Attack on Titan Review

Recently, the trend for a lot of stories has been to create a scenario where humanity is on the brink of extinction. Families torn apart, tragedy in stories growing exponentially from when entertainment was in its phase of happy feels. Of course, there are the classic “endangered humanity” structured stories, such as Godzilla, or Wrath of the Giants. When you think “danger to humanity”, you can think of something like a plague, or an alien invasion. But when humanity has been driven to such an extent as to only exist in a series of stone walls, the only defence from the large, humanoid monsters known as titans, you know something’s wrong. In the world of Attack on Titan, or its Japanese title, Shingeki no Kyojin, you could die at any moment. No one is safe. Only the strong survive the wrath of the titans. When confronted with a situation such as this, you could cower into the inner walls and hide, or you could fight for humanity. Our story today revolves around a particular trio of teenagers set on saving humanity after a tragic chain of events changes their lives forever.

Over the past 100 years in the world of Attack on Titan, a peculiar set of monsters known as titans, have seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and their sole purpose appears to be to devour human beings. Titans look eerily human, except range from being 3-15 m tall. As so humanity believes, until one fateful day. Our main protagonist, Eren Jaeger, a child at the time, has his heart set on becoming part of the Survey Corps; the military force responsible for eliminating the titans. Eren and his close friends, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert, witness a 50 meter tall, skinless titan peek its head over the wall, and kick the wall down. This hole enables titans to invade the outer city of Zhiganshina, where civilians attempt to flee to the mob of titans devouring their neighbours. In an attempt to escape, Eren’s mother, Carla, is trapped under rubble, and devoured by a titan, right in front of Eren’s eyes. From that moment on, Eren swears to defeat all the titans at all cost, no matter how hard it is to get there. The trio join the Trainee squad, and are on their way to defend humanity. The story is fast-paced, although it does drag out quite a bit in the later episodes, and leaves a large cliffhanger at the end of the series. However, a second season has been announced for July 2015, and hopefully, the ending will close the major plot holes in the series.

Our main protagonist, Eren Jaeger, is a stubborn teenager, with a powerful sense of determination. He starts off calm and collected, however can get out of control fairly easily due to his short temper. Many anime protagonists have their bubble of invincibility, where absolutely nothing can hurt or kill them. Attack on Titan doesn’t have that. Any character can die at any moment, which gives the series a refreshing twist from the usual cookie-cutter characters. Along with our overly angry Eren, there is his childhood friend Mikasa Ackerman. Mikasa is portrayed as flawless, which can be interpreted as a flaw in and of itself in some circumstances. Although she is silent, and can often be seen as in love with our main character, she is one of the best fighters in the Attack on Titan cast. Mikasa’s back story is explained fairly well in the series, and gives some form of sympathy towards her and some of the other characters when back story is provided. Third in the trio, is Armin Arlert. Armin is your typical whiny, and weak character on the outside often seen as a good-for-nothing by others. Despite Armin’s weaknesses, he is the most tactical of the bunch, and serves as the brains behind the entire operation. He has a tendency to fall into danger, and have to be saved by others in the group, but can keep his calm in a tight situation. With Attack on Titan giving us a character who many viewers can sympathise with gives the series more emotional ties to the viewer, and thus can tear your heart out when characters start dying out of nowhere. Mentioning any characters other than the main three would be unnecessary due to the amount of characters in the series, and the fact that they are all able to die at any moment.

The soundtrack for the series was composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, who has done other notable works such as the soundtracks for Guilty Crown and Ao no Exorcist. The soundtrack fits the series perfectly, and the soundtrack in and of itself is also perfect. Although for a 25 episode series, the soundtrack was small in comparison to other shows, every minute of it was worth the length. No piece needed visual accompaniment, which is a great achievement considering many soundtracks are not very enjoyable without visual accompaniment in some form or another. Two notable pieces in the soundtrack were The Reluctant Heroes, and EMA, which both reflected the personalities of characters in the series well. Both openings and endings fit the series incredibly well, and are all incredible additions to the series. Special mention to the first opening theme, Guren no Yumiya by Linked Horizon. The Japanese dub is extremely well done, with Yuki Kaji as Eren, and the other characters being cast well. The English dub is acceptable, but not as good as the original Japanese dub as some of the characters are slightly miscast and would be better with a different voice actor.

The animation for Attack on Titan was done by Studio WIT, a sub unit off of Production I.G, the studio known for works such as Guilty Crown, and Ghost in the Shell. The action scenes are absolutely stunning to watch, and the animation is well done. The character designs resemble the characters from the manga, and improve them to a point where they are clearer than the character designs for the manga. Each character has a distinct black outline, varying in thickness, separating them from the background. This gives Attack on Titan its own feel, and makes it stand out from other shows in that aspect. The animation can go from heavily detailed to vague when it needs to be, when the mood of the series changes through out. The colours chosen for the series also suit the theme perfectly, and make the scenes more believable.

Attack on Titan has become a worldwide sensation, from cosplays, to countless remakes of scenes done by fans in live action. Attack on Titan is a series which is a roller coaster that only goes up, and likes to stop every once in a while, playing with your emotions the whole way through. Due to the perfectly timed cliffhangers and continuations, marathoning the series is recommended so you don’t end up killing anything due to the suspense at the end of every episode. So, considering the categories of sound, animation, story, characters, and my personal enjoyment, Attack on Titan receives an overall score of 9.2 out of 10, with a recommendation to buy rather than stream. Attack on Titan is currently available on Crunchyroll, Funimation’s Website, and Canadian Netflix for legal streaming, and has been licensed by Funimation for DVD and Blu-Ray releases.

And that’s a wrap up, thank you for reading. Reviews will be posted daily through the month of November, so stay tuned!

-Takami