⬛Review info
- Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained HERE
- Review layout: WP non-H
- Review type: Anime
- Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the layout.
NOTE!!!: THIS IS FRANCHISE REVIEW FOR WHOLE SERIES !!!
NOTE2!!!: Just some general thoughts I had. First story section is season specific with review end having SPOILER SPECIFIC RANT.
⬛Review (short ver):
⚡In a nutshell: Big naked people eating small ones for sport with lot of dramatic plot twists.
🟢PROS
✅ Some great impactful dramatic moments
✅ Fairly impressive world building
✅ Entertaining “game of thrones” styled character building
✅ Amazing animation and music
✅ Some really amazing story turning points and main character directions in story…
🚫CONS
❌ Some very dumb and unnecessary plot twists that attempt to overcomplicate things by hiding simple truths behind walls of lies.
❌ With “Game of thrones” death rally I stopped caring about most of characters thus making most of dramatic moments rather desensitized for me.
❌ Some amazing story turning points turned to shit due to stupid further on “plottwists”
❌A little bit of Animation downgrade when studio changed (when CGi used became prominent and on certain episodes not that amazing looking)
❌Some weird story presentation moments where it got confusing in a manner I were forced to put back to previous episode because if felt as if I missed an episode. (more of in comments)
⬛Review (comments/longer ver):
✦Character
I mean, what to say. Our golden trio is essentially Eren the typical fighting Anime musclehead who has maxed his willpower stat whilst is average on everywhere else but due his willpower he gets stronger and stronger, with plenty of amazing uniques. Armin the cynical whiny suckup who has maxed his int stat, making him a great tactician pretty much. And Mikasa…. The extremely overprotective autistic brute who has maxed strength stat.
That would sum up the main squad in a nutshell.
Nevertheless, main charm of the characters and character building as whole in this Anime is the extremely large cast of characters, with lot of them having fairly lot of “role” in different place and story at the time… most of their personalities kind of suck (meaning that, I personally don’t like them, not that they are actually bad as characters) or are just in a style of “if die, don’t care”, which works amazing because of how this Anime world is built. But at the same time, we do have some great key element characters that play much bigger roles in the story and do amazing job as drama fueling.
Overall as whole I consider the “characters” as enjoyment factor fairly good. Them being swatted like flies left and right reminded me “game of thrones”, which made it into a great entertainment factor in this messed up world. Whilst characters I cared about eventually with the whole story, world and character building desensitized me.
Point being, considering how many characters there are. Author managed to keep a lot of them still relevant, interesting and plenty of them gave fair bit of depth and character development.
✦Art & Sound
What can I say. Music “Hiroyuki Sawano”, so epic as always. In general music/OST wise there were a lot of amazing tracks that did fit in great and were presented at amazing timings.
Animation & art was also great. At some point CGi became more prominent (might been when studio changed) and with that CGi there was some quality balance issues. For most part CGi was great, but on few occasions It was odd.
But overall, I considered it still great.
✦Story (NOTE!: Special case this time with “story paragraph”, since this is franchise review, I will have season basis paragraph for “story” , as general “review” per season for story with few thoughts I had and then SEPARATE SPOILER section for some extra rant for specific seasons)
*General
Premise itself starts as an interesting closed off survival story. Where mankind lives in a small walled off area, living in an extremely dangerous world, thinking that they are the only humans left. As the story goes on, the world broadens, the plot creates a lot of tension within the walls and a lot of problems as everything escalates and expands.
Few things across the board that all seasons shared regarding the story was that all seasons did have their share rather epic moments, gut wrenching moments and one thing for sure high-tension moments. Also early on seasons, with certain plot reveals and twists somewhat allow you to get closer to truth what titans actually are. Funnily enough, my speculation to what titans actually are was pretty much spot-on by half-way to season 2. But obviously, my backstory/truth of them couldn’t be anywhere close to the story as there was no proper information about for a while.
*SEASON 1 (9/10)
Probably I consider still this season the best. It presented interesting world, amazing impact in characters, setting and most important the powerful emotional impact on multiple occasions on multiple re-watches I’ve watched it. Plus, it introduces quite well the surface level military regiment purposes, the training, the gear and so on.
Great season with few twists that excited me a fair bit but also a season with 1 stupid story move that forced me to put back to previous episode because it felt as I’ve skipped an episode, but no… it was just a weird move.
*SEASON 2 (borderline 8/10)
A bit of snowball burn season… season that pulls on you certain plot twists and reveals and I considered were really dumb and pointless as in the end they were just lies layered on lies where under those lies were just simple truth on what certain characters wanted to do or have on their personal greed/need level.. which no matter how much you try to complicate things or bury things under pointless lies is in my book just utter garbage. Actually… the more layers of lies or complications you bury your personal need/greed the bigger pile of shit you are as under that reckoning you just damage everything and once that lies are unveiled even more damage is caused.
But aside that…. Season snowballs greatly… in action wise it doesn’t disappoint that much in comparison to season 1.
*SEASON 3 (7/10)
Well…. My season 2 rant applies here EVEN FURTHER and stronger. If anything, lot of story elements and backstories and characters get even more disgusting to a point I care less and less about characters where I feel that they deserve their fate with titans and circumstances. Also, as always with of those “lets try to make characters more real” I always find it so funny how the answer to that is just layers of lies/excuses as if honesty isn’t real.
