Alright, excuse the harsh intro. I'm sure there are plenty who feel anime doesn't need redemption. However, I'm not one of them. And, I don't want Attack on Titan mistaken for yet another anime, because no matter how you look at it, it's not. So, please excuse me if I present it as comeback, I merely want to urge the non fanbase to give this one a look.
That said, to the people who don't really care about anime, who've fallen off the bandwagon, or never really liked it in the first place, why should you care about this one? What's so special?
So glad you asked!
Now, personally, I was wary going into Titan too. Despite the glowing endorsements I've heard, I wasn't sure. Mainly, because the main characters appear to be children[when I was a kid, anime usually starred adults, what happened there?], and the whole thing came off a tad melodramatic from the trailers, even though it did seem top notch in the animation department. Then I watched it. Now I'm singing it's praises from the mountain tops.
The basic summary is, Attack on Titan is set in a post apocalyptic world in which the entirety of humanity has barricaded themselves behind giant walls, to escape the titans. A ferocious threat that wiped out most of humanity. Our heroes are Erin, Armin, and Mikasa, who hope to help in the fight, and find a way to stem the tide.
Now, I admit, the character designs kinda suck. Half the characters look 14, and the other half look like adults. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. But, that's gotten past easy enough. For those wondering if young characters translates to 'moe' though [if you don't know what that means, don't ask], no. Absolutely not. I'll say, besides some rather imaginative cursing and copious amounts of violence, this anime is clean.
Though, again, that's not to say this anime is child friendly by a long shot. The violence here can be quite gruesome, don't let the fact that this is animation fool you. I felt myself somewhat shocked, and I am as jaded as they come, I assure you. And though it's probably going to be cleaned up in the US version, the characters do curse like sailors. So, again, not family friendly.
Now that I got the BS out of the way, let me describe the goodness of this anime, in 5 ways. That's 5 things that make this anime well worth watching.
Titans- Not since I first got into Zombie movies, have I scene a scourge more apt for a survival story.
But in many ways, Titans surpass them.
They appear to be giant, naked, somewhat goofy looking humans. Which just makes them all the more creepy when they start biting peoples heads off and chewing them up with a big dumb grin on their faces. They just play on our own psychology. What's a fear more close to home that even the fear of death[ie, zombies]? The fear of things bigger than you, and of being eaten, something ingrained in our DNA and minds from birth. Titans are freaky, man!
Spiderman Battles- So, how do you fight giants? Well, of course, you swing around on hip mounted hook shots and chop the back of their necks with butcher swords, how else? This may sound a little over the top, for a show that is for the most part a serious drama, but when it looks this cool, who cares? And, as it is anime, what's the point if it's not over the top?
Character Death- It seems to be a trend in western media to challenge the notion of 'plot armor', the idea some characters can never die because of the roles they represent. Well, Attack on Titan joins in on that trend. To be fair, anime has always embraced character death to an extent, it's one of the reasons I started watching it in the first place, but Attack on Titan goes the extra mile.
I've never feared for characters lives more. A theme of the show is the horrors of war, and they go far out of the way to make you feel it. I'd almost classify this show as a horror in fact, if it's pacing was different.
Believable characters- A big issue with anime is believable, relatable characters. If you watch anime, you know the characters are usually way over the top, for better or worse. However, not so much in this one. Not to say there aren't more than a couple Kenshiro's[badasses] walking around, as well as a couple comedy relief characters, but even they are shown to have real human emotions when the crap hits the fan.
Originality- Possibly the biggest seller on this for me, is I can't think of anything too similar to this show. In my head, I keep comparing it to something like an anime equivalent of a combination of Game of Thrones[fixation with a wall and what's behind it], The Walking Dead[Zombie like threat and plenty of character deaths], Saving Private Ryan, with a touch of Spiderman and, while we're at it, [slight spoiler] the Incredible Hulk.
It really is a refreshing take on survival shows, and animation in general. I've never seen a combination of 3d models and hand drawn art work out so well. So I have to comment, thank god they didn't skimp on the budget!
In closing, if you read this whole thing, I have little doubt you'd give this anime a shot. So, I won't try to sell you anymore. I'll end this, as this is a video game site, with a little talk on the premise of an Attack on Titan video game.
Ahh, can you imagine? Shadow of Colossus X Spiderman, maybe a little skyrim world exploration thrown in for good measure? Man, so good! But, let's be real, never going to happen. Only multi million dollar anime franchises like One Piece, DBZ, and Naruto can command console grade license games, and they usually are frickin terrible! At this time, there is a 3ds game in development for the series, but it's made by celebrated visual novel game developer Chunsoft [999]. Those guys are pretty good at what they do, but, as you can guess, what they make probably won't be anything like the game the series really deserves. And, still, there's no guarantee at all, that game will make it to our shores anyway.
But it's nice to dream, right?
Thanks for reading.