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Season One
Positives:
The Titans are terrifyingly well executed
Death is harrowingly impactful
The characters are realistically flawed while being intelligently constructed
The animation is beautifully fluid and intricate
Negatives:
Sometimes the show can’t keep up with its own pacing which leads to awkward exposition cutaways and convenient backstory inserts.
Positive: The Titans
The creator successfully encapsulates an uncanny form of dread in the Titans. Their expressions largely stay reminiscent of humans, but all the warmth and personality in expressions are drained and replaced with something much more cold and distant. For many Titans it drives inspiration from a babies eyes as well, there’s a look of innocent curiosity in many of them, which makes their horrific actions all the more uncomfortable to watch. Moving on from the face, their physique is also critical to the intended effect. They tower over humans, leaving any grounded resistance futile which is demonstrated time and time again. Meanwhile their lumpy, unformed bodies are once again akin to a babies, the inspiration the creator takes from this is evident and is surprisingly ingenious at being creepy. Physical traits aside, the mental damage Titans leave on humans keeps the dread alive even in moments where they’re absent. It’s evident in everything, humans have hide themselves behind large walls to keep them away, characters dedicate their life to getting further away from the outer walls, while the ptsd the soldiers deal with stays as a constant throughout every battle and its aftermath. The Titans aren’t just an antagonist, they are the reason behind nearly every decision made. It gives the story and characters within it a clear overarching direction, while in its 24 episodes it fleshes out the fear these Titans produce from nearly every angle.
Positive: The Potrayal of Death
Death is handled with extreme delicacy, striking a tasteful balance that grounds the entire show in its own tense and brutal nature. The realism it brings is a huge reason for its success, there’s a variety of both quick and drawn out deaths, with each serving their own purpose and contrasting each other to pertain a random element. The quick deaths usually are used to help create a merciless atmosphere and demonstrate the fragility of the rest of the characters. Whereas the drawn out are used to display a droning sense of hopelessness, when a Titan snatches a human with its strong grip there is almost never an escape, and when there is it’s a testament to the characters strength. In these moments before an inevitable death, characters will react differently but all with the same dread and fear, whether they’ll cry out or condemn the Titans it all feels incredibly real and grounded. The careful execution of each of these scenes makes it difficult not to admire.
Positive: Characters
Characters are immediately easy to sympathize with, making the scenes where they die all the more tragically impactful. Right from the first episode the destruction and death Titans wreak is evident, while the humans reactions to it feel spontaneous and flawed as the dread the Titans exhibit creeps into their decision making. It’s not overly emphasized and there isn’t any stand up hero in this episode, rather it’s a one sided battle that’s only won by selfish decision making. From this point forward, the characters decisions and reactions feel much more visceral and realistic, the audience understands the fear that drives them and can easily relate it back to the horrors the main characters and the audience witnessed in the first episode. All this being said, the humour in the characters works as a good change of pace which enters when appropriate and consistently brightens the atmosphere to show characters in a different light. It also works well in showing differences between characters, (VERY MINOR SPOILERS) when Sasha steals a potato and eats it during the military training orientation, it’s assumed she hasn’t experienced the same horrors as the three main characters and then her disrespect to the leading officer solicited this. It’s a fun throwaway scene that demonstrates the officer-cadet relationship, but the looming threat of the Titans doesn’t leave, in fact her innocent attitude in all this carries a bitter realization to the viewer, once she faces a real Titan the same horror the main characters faced will be thrust upon her. The opposite is also shown with Jean in a more serious tone, watching him go through a town filled with horrors of a battles afternath and trying to identify corpses, while also being reeled back in shock and fear by the sights of his dead friends. Before this he was displayed as snarky, simple minded and selfish. However, amongst this dreadful scenery, he carries a solemn attitude, and empathy for the fallen soldiers while struggling with his own fear of Titans brought humanistic depth to his character. (MINOR SPOILERS END) These characters still fall under many anime cliches (obsessive love interest, character who loves food) and in most other shows this would feel cliche, but nearly every characters attitude can be traced back to their experience (or lack of) with Titans and it layers their personality and decisions with a psychological undercoat. The writer plays to this incredibly, the fear characters face with the internal and external struggle the Titans (and corrupt humans) invoke upon them is a fleshed out topic which brings depth to every member of the survey corps.
