Attack on Titan S2-
I found this season of AoT to be vastly improved over its predecessor. It reminds me of the leaps in quality found in Symphogeah and Fafner. AoT S2 feels like the team at WIT has a better grasp on the material both in how they want to present it and the emotions they want to hit. This cour for starters actually had an emotional core to it, which consisted of Christa and Ymir, that wasn't really present for the first season. The focus on them gives the audience a reason to care about at least some of the characters in this universe.
I didn't think much of the relationship between the two when reading the manga but the way it's presented here, with remixed material from Ymir's background, really makes for an interesting dynamic. The relationship also benefits from the enhanced visuals, largely credited to the digital makeup team at WIT, that enhances certain moments. This season had a bigger focus on the eyes as a way of conveying emotion and it worked in a way that I've never really seen done before. I think I have over 50+ screenshots of just eyes. It's not just the increased shading on the faces however, this season seemingly (I admittedly don't remember much of this from S1) had better layouts which simply presented the material in a more captivating fashion.
It somewhat reminds me of Michael Bay, not in how most people associate Bay with explosions but rather motion and heroic framing. There's a lot of shots that have the characters posing or the camera tilted upwards with the hero at the top of some hill/rubble while an action is happening in the background. I'm thinking of Mikasa standing on the castle ruins while the scouts launch a counterattack behind her and, as seen above, Eren on top of the hill in the last episode.
Most people would describe Araki's direction in S1 as being bombastic and while that's true here as well, it works better because the show revels in it on almost all fronts. At times it felt like Araki's direction was conflicting with the material presented and here I never got that impression. Part of that is obviously due to the increased production values all around but it's also because the storyboarding is more judicial in its framing and is more consistent from a tone perspective. The director is willing to let other parts of the production do the heavy lifting and not just force it from the storyboarding side. The above shot for example is not anything fancy from a storyboard perspective but the increased shading and lighting done later give it a significant emotional punch.
All of the above is not downplaying how fantastic the choreography during the fights were. Arifumi Imai has gotten more comfortable doing the 3DMG maneuvers over the years. The camera is moving more in conjunction with the characters during some of the high intensity scenes. The MMA wrestling between Eren and the Armored Titan was more fun to watch than Annie and Eren's boxing in S1. WIT finally being able to stick to a production schedule is reflecting in how much more consistent the visuals are.
Even from the audio side, I found Sawano's score in this cour to be possibly his best work since Unicorn (I would have to relisten to TBF/SDS to make a firm judgement there). Unlike Re:Creators where he's clearly half-assing it, there's a number of really good tracks this season and the directors are also improved at using his music. His stuff is nowhere near as obnoxious as previously and surprisingly works well in a number of scenes. I wasn't planning on commenting on the voice acting but I thought the final episode was excellent enough that it's worth mentioning. Yuki Kaji nailed Eren's laughing in the middle as it was haunting and expressed his frustration well. At times I can almost empathize with Eren and that's a miracle in of itself with how annoying he is. Similarly Yoshimasa Hosoya did a great job with Reiner later as you could actually hear the fear and trepidation in his voice.
It's pretty weird to be describing Attack on Titan as really being a good show but here we are. I'm not sure I like saying it either. Anyway, everything seems to be clicking now over at WIT. Season 3 should be pretty hype. Just let me fast forward to 2018.
