need more!"
It's this same kind of push for more, regardless of what it means to the original vision, that was expressed out loud from the likes of Kazuhiko Torishima of Dragon Ball fame, where he openly stated in an interview that "-it should’ve been wrapped up with the Frieza Saga.” but cited the commonly expressed truth that when something becomes so big and popular, at some point, your vision becomes much more than simply "your thing." Eventually, everyone takes selfish ownership. In the public domain, self-entitlement is an ugly beast that's yet to be tamed. Hundreds of episodes later, and clearly "ending it at Frieza saga" wasn't the case.
"George Lucas is selfish because he won't give the public distribution rights for the original Star Wars screening. Marvel "sold out" because they gave up their movie rights to The Mouse." — there's really no winning this argument either way. The power of the dollar trumps all. The power of demanding fans trumps all. And sometimes, that also includes artistic integrity. AoT became another statistic.

But now we're starting to enter a morbid place, so let's get back to that fun shit! Time to address one of AoT's most talked about features: the shock and awe of its excessive violence.

The violence is the feature that links the "characters" to the story. I use the term "characters" loosely, as its mostly just a wide range of stock-piled cannon fodder; where only being characterized enough to only get a cast mention would be the equivalent of a death sentence. And I'm not talking about any beautiful send-off, as the music slowly swells into a crescendo, I'm talking some really heinous shit! You don't just "die" in Attack on Titan, you are torn limb from limb! You become the center attraction of abject horror! By the time one of these "characters" leave this earth, their arm is stuck somewhere ontop a rooftop, while their torso is halfway down the throat of a naked giant with down-syndrome eyes, munching down without a care in the world. AoT is high caliber schlock. Schlock that transcends to the upper echelons of Tarantino blood-splatter. Schlock that rides the coattails of exploitative media. Cannibal Holocaust would be proud.

It's honestly one of my favorite aspects of the show, but let's just be clear, being a favorite aspect doesn't mean it's a good one. This is my McDonalds after all, let's not forget that. You see, the problem with reducing your "characters" into a Russian Roulette spin of "what person can we brutally kill next?" is that it divides them into two exacerbated sides:

1.) plot armored to gross extremes
2.) expendable to gross extremes.

When main characters are shown surviving death-flag incidents against all odds, despite what the universe shows you about said chances for other characters involved, it renders their upward mobility to success charitable. Even contrived at times. The screenwriter's pen begins to leave creases into the product. There's a clear line made, as clear as their heavy marker-like character outlines. And once you notice who's in the safe zone, it's hard to unsee it. It becomes a blemish for those taking the show seriously. Me, not so much, I knew my McDonalds wasn't nutritional from the moment I purchased it. But for the ones who bought the snake oil, expecting more, that absence of care would be frustrating, to say the least.

And on the opposite side of the creased-outline, we have the fodder. People who are made solely for their eventual deaths. It's like watching people lined up before a gun firing squad. You start remembering them for how they died rather than who they were. They become a part of the blood splattered decoration, their remains paint the walls, the rest, a pile of bodily fluid, covered in stomach acid, left out in the sun to bake, (Did I mention that the deaths were gruesome?) In all seriousness though, AoT's characters are not good in the slightest. They're there to facilitate either cool fight scenes or cool death scenes; there's really no in-between.

And when death becomes a party trick and character success a hand-out, the tension, the stakes, everything, suddenly means so little.

I love AoT, but at no point can I take it seriously, because it's a show that's shown me time and time again that it doesn't even care about itself enough beyond spectacle. For AoT, integrity is a secondhand concept to theatrics. It's schlock entertainment with an A-Grade budget, an as such, some of the best in the medium. But that's where the appraisal begins and ends. Because when the momentary high is over, when I recline back in my couch, settle in, swallow the last bite of that comfort food, my stomach immediately growls and I find myself on the porcelain throne, purging that "good-time" out with projectile accuracy, while simultaneously dispensing a can of Febreeze, creating an artificial cloud to cover my nostrils.

And you know what's the fucked up part? I'm sure I'll still be coming back to have second helpings. There's more to life than veggies, we all need our comfort food, whether we choose to openly admit it, or shamefully hide behind terms like "guilty pleasure." So go ahead, bite into your BigMac and do it without shame, because I'll be the last person to ever cast judgment.

Oh boy, Attack on Titan.
Up front, the more time passes between me, having watched the show and now thinking about it, the more average it becomes. I came to the conclusion, that the show severely lacks memorable moments. Many may call BS on me for that, but really think about it. Excluding what happens in Episode eight...I think, there was almost nothing for me to remember fondly. I'll say, that upon first completing the show, I quite liked it and would have even called it good, but that is just not the case anymore.

Most of the things like character-motivation, their development and the ... pacing just seem quite off. The characters like Eren, Mikasa and Armin are completely one dimensional and void of almost any interesting aspect.
Now I know. It is shounen, what do I even expect? But the straw of thinking too deep into it doesn't work this time, because even when you scratch the surface of these characters, they still seem to be completely uninteresting. There is no concept worth exploring here, no good idea hooking you to the adventure and what is there, is boring after a few episodes.

I try to at least be as objective as possible with these reviews (try to, not succeeding, shut up), but in this case I can't not mention the constant annoyance the main character and his constant angsting about the things that happened in the first episode, is. Jesus Christ, his whole existence revolves around angst. Realistic portrayals of characters do not just use one aspect of them and blatter us over the head with that non-stop. There needs to be at least one high-moment to correlate all of the low moments. If he is in constant angst-mode and always shouting, it becomes meaningless and more of a joke or a running gag, than a conflict or a struggle for the character. And that problem encumbers most characters in this show. Their constant one-note struggles and conflicts ultimately do not mean anything because it is all we ever see of them. Characters, besides the plot are paramount for me, which is why it is almost everything I talk about in this, but it is the main point I want to give you an understanding of, so there you go.

And so people in this show are not remembered for their characterization or their interesting personalities but rather for very stereotypical aspects and their designs, which is very repetitive by the way. It just looks too bland and uninteresting for my taste. They could have at least incorporated a few different uniforms and colors but no, brown it is.
That could very well be the name of the anime, “brown it is-the anime”, but I digress.
What looked like something good in the first eight or so episodes came to a grinding hold in the boulder arc, did not really pick up after that and just left me with a great desire of the story continuing like it did in the first eight episodes and not the way it did. The few twists it threw in were nothing too surprising and pretty easy to figure out, if you at least try to pay minimum attention. The last scene at the end failed completely in hooking me for the next season and that pretty much sums it all up.