Positive: Animation
The animation adds layers of detail to its setting while also leading to incredibly fluid and detailed fight scenes. It’s commendable that everything is filled with this detail, while never calling attention to itself as to keep the focus inward on the characters and Titans. It’s appropriate for this show, the buildings and forests are realistic to match the harsh and grounded tone established while the animators paint a telling and beautiful picture that appropriately blends into the world. For example, while watching three characters go into a tunnel, there was a slab of wood above them that appeared for a few seconds. In this slab, there were layers of intricately drawn lines sketched across to give it a layered look while also mixing different browns to show the age of the wood. The impressively high quality control is present in everything, no matter how insignificant it seems. A beautifully, or horrifically detailed picture is present at every turn. Aside from this, fight scenes are an incredible spectacle. The 3D maneuver gear members of the army use hoists them into the air and sends them lunging across buildings at blisteringly quick speeds. The animators capture this through quickly changing angles as characters fly through the sky and of course, laborious work on making their movements look natural as they glide across the sky while the progression they make across any terrain is apparent. It gives the viewer enough time to understand the situation through quick yet digestible shots, while also conveying the high speeds and delivering quality character and setting animation.
Negative: Too fast paced for its own good
This show has an incredibly fast pace, bouncing from one significant event to another with the only space in between being for grieving the dead after battles. This is largely a great thing, it’s a refreshing change of pace from many long shows where events are needlessly drawn out, it’s rarely boring and the events that it covers do consistently achieve their intended goal with extraordinary prowess. However, with such jumpy pacing and ambitious storytelling there’s bound to be moments where information can’t be properly delivered, and the solution to this does feel cheap. To avoid spoilers there won’t be a specific example, instead this rough description will apply to how this show occasionally deals with delivering context and backstories. In the middle of a battle the show will forget the context to which a scene needs to make sense, or the background information for a characters decision to make sense. This will usually leeway into another scene delivering this information then going back into the action after the viewer has already been pulled out of it. It feels like a cheap jab at both a emotional response and haphazardly created solution to a problem. Having another 2-3 episodes (especially during the training arc) would’ve been incredibly beneficial to both the characters and flow of information.
Negative: The Introduction
This point is a minor one but at the beginning the pre teen versions of Eren and Armin were ridiculously overly idealistic and lacked any subtly. It’s due to this portion of the show being very brief, the creator had a lot to say in this short segment and unfortunately the characterization suffered from this. They over explained their idealistic point of views to a point of embarrassment and immediately had their personalities hyperbolized, which was unfortunate since it was delivered too fast for anything to sink in. This segment suffered from the insanely fast pace the show sets. As was previously mentioned, this fast pace is well maintained and leads to many great positives that keep the show captivating, but there are negatives, however minor, which do have a affect on the experience.
Overall, Attack on Titan season 1 is an emotionally impactful, fantastically written, and beautifully animated introduction which leaves the viewer excited for what’s next. There’s many positives that I wasn’t able to properly cover (music, plot) due to the review becoming too long, in my reviews for the later seasons I hope to further touch on these.
Entertainment and critical rating: 8.5/10
Final rating: 8.5/10
Season Two
For the good, the soundtrack compliments the rest of the show while being uniquely brilliant, the second half is marginally better than the first, and the animation still has an impressively high quality. For the negatives, the deaths feel much more like cheap jabs at emotion, backstories annoyingly disrupt the pacing’s flow and the first act is a jumble of poorly managed ideas.
Back to the good, while proving to be distinctly unique with nearly every track, the tracks each convey a range of powerful emotions. The orchestra is drenched in the dramatic quality the rest of the show exhibits. These classic instruments are all used in unison to create a resounding, rich sound while the epic choir further emphasizes this. This use of orchestra leads to a fantastic soundscape, it’s used at just the right moments to increase the drama within the tension and stakes, however this isn’t what gives Attack on Titan its “edge”. Within these epic pieces, there’s techno and rock rooted into the pieces as well. This show is able to take excessive edginess and intensity, then turn it into an art form by grounding it in its own world until it feels completely natural, which is masterfully mirrored in its own soundtrack. It always has the familiar sound of an orchestra to ground itself, but the seamlessly mixed gut punching effect of the techno and rock take this soundtrack to new heights entirely, leading to a masterpiece of an ost. This also applies to the first season, but seasons two is even more ambitious in the sounds it creates and ends off being superior between the two in this area.