Infuriating dumb ass forced politics as well piss me off beyond anything.
BUT it isn’t all bad… that was my main gripe with the story itself. It still offers interesting plot twists, developments that leads to great battles, tactics and further proper progress. I mean the world becomes much bigger place. Plus amazing direction overall.
*SEASON 4 (8/10)
Honestly…. This season for the most part I started to enjoy a lot again. It felt so relaxing and soothing once Eren decided to do what he did. Somewhat I felt all those cancers of human beings there finally get what they deserve in their stupid history of lies and pointless infighting of racism, hatred, group isolation, monarchy forced attempts of control, the power-hungry perverse deeds and so on…. The pointless ball throwing of revenge story… “X did that to X to time point Y, So I will do that to X as revenge”. So lets keep throwing that revenge ball to each other forever. Might as well clean slate clean…
Although… did hope a bit different outcome, but considering how the story went I somewhat expected how it would end, but did not expect certain things, which did disappoint me.
Overall was amazing season of chaos, drama, emotions, revenge, overreached plot twists, more explanations, combat…. Did somewhat remind me enjoyment of season 1, but in different manner.
*SPECIALS/OVAS
Going to only mention that Levi OVAs were pretty good. And “Lost girls” was also nice to watch. Rest of ovas were… just bonus I would say, watchable.
✦Enjoyment & Overall
To put it in nutshell in this long ass pseudo pile of garbage of a “review” I would say it’s a great Anime if you want a darker Anime that offers lot of amazing tension building fights, drama and despair where plot twists and course of story somewhat starts you giving “game of thrones” vibes by seeing how fun it’s seeing all the trash dying in a crappy ass world where it would suck it live anyways.
And in attack on titan, it was simply extremely fun in that regard. I was not disappointed in most of fights sequences. Did like plenty of characters for their roles, but barely “loved” any character to actually feel strongly about any of their dramatic events.
Plot twists were somewhat hit or miss for me, some of them I were intrigued about, but a lot of them I were either disappointed or simply disgusted about.
✦STORY SPOILER RANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*SEASON 1
My only issue with this season specific was episode where Annie was being revealed as titan… it was such a random episode, where Annie was being led around by Armin and suddenly boom… that episode felt as if I’ve missed an episode… so I went back to previous episode to see if I missed anything… but nope… next episode they explained. Seriously… such move only works at start of movies or episode 1 as foreshadowing… or dramatic effect. Not in middle of series/movie.
*SEASON 2
Another moment where I had put back to previous ep.. when Reiner and Bert just casually started talking about being titans Eren… I felt again as “did I miss something?” …. Nope… just an event.
Ahh… and a season where “lies” start causing shitstorm because of humans being cancer and thinking lying and dumb as excuses will somehow in the end be good somehow thus creating friction, tension and problems.
Ymir.. why not consult Christa….
Fucking priest…. Really… worth hiding the truth if you and everyone will die soon inside the walls?
Reiner, Bert… you been inside walls… really… your mission is worth bloody ant shit stain. Start working with people instead to stop this stupid friction of pointless “racism”.
*SEASON 3
Of course… force Historia into being seedbed or being a figurehead to pump out children right when she finally wants to live for herself freely… and start all sorts of other political drama….
Of course, secret police now start infighting in a dying out tiny human community.
The grand reveal story of racism story against people of Ymir who once used to rule, now suppressed.
Rip Erwin… somewhat hated and liked him. Disliked him for how emotionally dead and indifferent he was and only controlled everyone around him for his personal greed/gain for his lust for truth of titans. Mate didn’t get to reach basement. But at same time I somewhat enjoyed his character due to I personally stopped caring about most of characters and world as well at certain point as how messed up the world was there and since everyone is dying is left and right, there is no point becoming attached to anyone. So might as well just use everyone as own tool for measure of ends.
*SEASON 4
There were lot of plot twists regarding Ymir, people who suppressed subjects of Ymir, people who tried to restore them. The founder herself….. Zeke… Grisha…. Man… too much shit to snap of everything so I’m going to only mention few things regarding season 4
For starters, I loved Eren’s change of becoming “villain” it was so relaxing him becoming same trash like the wall invaders. Was very ironic. Plus, him stomping the outer lands to the pulp and everyone just being in chaos and crushed after wall dwellers being in such chaos as well was fairly relaxing to watch as it was funnily dumb and ironic seeing in the end, everyone is the same. So, I somewhat hoped Eren would wipe the whole “revenge” out of the world by wiping the whole world…. But… seeing how Eren friends decided to be the good guys and started moving against him… I started already seeing the end… that probably it would be dramatic and Mikasa end up killing him… what I did not expect… was Eren wiping their memories in prior thus that being pre-planned.
Probably episode “Assault”, was one of the most satisfying ones.
But whole founder power of memory manipulation and attack titan seeing future power became rather pain in the arse for the story anyhow. Especially when Eren was chilling in the past with Zeke looking at Eren/Grisha memories and seeing how future Eren affected past memories…
Also founder backstory was depressing… being so deeply in love even knowing that person you love is such cancer… yet still loving that person knowing you getting only hurt… and then being that in the end… man… in that regard Eren did at least nice job freeing Ymir..
Sadly… Mikasa is now chained alone until end of her time. Eren should have at least left her with a child for her to love.