It's almost addicting to not care about this anime anymore. Hype didn't last for good reasons. Stuff's painfully mediocre with a tendency to annoy me more than entertaining me.

OP theme still awesome though.

There's only one possible number to represent Shingeki no Kyojin, and that number is a certain one-digit number between 1 and 10 and is a multiple of 3.

You guessed it. Six. Or nine, flipped the other way.

I know you anime whores and die-hard SnK fans are probably sitting in your chairs ready to light torches and grab your pitchforks and form a mob right outside my front door because "six" is a pretty low-end score, at least on my ranking scale let alone for a hyped-up series like SnK, but come to think of it, did you come here to confirm your opinions about SnK ... being 2013's greatest anime show, or did you come here to whine in American-accented Japanese at the next guy that gives SnK a low score because you hate it when people disagree with you?

I have to admit that SnK, through my eyes, was a decent show at best, decent being the number "six". And before you and wonder "wut skoar did dis n00b giv sao?!?!?!", let me tell you beforehand, I rated it 8, in my own unbiased opinion. I wasn't excited at all to watch SAO, and I was pretty darn excited to hear rave reviews about this new show that brings Jack and the Beanstalk down to Earth, multiplies the number of giants involved, and gives the humans no beanstalk to escape to safer grounds. It sounds interesting, but was it a good show?

Six. I'll stop saying that now.

Story: A fantastic tale about 10-meter-tall zombies eating out every woman and child like certified pedophiles in the world's largest buffet platter with three different types of meals: Outer Wall for peasant's dishes, Inner Wall for middle-class, and the ultimate dessert: the King and his loyal subjects for those fattening delicacies. I believe the first episode gave this story the right amount of pressure to set the rest of the series of events in motion when [literally] the world's largest pop star, Michael Jackson, resurrects as a Titan and has a change of heart to chase after married women instead of children, but a couple of years later, this leaves us absolutely.... nowhere.

See, I'm fine with that, at least it shows humans are struggling to keep themselves off the main course by avoiding intervention with their larger selves, but what accelerated like a rocket from the beginning has become a race to reach the end as slowly and safely as possible. My grandmother doesn't drive slow enough to keep the same pacing as SnK's storyline, and what should be 24 minutes of giant ass-kicking is in reality 15 minutes of build-up, 5 minutes of something ACTUALLY happening, 1 minute to introduce the cliffhanger, 1 minute for the opening sequence, 1 minute for the ending sequence, and another minute for desperate neckbeards to unzip their pants and fantasize about Mikasa Ackerman being their "waifu". That Mikasa Minute usually occurs in-between the build-up scenes, so on the plus side, it gives weeaboos everywhere a chance to wipe their monitors (or leave it there so they can claim to their friends that they also ejaculated on Eren's face).

Art: I can see why every male anime nerd wants to stick something onto their screens every time the females show up. Shingeki no Kyojin has some of the best aesthetics of an animated series that I've ever seen/heard, from the show's sheer amount of gory content to the snapping of bones (which I still feel). On that alone, I've felt something.

Character: A good number of the characters make very little sense to me. Armin van Buuren RIAA Multi-Platinum Arlert makes spot-on predictions because he's probably reading ahead in his own manga series. Eren Jaegermeister wants to kill all of the Titans and save everyone, but his indecisiveness causes more people to die, not that it matters that dozens die in his care. Captain Levi Denim claims to dislike pointless deaths, but every time he sacrifices a soldier, he never completes his operation, and when he executes the operation, more people end up dying anyways. That's like telling people you're a green politician, yet the car you drive is an environmentally-friendly Hummer H2.

We also get characters with very little introduction and very little development, who only seem to fill in the role of creating more pointless deaths. Titans are scary, indeed they are, but are soldiers really THAT expendable? One does not simply self-impregnate, clone, or genetically-engineer new soldiers to fight. Sooner or later, there will be less soldiers to feed to the Titans, but then again, the author could always create new ones out of black matter to keep drawing his fanbase in.

Enjoyment: Despite what I have to say about SnK, I found it to be an enjoyable watch. It delivers softcore male pornography on a large scale, and sometimes it adds an extra X to the already triple-X rating and exposes what's UNDER the skin for those hardcore biology nerds (I know, it's too intense just thinking about human anatomy).

When the action sequences come around, they deliver. There's something special about the 3D Maneuver Gear that allows for more dynamic camera angles, giving you that same high-speed sensation the characters should also be experiencing. However, if I could pinpoint my absolute favorite moment of this show, I wouldn't highlight anything involving 3DMG. Instead, I would opt for Episode 8, the underground scene when members of the 104th Training Corps attempt to retake their base. Why THAT scene, you may ask? Because it's more fun discharging your guns in the Titans' faces, and it's better doing it in a group.

Overall: Yes, I enjoyed watching. Yes, the aesthetics were phenomenal and it did draw me in from the beginning when Michael Jackson went on tour to Wall Maria and ate one of his fans. I thought the action was superb and it was a thrill to watch. But does it make it a great show? In my eyes, not really. Slow pacing, meaningless death, and heavy amounts of build-up define SnK. I know there are people out there who will complain, disagree, and ultimately flame on my profile for disliking SnK, but then again, take this into consideration: I gave this series a 9 from the beginning, and I ultimately decided to drop it to 6. Am I being biased? I don't think so.

But if you hate my opinion, or if you're hoping to defend the glory of SnK by trying to convert another non-believer to your SnK Fan Club or whatever the hell you'd like to call it, then do me a favor and don't try to shove your opinion down my throat. I've had it happen already, and it'll only tell me how much of a steaming pile of shit you are.

To begin, I mostly stumbled across AoT because of its high rating and under that premise assumed that it has to be somewhat decent, which it is. On the whole though, it didn't strike me as spectacular as some people made it out to be for reasons I shall explain below.