Secondly, the later half (from episodes 6-12) of this season fortunately choses a direction to commit to and even though many events are missing a regrettable amount of meaningful build up or context, they still have enough of a noticeable effect on the plot to have critical merit and emotional impact to maintain the audiences attention. This is largely due to the meaningful battles which take place, Attack on Titan seems to always be at its best when there’s a eminent threat around the corner, the creator is incredibly good at playing with tension and he channels his talents the best when a battle is taking place, or the threat of one is hanging in the air. These elements were in the first half, but the effect was dampened since it felt more like an exposition dump that was too afraid to actually deliver any exposition, rather just posing questions again and again between elongated flashbacks. The second half had this problem pop up a few times as well, but fortunately was undermined by some fantastic battle scenes whose intensity and stakes became the centre focus. It should also be mentioned that this second half had a human element weaved into it by grounding itself in feelings of heart piercing betrayal, it became much more character focused as it explored their inner conflicts and felt much more akin to season 1’s heavily grounded approach, which was a welcomed return.
Thirdly, the animation is as beautiful as ever, being on par, it not slightly more impressive than season 1 in comparison. Many of the points from my review for that season still apply here, the architecture and setting are packed with descriptive amount of detail while still retaining a grounded look to fit into the very realistic, medieval inspired backdrop. Character designs share similarities to the background in their realistic approach. However, there isn’t a design that feels rushed, each one still has enough feint, yet prevalent personality in their design which amalgamates to a distinct feeling in each person. For example, there’s Levi with his sharp, refined features present in his chin and nose, while his
hairstyle is an undercut with a carefully trimmed amount of hair covering his forehead. While Jean’s face is drawn out enough to distinguish him from the rest of the cast, but not enough for it to be obvious and works subtly instead. His hair also is styled with an undercut and hair sprouting out from the top and swaying across the back, front and sides of his head. These details all play a role in bringing the character to life, while these details even subtly allude to their personalities. One detail that has reached another level since the last season is the shading and use of colour, it conveys a much more complex picture that not only is beautiful to look at but further warps the viewer deeper into the world. This is all I have to add onto what I previously said about animation in season 1’s review.
Onto the negatives, the handling of death was a major strength of the first season, however there are many instances in this season where it’s much more artistically indulgent and overly bloody to a point where the effect becomes lost and it tries too hard to invoke an emotional response. In the first episode, the death of one character tried too hard to prove a point (I’ll never surrender even if it kills me) to a point where their death lost all rational thought since the character make stupid choices to get to this point. Then the actual death itself was so overly gory and drawn out that it just became too self indulgent to feel anything
but grossed out.
Also, the creator seemed very keen on implementing dramatic irony to deaths. In a show which is so grounded like Attack on Titan, simplistic deaths which don’t force any emotion or significance, rather just let them speak for themselves always are the most impactful. While season two still has this, it also has deaths which are depicted in much more artistically profound ways, which feels out of place and as if these moments are pining for emotions instead of letting them naturally enter. (SPOILERS) One character mentions how he would love some alcohol to drink a few times, then while Titans are trying to kill him he finds a bottle, opens it but it’s empty and then he gets eaten. Hannes also talks about how he wants to relieve his glory days and protect the three main characters, then he’s killed by the Titan who killed the main characters mom. (SPOILER END) These moments definitely are impactful, but they’re also incredibly transparent in their desire to force emotion and it ends in the effect being heavily dampene
Secondly, the sheer amount of insignificant, drawn out and overall boring backstories is unbelievable and the show can be a slog to get through sometimes because of it. It pulls the viewer out of the scene they’re already invested in, then asks them to sit through something that most of the time they aren’t given a good reason to care about. What’s even more impressive is that these backstories don’t even contribute to the overarching goal of the series and just further confuse its already strained focus. In the middle of a Titan invasion, the show is posing questions involving the Titans. This is because the past episode (and a large portion of the first season) was focused on developing the mystery beneath Titans. However, instead of having this elaborated on, over half of the next episode is dedicated to Sasha’s backstory and how her family happens to live near the invasion. It’s a gross misunderstanding of what people actually care about and it feels so disconnected and inconsequential from everything else that it’s just a waste of the already limited time the show has. There are many more examples of this, Hannes’s flashback to simpler times was shoved in between battles, the