Attack on Titan Anime Review
Dec. 5th, 2018 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arias_hollow**This is an old review I am cataloging and may not reflect my Current thoughts on the matter**
So I finally decided to watch Attack on Titan, and wound up binge watching all of it in about two days. Keep in mind please that I have not read the manga or watched the OVAs, this is a review purely on the anime itself.
So first I’ll start with what I liked about the anime. The animation, for starters, was BEAUTIFUL, especially the landscapes they were just SO GORGEOUS. I also thought the ost was brilliant and really fit the mood of the anime well. But what I liked most about the anime was that it was EXCITING. It was chock full of extremely well done action, watching the characters whiz through air with their gear and hacking up titans on some sort of crazed rage-filled mission was SERIOUSLY FUN. Like for real I loved how exciting and technical and fast paced the fight scenes were. The drama was pretty good too, especially at certain parts, but it could have been improved upon as well.
Which leads me to the next part of my review: what I didn’t like so much about the anime. First off, I didn’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters, which kind of subdued a lot of the emotional impact of the series for me. All I know about Eren, the MAIN PROTAGONIST, is that he is angry, determined, and traumatized and cares about his friends. That’s not a lot to go off of and can be applied to most action anime protagonists. Mikasa, while her fight scenes were often my favorites, was mostly just really kick-butt and slightly obsessed with Eren (there was some depth with her back-story that I liked but even that doesn’t tell you a ton about her as a person). Armin was probably my favorite, even if he mainly just went from ‘the nice smart guy’ to ‘the rational kick-butt strategist’, I just really liked him. I know everyone loves Levi, but from just the anime alone I don’t really get why; once I stopped being angry at his unpunished jerkitude, I definitely found him intriguing, but nothing was ever really learned about him. Because the action was so non-stop, there wasn’t time for the characters to just breathe and be themselves, which made the drama, in my opinion, less effective. Annies betrayal had almost no emotional impact on me because she was barely in the show before that, and even though we’re TOLD she and the other recruits had bonded during their years of training, we never SEE her interacting with others, or at least not very much.
My other main problem with the anime is that NOTHING ABOUT THE PLOT GETS RESOLVED. We don’t learn about what the titans are or where they come from, or what Eren’s dad was experimenting with that gave Eren titan powers, or why anyone else managed to have titan powers, Eren never reclaimed Wall Maria and got to the basement let alone actually accomplish his goal of killing all the titans. Basically NONE OF MY QUESTION WERE ANSWERED AND IT WAS VERY FRUSTRATING.
So, overall, I can say it was extremely fun anime to binge watch and had SO MUCH POTENTIAL to have awesome characters if we’d gotten to know them better and the plot was intriguing but totally unexplained and unresolved. The animation, ost, and fight scenes really were a lot of fun though, so I’m giving it a 6/10.
I turn now to the manga for answers and retribution.
So I finally decided to watch Attack on Titan, and wound up binge watching all of it in about two days. Keep in mind please that I have not read the manga or watched the OVAs, this is a review purely on the anime itself.
So first I’ll start with what I liked about the anime. The animation, for starters, was BEAUTIFUL, especially the landscapes they were just SO GORGEOUS. I also thought the ost was brilliant and really fit the mood of the anime well. But what I liked most about the anime was that it was EXCITING. It was chock full of extremely well done action, watching the characters whiz through air with their gear and hacking up titans on some sort of crazed rage-filled mission was SERIOUSLY FUN. Like for real I loved how exciting and technical and fast paced the fight scenes were. The drama was pretty good too, especially at certain parts, but it could have been improved upon as well.
Which leads me to the next part of my review: what I didn’t like so much about the anime. First off, I didn’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters, which kind of subdued a lot of the emotional impact of the series for me. All I know about Eren, the MAIN PROTAGONIST, is that he is angry, determined, and traumatized and cares about his friends. That’s not a lot to go off of and can be applied to most action anime protagonists. Mikasa, while her fight scenes were often my favorites, was mostly just really kick-butt and slightly obsessed with Eren (there was some depth with her back-story that I liked but even that doesn’t tell you a ton about her as a person). Armin was probably my favorite, even if he mainly just went from ‘the nice smart guy’ to ‘the rational kick-butt strategist’, I just really liked him. I know everyone loves Levi, but from just the anime alone I don’t really get why; once I stopped being angry at his unpunished jerkitude, I definitely found him intriguing, but nothing was ever really learned about him. Because the action was so non-stop, there wasn’t time for the characters to just breathe and be themselves, which made the drama, in my opinion, less effective. Annies betrayal had almost no emotional impact on me because she was barely in the show before that, and even though we’re TOLD she and the other recruits had bonded during their years of training, we never SEE her interacting with others, or at least not very much.
My other main problem with the anime is that NOTHING ABOUT THE PLOT GETS RESOLVED. We don’t learn about what the titans are or where they come from, or what Eren’s dad was experimenting with that gave Eren titan powers, or why anyone else managed to have titan powers, Eren never reclaimed Wall Maria and got to the basement let alone actually accomplish his goal of killing all the titans. Basically NONE OF MY QUESTION WERE ANSWERED AND IT WAS VERY FRUSTRATING.
So, overall, I can say it was extremely fun anime to binge watch and had SO MUCH POTENTIAL to have awesome characters if we’d gotten to know them better and the plot was intriguing but totally unexplained and unresolved. The animation, ost, and fight scenes really were a lot of fun though, so I’m giving it a 6/10.
I turn now to the manga for answers and retribution.