Story/Pace: 3/10
To be honest, the first couple of episodes had a wonderful fast pace as the main protagonists advanced, more about their strange world and titan relationship was revealed e.t.c. However, like most animes who give it their full right away, it ran out of ammunition very soon and a good 1/3 of all episodes ... as of ep 12 (I didn't check, so I may be off) were recaps and comparatively generic giant-vs-human action. So while the story was initially very gripping, I spent the last few episodes grinding my teeth, while hoping for something other than human group A being slaughtered by giant group B to happen and was sorely disappointed. If I only had taken into account the first dozen episodes, this would be an 8-9, but given this endless drawing out, the anime really does not deserve that.

Characters: 4/10
The characters of this anime had their boons/banes, but by tendency, need improvement. Our protagonists are a bit very stereotypical, but made interesting mostly because they keep dying/almost-dying. Generally, all characters are very dramatic and are constantly on the verge of/at a nervous breakdown. Although this would typically annoy me, the anime does deserve credit for making the most convincing war environment I have ever seen (making it much more preferable to those creepy ones where people just casually brush off that their friends just got butchered).
This unique aspect does however trip and fall horribly among the sidecharacters, who both spawn and die like flies. They show up and some of them die 3 episodes later which is very realistic, but perhaps a tad too realistic. I seriously struggled keeping track of all of them and at some point simply gave up on doing so. There are a few more important side characters who will likely survive, but on the whole I find that they all lack depth. One sees too little of them and when one does, they are either killing titans or mourning their friends, which makes it hard to learn new things about them and understand them.

Art: 8/10
I must agree, that a good part of the artwork in this anime is phenomenally well done. The colours have a nice glow to them and the various phyiscal features are appropriate. In that aspect, the anime deserves substantial credit. I did however, notice a number of moments where the animated component was missing and the characters were shouting at the top of their lungs while statically standing there. Other scenes on the other hand move incredibly smoothly, so it seems a bit lazily done at times. Still on the whole, very good.

Sound: 7/10
The music of the anime was decent and created an epic feel for the combat scenes. This has however, been done thousands of times and it didn't really stand out among the other animes that practice this. The voice-acting is harder to judge as I am not fluently Japanese, but seemed appropriate. On the whole the sound is good, but nothing special.

Enjoyment: 4/10
I did enjoy the beginning of this anime, but it then quickly became disappointing due to aforementioned reasons. Towards the end I just felt like skipping ahead to where something interesting was revealed, but the anime ends with ultimately telling little more than what can be garnered from the first few episodes. I did also enjoy the titan fighting, but can say that the 1st titan fight was substantially more impressive than the 30th and as that was the content of all of the episodes, I bored quickly.

Overall: 5.2/10
On the whole I feel a bit bitter about the plot's speed, but for those who enjoy action with high-definition picturesque imagery and epic music, I would recommend it. If you care more about a deep plot with lots of mysteries, don't bother.

So, SnK. Undoubtedly the most popular show not just of spring and summer 2013, but of 2013 as a whole. You can't go on an anime related site and not see it, and it's very likely to pop up in discussion. Hyped to high hell by almost every anime fan out there. But does it deserve all the attention it gets?

Story: 4/10
The premise was great, and had me quite interested at the start. The idea of humanity fighting for their life against an unfathomable opponent who popped out of nowhere is quite interesting. But did the anime deliver? I'm afraid I'd have to say I ... was slightly disappointed. To start with, it damn interesting. Titans attack, mass panic, humans forced to retreat, great; Interesting. What wasn't so interesting were the episodes which followed.
While the scenes with titans in them were intriguing, and at best enticing, everything in between seemed like filler. At one point I even recall the cast spending 3 entire episodes discussing moving a boulder, how to move a boulder, and the main character angsting over turning into a titan in order to move a boulder. I'm even partially expecting the OVA to be about the boulder.

Art: 3/10
I mean, come on. Am I really supposed to rate it higher than that? The animation and art in this show was incredibly lazy. The show was chock full of still shots, some of which lasted for over 5 seconds, and panning over motionless scenes, without the characters moving a muscle. A lot of powerpoint-tier animation in there as well. The character designs weren't terrible, but they definitely weren't marvelous either. I also am of the believe that the show's artists were having a contest to see who could make the most ridiculous looking titan, which, in all honestly, could be more entertaining than the plot progression of the show at times.

Sound: 6/10
No complaints here. I do feel like a few sound effects, like the titan-transformation, were repeated, however.

Character: 4/10
No one really stood out for me. The only character development I can note is if they were about to die, and in most cases they did, so they're dead anyway. Minus points for having a main character who's entire personality was REVENGE and I'M GONNA KILL THEM ALL, and a female lead who's motivation consisted of protecting the main character. Bonus points for Jean.

Enjoyment: 6/10
It's not all bad, I actually enjoyed the show a little, although it did annoy me at times when literally nothing was happening. But, I won't deny I found the show overall entertaining, but most definitely not on the level a lot people seem to. I'm honestly baffled by how this show became so popular as I can only fathom it as slightly above average at best.

Well, that's all. Overall, I'd say that The Eotena Onslaught is a decent show, but don't go and watch it expecting a masterpiece.

*This is one of my first reviews, so let's see how I do, shall we?

Attack on Titan, possibly this year's most popular anime.... and surprisingly, one of its worst as well. Although being immensely popular, Attack on Titan does not live up to the reputation that so many believe it does. Yes, the action and excitement are all very easily seen, yet the predictable/cliche story and the absolutely horrific characters makes this the SAO 2.0. In short, do not expect to be blown away by any means, in fact, prepare yourself for a rather emotional and boring ride that will make you wonder why you ... are still watching.

To begin with, let me clarify by saying that this won't be an extremely long review, as it has only been six episodes, but I will still mentions as many things as I can for now.

Story: The story in AOT revolves around a world were humanity struggles to survive against giant, genital-less Titans. While the story is fresh and includes very nice aspects, the predictability of the story is insane. It is incredibly simple to point out what will happen and when it will happen, and there were almost no surprises that ever arose from watching. Also, the story has some very weak spots, but now it seems that most shows rely on intense action and gore rather than the simplistic aspect of continuity. Furthermore, the show focuses on the aspect of throwing a lot of blood around to make an attempt to affect the audience, when it actually fails to influence any sort of emotion to come forth. Thus, I give the story 6/10 for being good and new, but incredibly boring.