viewer had just witnessed a huge Titan battle which ended on a suspenseful note. The tension was cut by this backstory, it was drawn out, awkwardly written to feel like it’s own mini comedic sub plot, and painfully transparent in its goals to show Hannes’s dream to get back to the “good old days.” This was only worsened after he explained in annoyingly obvious detail that this is what he wanted, enough though we already watched the backstory which alluded this well enough, it felt like the show was babying the viewer and further dragged out an already near unbearable segment. Lastly, the first half of this season is remarkably difficult to get through. It pulls the viewer in so many different direction, starting with the mystery of the Titans and churches involvement with them, then moving onto abnormal Titans, then the dynamic between Ymir and Christa. It’s within 5 episodes, all while cramming backstories, many of which are drawn out or insignificant. Unfortunately, this makes for a very complicated and frustrating experience, it’s dealing with all these different concepts but it doesn’t actually elaborate on any of them to maintain mystery, but unfortunately the cost of maintaining mystery is the audiences patience and also the pacing feels jumpy because its going back and forth between seemingly very disconnected ideas. (SPOILERS) What’s even more disappointing is that all these directions mostly get abandoned near the end, instead opting for the conflict with Reiner and Bertolt. It’s great that it found a direction, but it also abandoned 2 other directions while merging Ymir’s in a way which wasn’t able to properly flesh it out and felt more like a compromise. It’s reasonable to leave unresolved aspects for future seasons, but to introduce two story-changing elements, build a mystery around them and then abandon it is just a poor management of ideas. (SPOILERS END) The show needs to go back and forth between these ideas, not much sinks into the viewers mind since the show itself is already so scatter brained. Unfortunately, this leads to moments that otherwise would’ve been incredibly impactful, especially the one involving Ymir and Christa induce more of a “ok well I guess this is happening” response rather than the surprise it should’ve. The season is constantly to shock you with the next big reveal, until it becomes tiresome and the significance behind events begins to fade away.
CONCLUSION
Season 2 is beautifully scored and animated while its second half has some great moments and a better sense of direction. However, this season is a shocking downgrade from the first, it doesn’t handle most death scenes with the same maturity, the plot is confused for most of the season and the backstories range from inconsequential to elongated. This season could’ve been a masterpiece, but these negatives are too potent and prevalent to overlook.
Entertainment and critical rating: 6.5/10
Final rating: 6.5/10
Season Three
For the positives, the world building is dramatically impactful and engaging, the handling of death and backstories have been remarkably improved on from the last season, and the tension and animation present in battles reach new heights.
For the negatives, there were moments in battles where blatant tricks were used to create undeserved emotional investment, Mikasas character isn’t expanded on nearly enough.
Positive: World Building
Season 1 and 2 were shrouded in a mystery throughout, while the characters grasped at straws to understand even just the scope and complexity of their situation. While there was a simplistic charm to season 1, which left bigger questions to the sidelines. Season 2 on the other hand made an effort to establish the big picture, but was restrained since it wanted to maintain mystery and couldn’t expand on what it set up. Season 3 is unlike what came before it, the creator takes no liberties in revealing as much information as possible, it redefines the scope of the show while the bold delivery makes it both refreshing and jarringly impactful. It’s not as if it’s delivered immaculately, it rather answers all the right questions it’s been setting up since the first episodes and all the answers provided are incredibly interesting. These aren’t just simple answers either, it throws itself into so many rabbit holes which make this world even more fascinating to learn about, it’s been so meticulously constructed that the amalgamation of ideas uniquely belongs to Attack on Titan. The viewer is already rooted in the show, due to how grounded the characters are and how visceral their struggles, and even their deaths can feel. The new direction doesn’t uproot the connection to this show, it never relied on its plot to stay grounded the plot’s always been wildly unrealistic, but the characters haven’t changed, rather this new revelation has challenged their perception of the world and further nuanced them. Aside from all this, despite the insane amount of information delivery, there is restraint used just at the right times. This is more specific to the second part, it delivers new ideas and exposition through flashbacks and books, instead of throwing the characters into these newly established conflicts. There is a significant amount of potency put behind the character journeys, but this still is an introduction to a much larger plot. However, this is an incredibly well fleshed out introduction, it’s fascinating on its own to finally see the mystery unravelled after 50 episodes of being beat down and battles that seemed to end in nothing but casualties, but it’s also given the show a clear direction and has opened the door for so many more character possibilities. The world building is such a prominent, well executed positive that makes this season and the possibilities for what’s next fascinating.