Art: The art is actually one of the positive points in this mediocre anime, specifically when speaking about the Titan's ruthless smiles. Other than that, you have smooth action sequences and very gory scenes that couldn't have been more bloody. 9/10

Sound: Opening's great. I don't approve of the ending though, and action sequence tracks are pretty good. 9/10

Character: Now, AOT makes a fairly silly attempt to draw in their audience through rampant emotions, namely, Eren. Eren would be described in anime as: "The Little Train that could." This emotional roller coaster of a character fails to use logic at any given moment, rather, Eren relies on iron strong determination that will somehow be able to physically harm these giant Titans. He is more childish than any other character and has no actually talent. Yet, this boy will miraculously save humanity, you can bet on it. Furthermore, you have the useless Armin, the unnecessarily complicated Mikasa, the potato-eating, unneeded comedy relief in Sasha, and a whole gang of terrible characters that meet the bare minimum for supporting characters: being alive. Although, people have been able to turn away from these hideous creatures that are our characters, and focus on the "fantastic story and action" which doesn't exist. Overall: 2/10

Enjoyment: If you watched Sword Art Online and loved it, it is merely because you enjoyed it, more so than critiqued it. AOT is the same. In terms of enjoyment, it is great, but in terms of critique, its flaws can be spotted everywhere. So ultimately, it is up to personal preference. While I want to say it will get a 9 for enjoyment, the utter disgust of watching the characters and cliche story makes me want to give it a 5, so 7/10.

Overall: Attack on Titan fails to reach the standards that have been set for it. The story is rather cheesy, and the characters are a mess. AOT ultimately shows that an anime will not simply be great because it shows death and blood, rather, it needs a balance of characters, plot, and theme to get the job done. Hopefully, AOT becomes better, because right now, it deserves a 6/10. Nothing special, unless you are easily entertained by puerile attempts to become one of the great anime.

I'll write another review for this after the season is over, but for now, AOT is a letdown.

One thing I would like to say before anything else, don't believe the hype.

Starting off with the story. I find this right here to be half and half. As far as the background and history shown, and the world that was created I think it's really good. I liked the idea of humanity living behind walls, drove to near extinction, finding the overall story of the world to be pretty original in anime. However, on the other side, as far as the actual, episode to episode, overall story of the season... I find it to be very lackluster. The show forces shock value down your ... throat, showing mass death almost every episode, to the point where it seems like the makers don't know how to tell the story without throwing genocide or murders in every other episode. Aside from the forced shock value; there is barely anything worthwhile that happens in the story for the first season. Not to mention most of the season is composed of two 8+ episode arcs, which are very drawn out. I could go into much deeper reasons, but don't want to spoil anything.

The art style and sound are both pretty decent. I find the art style pretty unique, although when it comes to the sound, aside from the first opening of the series I find the remaining themes pretty generic. The first opening does pump you up and in my opinion blinds people into thinking the show is going to be "super epic".

Now for the characters... I am not kidding when I say that the main characters in this series are complete crap. Eren is definitely the most boring main character, compared to a lot of others; I hated Sword Art Online but I thought even Kirito was more interesting than Eren. All Eren does is shout and preach, like he's the center of everything but has barely anything to back that up. And aside from his titan-related trait there's nothing else to him. I find Mikasa an empty character who only lives for Eren, who makes it seem like she can't even think for herself without him there. The only thing she has going for her is bad ass action scenes with her, which delude people into not looking past that and seeing a shallow character. And then there's Armin, who is a complete pussy and useless for the first 7-8 before he slowly starts becoming useful; most of the time he's shown he's either whining or showing how incompetent he is. He does get better down the road, and out of the three characters his is probably the best.

Attack on Titan is apparently hailed as "The Best anime of 2013" and some going as far as saying "The Best Anime Ever!" When in reality, no. A lot of its' fans make it seem like that you have to fall head over heels for it, and act like if you think it's bad then you don't know what good anime is.

Not saying this isn't a bad show, but I find it majorly flawed, and wish that more people would sit down and really think about this show before they praise it like they do. In my honest, serious opinion, I really am concerned about people who claim it to be the best anime of 2013.

This is an anime I at times loved and others hated.

It has a great sense of timing, there's some fantastic "OH SHIT!" moments and it's not afraid to just dump all over the middle of someone's power of friendship speech. Whenever this anime is about the titans it's a really good anime, the sheer unstoppable force of them combined with the mystery of who or what they are and how they came to be carries the anime forward.

Unfortunately the writing is dire. Absolutely dire. In episode 4 the writers actually have a character tell us what the personality traits of the characters are. That's right, ... they've done such a terrible job of getting this across that they just come out and tell us. You're so uninterested in the fates of most of these people because the anime spends no time building them up or ensuring you get to know them, and the action is less because of it.

It also suffers from endless internal monologues. The writers will just not shut up and show us something, they need to have someone sit on screen for three times as long as necessary and think it at us. In one scene one character monologues about how another is pale and breathing hard. It's insulting. It's a goddamn visual medium but rather than show us these things the writers vomit their awful dialogue all over everything.

Unfortunately this bad writing takes its toll and the anime rather jumps the shark around episode 10. An intriguing ride up until then though, with some moments good enough to compensate for the writing.

The best way I can think of describing my experience with this show is that I found it profoundly uninteresting. So much so that I find myself in a position of being genuinely unable to understand why it is so well regarded. Which is unusual for me - I can usually understand the appeal of something even if I don't care for it myself.

Perhaps the biggest issue that I find with it is that the cast consists largely of shallow stock characters. For me this is what really kills the anime, I think. I just couldn't find it in myself to care about anything that ... happened because of them. This wouldn't necessarily completely sink an anime on its own, though it would have to have some pretty significant strengths in other areas to make up for it, and Attack on Titan doesn't seem to have any. The story of a young man being given responsibility over the fate of mankind due to a plot contrivance giving him sole access to or rare talent in some kind of great power is a very common one in anime, and within the first season this show does very little to mix it up at all. The tone is pretty consistently bleak, with levity being rare and unfortunately rather poorly implemented when it does appear, but for an anime that's so lacking in depth or original thought this just serves to make it even more boring.