Positive: The Improved Use of Death and Backstories
Due to the complex plot and an unforgivingly harsh tone, exposition and/or character backstories and death have been a constant in Attack on Titan and in this season, they are better executed than ever before. For backstories, the most significant tend to be put at the end of major events, by doing this it avoids becoming intrusive while letting the show explain all the unanswered questions and redefining the significance and scope of the previous events. This could easily begin to feel like a cheap trick, but these backstories always stay concise while coinciding nicely with the previous and following events. Furthermore, the characters who are the centre focus for the two main backstories (SPOILERS Kenny and Grisha SPOILERS END) are unconventional picks, yet both have mystery shrouding their motives and a personality which was previously hard to pin down. By making them the spotlight, it gives time to deliver exposition while unveiling these characters motives and dreams. It makes the actual exposition much more easy to invest in since there’s an interesting character at the core of it, by the end of one of these segments the character of focus ends up being just as fascinating as the painstakingly crafted world building. As for the handling of death, it finds ways to emotionally effect the audience while staying rooted in its harsh reality. Death scenes have an inward focus, it never feels like it’s “trying” to terrify the audience through being scary or gross, rather it terrifies the shows characters. It stays investing, being focused on the raw reactions of characters makes the experience feel more like a breakdown of spontaneous human reactions under a terrifying situation, being equally fascinating as it is stressful. What I said about the handling of death in season 1 also applies here, and this point will be further developed in the next slide.
Positive: The Battles
Battle sequences have always been one of Attack on Titans strongest elements, every stage of these fights, from beginning to the actual fight to the aftermath, it’s all fantastically elaborated on, while mixing in engrossing character drama and finely detailed animation. In this season, this is all present but more effective than ever before. Even though the beginning of fights could’ve benefitted from having more time spent on them, it’s always impressive how there’s unique battle plans created for each one of these sequences. These plans creatively work with all its elements, even the personalities of characters influence the creation of plans (Erwins experience and willingness to gamble while Armin is much more nervous and his plans are well formed but have an optimistic caution). Meanwhile, everyone else reveals much about their own character through reactions to plans, there’s a general feeling of unfaltering loyalty among many of the survey corps, but delving deep into each characters reaction to plans, then showing how they act during the actual battles consistently leads to interesting contrasts. It’s an ingenious way to implement meaningful characterization into the planning phase, there’s so much interesting initial development to pay attention to during this phase that is expanded on throughout the rest of the battle. As for the battles themselves, watching each strategy be implemented throughout the duration helps liven up the dynamic of these battles, whether it be capitalizing on the element of surprise, using a newly created technology to throw the opposing side off guard or predicting enemy movements, each time this happens a new element is added to the experience, it’s done at the right time to give nuance to these battles while never becoming too much, each new element is implemented with purpose and that purpose stays a factor as the sequence progresses. Seeing the initial plan being followed is interesting enough, but seeing plans fall apart and being reformed on the spot is where this show finds it chance to reach a deeper, more meaningfully nuanced understanding of its characters under the pressure of the situation. Whether it be due to the circumstances or their own agendas, it takes the pre existing knowledge of the character and evolves it. This leads to a deep, beautifully articulated understanding of characters, with the impact of this development being all the more heightened thanks to the underlying tension and stakes which are established and emphasized throughout. As for the aftermath of these fights, they never forget to acknowledge the most horrific parts of battles and bathe the atmosphere in these horrors of war to induce a haunting effect on all the characters minds, inducing an effect akin to, if not ptsd. This death has inescapable impact for both the characters and the viewer, it gives any “victory” a bitter double meaning and stays consistent with the brutal and unforgiving tone set throughout. (SPOILERS) If should be mentioned that the fight against Mr Reiss’s Titan doesn’t carry the a depressing aftermath, instead ending hopefully with Historia becoming queen and no one dying. It’s one of the weaker battles in the show, but it was far from bad. It was nice to see them have a victory, especially before the second half of this season begun, while lightening the mood so the creator could naturally show off the a more lighthearted sides of these characters. (SPOILERS END) To end off, the animation has also reached a new level of quality and its best depicted during fight scenes. Impossibly fast speeds are beautifully captured through animation techniques that a feeling of whiplash can practically be felt through the screen. Meanwhile, there is barely any cgi used on the Titans, which is commendable and it leads to a fantastic looking final product. The Colossal Titan is cgi, but it’s still heavily detailed and keeps from awkwardly standing out.