Its being so depthless and unoriginal is exactly why I find it difficult to understand why people are so interested in it. What about this show makes it apparently so much better than the mountain of other anime that have used the exact some concept and used it, to my mind, just as well? I suppose it could be the fight scenes, which are fine, though not particularly noteworthy if you ask me. Or perhaps the consistency of tone, which is honestly rare in anime and consequently kind of refreshing even if it doesn't really help the show much. But then I guess that the reason I'm writing this is because I don't know why this show is popular, so I certainly don't have any confidence in either of those guesses. If you enjoyed this show, don't hesitate to tell me what you thought was good about it. I'm honestly interested to know. For now though, I'm scoring it a five out of ten - I'm completely apathetic toward it. Because it does nothing at all unusual it can neither be said to be at all good or really at all bad. It's just mediocre, which when you get down to it is really the worst thing to be. I certainly don't intend to watch any future episodes of this anime.

Shingeki no Kyojin is an anime adaptation of the manga which won Kodansha Manga Award on the shounen category in 2011 and the utmost representative flag why kids nowadays will always prefer awesome action scenes instead good characters in a good story (we vidya now lads).

I try to at least be as objective as possible with these reviews, but in this case I can't not mention the constant annoyance the main character and his constant angsting about the things that happened in the first episode. Jesus Christ, his whole existence revolves around angst. Realistic portrayals of characters do not just use one aspect ... of them and blatter us over the head with that non-stop. There needs to be at least one high-moment to correlate all of the low moments. If he is in constant angst-mode and always shouting, it becomes meaningless and more of a joke or a running gag.

Now I know. It is shounen. What do I even expect? But the straw of thinking too deep into it doesn't work this time, because even when you scratch the surface of these characters, they still seem to be completely uninteresting. There is no concept worth exploring here, no good idea hooking you to the adventure and what is there, is boring after a few episodes.
Most of the things like character-motivation, their development and the pacing just seem quite off. The characters like Eren, Mikasa and Armin are completely one dimensional and void of almost any interesting aspect.

Up front, the more time passes between me, having watched the show and now thinking about it, the more average it becomes. I came to the conclusion, that the show severely lacks memorable moments. Many may call BS on me for that, but really think about it. Excluding what happens in Episode eight...I think, there was almost nothing for me to remember fondly. I'll say, that upon first completing the show, I quite liked it and would have even called it good, but that is just not the case anymore.

Also as enjoyment it's quite nice, but "Enjoyment" rating shouldn't be one of the aspects when making an impartial review and this is pretty much why 99% of MAL reviews are bad. There's plenty good stuff you could watch instead getting into this. After 1st season It gets insufferable -opinion even among the fans- so if you like action scenes just watch an american movie already.

Just like a lot of people I suppose, I watched SNK to see what's the big deal about, as it wasn't in my list that season.

It starts out with the shock factor. I thought, even though this isn't my kind of thing, I could maybe watch it for the suspense. But then it got into long cycles of boring and in my opinion, poorly executed character development scenes. As far as the story is concerned, I wouldn't say it's the most complex or sophisticated one, but they played the suspense/shock card very well, and it is something that can obviously attract a lot of ... people.

This anime has very well crafted action scenes. However, because of that, most of the other scenes are poorly animated, to the extent where it looks like a student's flash animation project at times. Even putting that aside, I think the style of the animation as a whole is not particularly creative.

It is obvious why SNK is so popular, but it doesn't do it for me. I would say it's too much style over substance, and not meaning the animation style.

When I look at the rankings of this anime, I am quite surprised. I was almost certain based on the praising reviews that was going to be a great anime revival show. I thought wrong.

Highlights:

START: extremely strong start, such a powerful first episode that immediately drew me into the show.
PRODUCTION: very well done, no question about it. If there is something good to say about Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin it is certainly the animation, music and sound. Crisp and perfect. The animation has entirely no flaws, and the background settings are gorgeously animated. The music was another great aspect of the show, setting the ... correct tone at all times.

Lowlights:

CHARACTERS: super cliche, especially the main three characters: Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. The reason that they are cliche is because all they do the entire show is talk about how much they want to eliminate the Titans, not how they would do it, but merely that they were going to with no possible ideas of how. Another thing that bothered me throughout the entire show was instead of cooperating and working out tactics of eliminating Titans, all I could notice about the conversations were that it seemed just like a “who can wear out their voice enough until they can’t talk trash about the enemy any longer” contest.
FOCUS: based on the ending of the series, I came to the conclusion that the first 15 or so episodes were a pointless plot. There was a new goal to accomplish after the first 15 or so episodes, and that was what remained entirely in the show.
PACING: slower than a three-toed-sloth. I could not watch full episodes at times because it got so repetitive and boring.
MORALS: the show has no message, unless you count “when you get invaded by giant stupid naked people, fight back.” The show pretty much seemed very anti-peace, even at the end.

So if you want to see a highly produced show, go for Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin. However, if you are destined to watch an anime with greatly developed characters and a pointful plot, I wouldn’t recommend this one.

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 this ... chaos. 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

Neon Attack Genesis on Evangelion Titan, or “Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name of This Show So We Wouldn’t Get Sued”

A deconstruction.

Preface:
You see, a guy named William Shakesman once said, “brevity is the soul of wit”, so I’m not going to waste anybody’s time with a garbage two sentence “OMG THIS IS THE BEST ANIMU EVAR I HEART EREN SO MUCH 10/10 EVERYTHING” review.
Nope, you fanboys want the truth? You can’t handle the truth. But I’m gonna lay it out here for you anyway.
I’m going to break this thing down into three parts. The “tropes lifted from every zombie media Setting”, the “cliché ... Characters”, and the “Circuitous, Shonen Storytelling”.
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The Trope Filled, Every Zombie Media Setting

A while back, monstrous humanoid giants hell-bent on destroying humans struck. All but a few thousand humans were wiped out, waging a futile war against an enemy they neither understood, nor knew how to fight. Present day, there's one human settlement left, protected by three 50m high concentric walls, the largest among them 300 miles across, making it about the size of Germany.
Okay so, a little more info on these human killing giants, right? Because that was pretty vague. They have 3 qualities.

1) They kill and eat humans. They do not need to eat humans for sustenance, they just do it because the plot demands it of them

2) Nobody knows where they came from, or why, and it doesn’t matter. I’m sure there will be some BS pseudo-scientific explanation for their existence later, because these type of shows ALWAYS take one of three paths:

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1. Scientists did this! Biological weapon/genetic mutation experiments, who cares? It’s all vaguely scientific and intellectual sounding, so that’ll fool the teen demographic
2. A Wild Virus Appeared! Some mutated microbe that’s unaffected by any drug affects all but some small number of populace who, by plot convenience, don’t contract the illness
3. Who the hell cares! Zombies are here and we have to shoot, maim, kill, and destroy them to survive!
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4) They are notoriously hard to kill… you can hack and slash on them all day long and they’ll still swat you like flies. *whispers* wait, I’m getting some breaking news. You can KILL them by attacking the neck/head area, just like some other TV shows and movies involving the undead… hmmmmm

Titans are just zombies. Face the facts. This is a zombie show. It premiered during the height of zombie craze, and through shrewd marketing and an impeccable sense of timing, a hit was born. Did it have to be substantive? Heck no, all it had to do was prey on these little fragile children’s emotions and “OH MY FEEEELZ” by killing off a few characters that we still know nothing about, nor formed any attachment to, along with throwing in a Gary Stu blank slate of a main character onto which these angsty teens can project themselves.
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The Stupid Setting Part II

Oh wait, did I say Germany? It’s plainly obvious that AOT is ripping off any and everything late medieval German Gothic and Renaissance styled architecture. Oh, and if the names and races of the characters didn’t give it away, I don’t know what would. Eren Jäger? Braun? Bertolt? Kirstein? Zoe Hänge? Also, it’s quite amazing how these characters all speak fluent Japanese, given that they’re all, except our token Asian character, Mikasa, German. Now wouldn’t that be an innovative anime- one with Deutsch spoken and subtitled in Japanese?

Now that I’ve started listing names, it’s time to get to the
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Cliché Characters Section!

We've got the not-so-subtly named main character Eren I'm-Going-Kill-Titans-Don't-Tell-Me-What-To-Do-You're-Not-My-Dad Jäger, who's hell-bent on the destruction of the oppressive titans who show up to wreck his life... talk about teen angst, sheesh. Eren’s sole means of expressing himself in this show is “GRRRRUUUAAAAHHHH I hate titans I’m going to kill them all!!! (in order to keep X tragedy from happening again, because remember kids, NO shonen protagonist is complete without family tragedy!)”
Wait, where have we heard this before? What’s that? Every shonen series ever?
Let’s take a small cut from the block of trope that makes up the shonen genre, shall we?

Rin Okumura: “I’M GOING TO KILL EVERY DEMON, AND SATAN TO SAVE MY BROTHER!”
Kazuto Kirigaya: “I’M GOING TO KILL ALL THE BADDIES TO SAVE MY FRIENDS!”
Ed/Al Elric: “WE’RE GOING TO KILL ALL THE HOMUNCULI AND SAVE EVERYONE!”
Shiro Emiya: “I’m not going to kill anyone, but I will SAVE EVERYONE!”
Ken Kaneki agrees with Shiro, and they meet up with Shinji Ikari to hide.
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Mikasa My-Plot-Armor-Is-Stronk-But-My-Sword-Arm-Is-Stronger Ackermann is our leading lady. She personifies the Silent Strong type. She only says two lines in the whole show: “Eren you idiot, I always have to save you because you’re the main character and you can’t die!”
And “Why did I sign up for this job, again?”
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Rounding out our trio, we have He-Man's midget brother, Armin I-Use-My-Mind-Not-My-Muscles Arlert. He’s also hiding out with Shinji and Ken.

When someone dies in this show, it’s like watching someone kick a little puppy. They show you some little scene about the character and their life before, and how they’re never going to go home to hug mom and their fish are going to starve now because they’re not going to be around to feed them. We never get any attachment to characters who die because they’re never given enough screentime to be relevant, or anyone we should care about. Of course, nobody that matters to the plot dies, either.
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Just when you thought this was about to get into some “Circuitous, Shonen Storytelling!”, HERE COMES THE “Circuitous, Shonen Storytelling!”

Attack on Titan isn’t a 700 episode series like Detective Conan or One Piece… yet. With this pace though, and the ever intangible, nebulous goal (straight ripping off the fantastic David Fincher movie, “Se7en”) of “WHAT’S IN THE BASEMENT, MANNNN?” Otaku on Titan takes a turn for the molasses.
When it isn't taking a 3 episode sabbatical of dialogue (in typical shonen fashion), the show does move pretty quickly… to boredom. If you’re not getting angsty teens shouting at each other over why they have to kill stuff, or that they don’t want to do it anymore, or crying over their lives; it’s them killing stuff, then crying about their lives.

I didn’t forget to remember to mention that AOT is just a cheap ripoff of Neon Genesis Evangelion, did I?
Plot basics:
1) Humanity fights an enemy it doesn’t understand, is whittled down to a tiny populace, and is poorly equipped to handle the threat, until one day… A HERO EMERGES!
2) Hero has daddy problems. Hero’s female sidekick(s) also have parent problems
3) Hero loses loved ones which causes them to have to fight, even if they don’t want to
4) Conspiracy!
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Here it is. I committed the ultimate sin and rated the beloved Attack on Titan a 5. "Why? why would you do this, LawlMartz?" "Why would you give Shingeki no Kyojin a paltry 5 and not the 10 it so effortlessly achieved and deserves??" they ask me. To this, my answer is simple. “Children, Attack on Titan is like any movie made by Marvel/Disney recently- sure, it's fun, it looks nice, and the masses love it, but at the end of the day, you didn’t see anything new and it didn’t leave a lasting impression on you, other than how immensely angsty it was.”

Attack on Titan is honestly just too vanilla to really hate. It borrows from countless other shonen before it, and puts all the tropes in one pot, and comes out the anime equivalent of a hot dog… pretty good if you have no expectations or never had one before… but then you want something better afterwards.

Let’s just call it Otaku on Titan and call it a day.

PROLOGUE

Attack on Titan (AOT hereon) was the most overhyped title of its year, pretty much like Madoka Magica and Sword Art Online (SAO) were in the years right before it. And just like those, it did not live up to its hype, as pretty much no show ever does. It was a high seller that was talked about for some time, and eventually ended up being a big disappointment. And yes, I have read the manga so I know what I am talking about regarding later plot twists.

Just like it happens with all overhyped mediocrities, the thing that made it so famous is the premise. ... A setting where mankind is almost wiped out by giant monstrosities and gets cornered behind huge walls, only for a giant to break down their fortifications and let the monsters into civilian areas. Terror and death spread as people die defenceless by the thousands and the rest retreat to other fortified lands where they work almost as slaves because of overpopulation and lack of food. From this description you are presented with a most interesting action / survival / horror, very graphical and doesn’t hold back in depicting gore, as the giants chew and swallow people. You are really intrigued to find out how people can survive against these monsters.