Negative: The Few Shortcomings of Battles
Before this negative section even begins, I want to clarify all these are very minor and the positives are so prominent that they feel incredibly insignificant when looking at the season as a whole, however they still exist and should be acknowledged. (SPOILERS START) Right before the battle of the Orvud district begins, Eren, Mikasa and Armin see three kids who look up to to them in confusion at what’s about to happen. It’s painfully obvious in its attempts to mirror the moment where Eren, Mikasa and Armin watched their city get destroyed when they were younger. This moment is woefully misplaced, the stakes had already been set up since an entire city of people is at risk, so to add this was just an artistically indulgent jab at emotion before it began. It’s also incredibly cheesy, this moment may have worked better in an inspirational sports anime but with the context of Attack on Titan this moment is grossly obvious in its attempts to pander to emotion. (SPOILER END) This moment isn’t a huge deal when compared to all the other masterfully executed moments that deserve their own segment (which I just don’t have the time or space to write for) but it was jarring to see such a moment in a show like this and I also needed material for the negative section. Aside from this moment, there’s one element in these fights that has been irritating to watch since season 1. Right before an element is introduced that will change the course of a battle, the show goes into a flashback and explains the significance and thought process behind this new element. While these flashbacks stay brief and concise, they still tend to interrupt the flow of pacing and the way it tries to morph the actual battle and preparation phase feels more like a compromise. Having them be separated from each other would’ve been a much more interactive experience, the audience would know all the tricks and strategies that can be implemented, leading to a strong foundation of knowledge for these battles to take place upon. Sometimes this happens and the result is a phenomenal fight scene where the audience has been told enough to create an emotional investment, understand the stakes and feel a gripping sense of tension even before the fight scene starts (Erwin Smith’s charge against the Beast Titan). However, there are other times where this isn’t the case and it consistently feels like a missed opportunity to elevate the scene.
Negative: Mikasa
It speaks to the quality of this seaosn when there’s only significant flaws with one of the characters, I would’ve loved to touch on what made each individual character fantastic but once again, I am running out of space to write. Mikasa’s character seems to have hit a roadblock. In part 2 she did have some inarguably good moments, but even in these moments her relationships with character never evolve or reach a deeper level. They get tested constantly but these tests don’t change her, rather just confirm the surface level understanding the audience already has of her. It’s still awkward to watch Mikasa interact with Eren, their conversations are stilted they’re emotionally far apart from each other. Also, despite showing protective feelings for Armin there hasn’t been an insightful conversation between the two. It’s not as if character relationships can only be shown by dialogue, but her actions towards others are also stubbornly predictable. Also, most major events in this show involve attempts at capturing Eren, so she’s typically only focused on protecting from or getting him back which limits the depth of both her and their relationship. It is interesting how she won’t risk the success of a mission to save Eren or Armin or can’t function when one of their lives are endangered, but this was established in season 1 and it hasn’t changed. Mikasa is meant to be cold physically, yet has deep protective feelings, but this contrast can only be played with for so long before it needs to evolve and it shows no sign of doing so.
Overall, this season is the best of Attack on Titan so far, all of its technical elements have reached a new peak while the writing is consistently outdoing itself in new and inventive ways. It’s emotionally jarring, visually stunning and takes risks which pay off immensely, or to put it simply this season is a masterpiece.
Critical and entertainment rating: 9/10
Final rating: 9/10
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