Sounds amazing enough for anyone to jump into the show, but surely not because it is original. It is actually quite basic and overdone; there have been several similar stories over the years, from Blue Gender to Claymore. Heck, the very same studio made Owari no Seraph and Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, which have the exact same premise. The truth is, AOT came out at a time when 90% of anime were effortless softporn and moe; so it stood out. If it was made along with Death Note or Code Geass, it would only get a fraction of its hype. Also, the zombie apocalypse fad was still going strong in the west, and people were craving for something similar to The Walking Dead and hopefully not as trashy as Highschool of the Dead. Also, it is not a harem with schools that pretends to be deep and serious by having an apocalyptic story that is there as nothing but a fancy backdrop, like in the cases of Chrome Shelled Regios or Total Eclipse.

The main problems are still present though; so let’s go over them, one by one.

1. AOT is a SHONEN, oozing with coolness and not a mature or sensible SEINEN

That translates to lots of eye-rolling moments. It is NOT a mature story despite having mature themes; and if some think otherwise they are simply ignorant. It’s all here, the cheesy dialogue, the 1-dimensional characterization, and the overused shonen shenanigans. The enemy seems undefeatable at first but then some obnoxious emo teenagers get convenient superpowers and defeat them by the dozens. That’s right; everyone has jutsus and hidden evil powers inside them, just like in Naruto. And don’t give me any excuses of the sort “There is no other way such a story could be told.” I have read manga such as Biomeat Nectar, Parasyte, and Dragon Head, where you have a pretty similar situation and they didn’t have any of the crap that happens every 5 minutes in this show. Because those were not shonen.

2. Characterization is quite basic and even laughable at points despite the attempts to make the cast mature and serious.

Take the protagonist for example. Remember Naruto and how he always screams “I WILL SAVE SASUKE DATEBAYO!” every 5 minutes to the point you want to strangle him? Well this one here is not any better since all he does is yelling “I WILL DEFEAT ALL THE GIANTS DATEBAYO!” It has that irritating always-angry, totally-stupid shonen thing you find pretty much everywhere and no amount of dramatic backdrop manages to make him anything more than that. Also, his backdrop did not form his personality, as he was BORN angry; he did not become angry because of the titans. And just like all typical shonen heroes he has special powers, special family, special friends, is plot armoured, and in general has everything working to his favour despite being nothing but yet another ill-mannered youth. But hey, we gotta pamper our main audience somehow and this effortless stereotype works just fine; so why try harder?

Other characters include:
- An aloof girl who loves potatoes and talks like a retard; because all shows need a comic relief idiot.
- A local aristocrat who exists to show what a selfish asshole he is, letting everyone die just so he can escape with his money and not thinking about it twice; since as we all know adults in shonen are all assholes and only teenagers are the goodhearted folks who do all the work and save the day.
- Kidnapers who kill and sell people as prostitutes, just so we can hate them and wish them dead 10 seconds after they are introduced.
- Some scaredy cat boy who is always crying and panicking, just to show how cool is everyone else. Worthless and irritating as Reki from Claymore and yet another proof of why this show is not better than Claymore. They pretend he is a mastermind when it comes to planning ahead, but in reality he is the only one who sometimes thinks, while everyone else is an oblivious idiot. So technically he is a normal guy surrounded by retards.
- And let’s not forget the protagonist’s “not-blood-related-sister” who seems WAY too interested in him to the point she can’t exist without being a needy pet with constant withdrawal syndrome and half her screen time consists of yelling his name. How else would we have the obligatory brother-sister love thingy going on? Very mature, indeed.

You can literally describe most of them in 10 words as the way they talk and act will border a slapstick comedy half the time. Everything they need to express, they do it by yelling or crying like maniacs, even when the situation hardly calls for them to act as such. Or when they try to be serious for a change, it still comes off as comical. You see a guy in the first episode giving the severed hand of a dead soldier to his crying mother while saying with a serious face “This is all we could salvage. And by the way, your son died for nothing. HERP!” Lol man, what kind of a military leader is this guy? Was that supposed to make me feel sad? I am laughing at it.

You may be fooled to think they have depth, since most of them get flashbacks full of tragic childhood moments and stuff; but let’s be honest, all secondary characters in shows like Naruto and Bleach have those too and they are still nothing but cardboards to the story and eventually one dimensional archetypes instead of real people. AOT is not any different, as each of them is there just to cry in a corner, show us his tragic past and then go to fight the giants until he realizes he is completely worthless before the hax skills of the main characters and simply stops caring afterwards. Literally all secondary characters are nerfed or killed-off a few episodes after they are introduced.

3. SHHHHOOOOOCK FACTOOOOORRRR

Something rather un-shonen for the time it came out, was the numerous deaths of secondary characters. Not many convenient survivals and resurrections here; if you are caught by a giant, he is going to rip you to pieces and eat you while you are still alive and screaming. That makes the tension ten-fold compared to an average shonen where everybody survives impossible situations. That still doesn’t save it in the longrun of course, since it is nothing but SHOCK FACTOR to make the audience gasp with blood and violence and not some actually tragic death of important characters you will never forget. You only notice the gore and not the people experiencing it. I will never forget the Nanto fighters in Hokuto no Ken because they were part of the plot and did far more than being emo in a corner before kicking the bucket. These here? Who are they? You will forget them 5 seconds after they are dead. Even the novelty of the high mortality rate lost its edge once shows like Akame GA Kill, Knights of Sidonia, and Fate Zero did the exact same thing soon afterwards. Not even that feels special anymore.

4. Plot Armoured (Titan?)

And despite the high mortality rate, eventually you realize it is something that counts only for secondary characters. They serve only as cannon fodder in this show; they exist just to cry in corners, die miserably, and fool the unexpected to think no one is safe. The major ones on the other hand, get the usual shonen package: Plot armoured with hax powers, like Wolverine’s super fast regeneration and Spiderman’s super fast agility, to forever survive any giant attack. They are oozing with the rule of cool and dwarf everybody else in importance, thus trashing the whole survival / horror aspect. The audience cheers for them, as they wipe out armies of undefeatable (for everybody else) giants, thus there is no tension. It is still all about who is more overpowered and cool, like in any run of the mill shonen. The tragic parts also become meaningless, since it all comes down to the usual magic superpowers and poser fighting, as in the case of, again, any run of the mill action shonen.

5. The mystery aspect is quite weak

Half the interest most show in this anime derives from the gore (which is cheap and eventually shallow) and the other half is the mystery of the unworldly enemies (which fades away as soon as it is eventually revealed). At first you are thrilled to find out why the giants are eating people. They don’t need food to sustain themselves. They don’t have a personality or even intelligence which makes them grotesque and terrifying because you cannot understand their motivations. Well, most of your questions won’t be answered in this season, and the eventual explanation in a later arc only serves to make you realize there wasn’t much to it. OH HEY, THEY ARE JUST ZOMBIES, WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN! So even if you are watching this for the thrilling emotions, you are bound to hate it after you realize it wasn’t that good to begin with. It pretends to be far more than a most basic zombie apocalypse scenario. The city is the mall, the titans are the undead, and the steampunk spidermen are the people trying to survive.

6. Weak world-building

It is full of interesting ideas as far as the setting goes, from detailed maps of how the human lands are run, to blueprints of how their cannons and steam engines that make them fly work. Later on you get even basic politics and religious fanatism as the people react to the new giant attacks and all of a sudden some kids get hax powers. It makes it far more interesting than some generic RPG world full of fortified cities and wilderness crawling with monsters. It’s not TOO detailed though; most of them are there for show since they don’t matter much in the longrun. You think those rotating cannons, the titanium swords, or the steampunk spidermen do shit against the giants? All you need is a few angsty teens with hax superpowers nobody else can beat if they work hard all their lives. And even if you just stick to the setting itself, it is quite simple despite its secondary details. The whole world is basically either houses where people live in, or wilderness where titans roam around. Many claim that since the story is a slowly-revealed mystery, it is excused when everything is so basic. It still doesn’t change the fact that the human land looks like 3 perfectly drawn homocentric circles and later on it’s just a flipped world map with undeveloped empires. Even a baby can do better than this.

7. Slow pacing

The early episodes have extremely fast pacing but then it snails down to almost a halt. The first five minutes go wasted on summaries of things we saw just in the previous episode, and there are even recap episodes for events that don’t need more than a few minutes to describe. In a way this is a positive trait since it invests time in letting the viewer immerse in the mood of the show. Much better to running through the events while leaving everyone and everything unfocused or not looked into. Sadly, the mood is the only thing they focus on. Not much time is used to flesh out the characters or the setting, and in the longrun all secondary cast and the funky steampunk technologies are meaningless.

8. Overused tension gimmicks

The script heads for a constant thrill, and because of the slow pacing causes every major event to last more than it needs, and constantly stops with a cliffhanger. Although this can be a nice motivation for the audience to anticipate the next episode, they do it so many times and for events that could practically fit in only one episode. Tension loses its meaning if it happens all the time without proper relaxation points and after awhile you no longer find it exciting or edgy, exactly because it is always like that. You get used to it, it doesn’t look awesome anymore, and because most of whatever happens in it is about caricatures of people you forget as soon as they are dead, it becomes boring.

9. Plot Driven

Although this is not an issue with everyone, it is still a problem. The characters have no control over the events of the show; they are just reacting to them. No matter what happens, they will never choose what to do next; the plot is going to force them into what to do next. It makes sense for that to happen in stories that have to do with death and survival, but it also makes them pass as drones, unable to progress or develop further on their own, despite their hax superpowers. This takes away their significance, which is already very thin since you forget them 5 seconds after they die. This feeling only gets worse in later seasons when you find out amnesia and mind control are in this story as common as spring allergies. What kind of a mature story would turn its characters into sock puppets?

10. It looks nice but that is all

As far as the artwork goes, there are big aesthetic differences between the manga and the anime adaptation. The manga feels very crude when it comes to proportions and perspective. It has very rough outlines and feels sketchy at points, with crude anatomy and stiff motions. The anime fixes these issues and even includes a catchy chorus OST to make it even more intriguing. There are still major quality drops throughout the show, since at some parts you get fluent animation and detailed artwork which make it look amazing, while in others you get static images and crude character figures which makes it look lame.

11. It is still a fun show to watch just for the excitement, instead of yet another moe school life thingy

I do agree though that as a whole AOT manages to build up tension right away. Even if you are aware of its problems, it is still not holding back in violence; the average Narutard is definitely going to like it. It is not a high school club ecchi comedy if you are not into that. As for me? After truly good manga such as Battle Angel Alita and Battle Royale, this was unintentional satire. No veteran reader or viewer is going to give it anything more than a good time waster status, because down to it, it is a silly shonen when it could easily be much better as a mature seinen.

12. It didn’t even succeed in maintaining its status as a great anime

As for the hype this show has gotten? A few years down the line, the second season came out and by then there weren’t many interested in it anymore. It didn’t win at a single category during the Crunchyroll awards of 2017, and it got completely overshadowed by My Hero Academia, which was a generic fighting shonen. How is it possible for such a praised masterpiece of depth and thrills to get owned by the very generic shonen everyone was saying it easily tops? It’s because hype is hollow and eventually meaningless. There is always an anime every year that blows everyone’s brains out, only to be completely forgotten by the next year’s mind-blowing series. AOT is no exception to this. Later on the third and final season (which is like 10 parts lol) got more hype, but it was only for the animation. The manga ended terribly and now most people don’t think it’s that good as a whole. It was just a mindless action flick all along.

I must say I was disappointed with this one. After all the hype I expected something good. The show resembles Claymore in many, many ways which is the main reason I watched it but while Claymore scores lower, I still believe it to be superior in every way.
As far as the story goes, it's very basic. Giant people and that's about it.
The character's are the worst part of the whole anime bearing little to no personality and being annoying and/or useless almost all the time. They have this overly dramatic monologues and are constantly stalling the pacing with their "going insane" or "I am ... so shocked" dramas. While you expect them to react like this, it wears off very quickly and becomes irritating.
Where it succeeds is the action. Great art and good fight scenes but even these suffer from the ever so often staling of the character's reactions.
Overall, I truly believe this to be over hyped and overrated but if you are willing to sit through it for the fights scenes then more power to you.