So for my latest anime binge after Gurren Lagan I decided to give Attack on Titan a go, since the English dub is now on UK Netflix and the concept seemed fairly original and interesting.
After watching it all the way through though, I'm honestly not totally sure if I like it overall or not. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty to love, but there seemed to be just as much to hate.
Things to love,
The in-episode music, but not the intro or ending songs. The in-episode music was absolutely fantastic, especially during the action sequences. I found myself re-watching some scenes not just for what was happening but for the music since it just made everything feel even more huge and grand, somewhat impressive for an episode about fighting giants.
Some of the characters. I do like some of the characters, Mikasa and Levi in particular would two favourites, along with Sasha and Zoe (though telling them apart visually could be tricky sometimes if it weren't for Zoe's goggles). I can't really think of any characters I particularly hated as such, though I did find Armin to be too whiny for my tastes, at least until just some switch goes off and he suddenly seems to be perfectly fine with everything.
The ODM. I gotta say, I LOVE the Omni Directional Movement gear. It's a great way of getting normal people to be able to pull off manoeuvres like they do when fighting Titans without giving them actual superpowers (though of course being anime there are still huge exaggerations in physical ability). If I could use one of these to get to work, I totally would.
Things I really didn't like,
The pacing. Or more specifically, the incredible reliance on flashbacks for exposition. Seriously, the second half of the seemed like every episode had at least one flashback. It just felt like the writer had suddenly thought of some exposition or character development that would have been great 10-15 episodes ago, so decided to shoehorn it in now to pad things out a bit. Cutting away from what's going on right now, particularly action scenes, just to have a flashback to people sitting/standing around talking seriously killed the momentum for me. Even worse was when we were getting flashbacks to events that happened barely 1 or 2 episodes ago. Once or twice wouldn't have been so bad but it was happening way too much for my liking. And in all this flashback/exposition work, there was no time to take a peek back at when the Titans first appeared? That's pretty much the only historical event I wanted to see.
The reliance on flashbacks was pretty much the biggest issue I had with the series.
The intro/ending music. Completely didn't click with me, especially the second intro. I didn't hate them exactly, but once was enough and after that it was skip time.
The reveal of the female titan.
So what do you say Gaf? Is it worth continuing on? Is it worth reading the manga/watching season 2 of the anime when it comes along? Do the issues with so many fucking flashbacks get resolved and the reliance on them as a story telling device gets toned down? Do some of all the dangling threads like
and where the Titans originally came from ever get answered or even hinted towards?
After watching it all the way through though, I'm honestly not totally sure if I like it overall or not. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty to love, but there seemed to be just as much to hate.
Things to love,
The in-episode music, but not the intro or ending songs. The in-episode music was absolutely fantastic, especially during the action sequences. I found myself re-watching some scenes not just for what was happening but for the music since it just made everything feel even more huge and grand, somewhat impressive for an episode about fighting giants.
Some of the characters. I do like some of the characters, Mikasa and Levi in particular would two favourites, along with Sasha and Zoe (though telling them apart visually could be tricky sometimes if it weren't for Zoe's goggles). I can't really think of any characters I particularly hated as such, though I did find Armin to be too whiny for my tastes, at least until just some switch goes off and he suddenly seems to be perfectly fine with everything.
The ODM. I gotta say, I LOVE the Omni Directional Movement gear. It's a great way of getting normal people to be able to pull off manoeuvres like they do when fighting Titans without giving them actual superpowers (though of course being anime there are still huge exaggerations in physical ability). If I could use one of these to get to work, I totally would.
Things I really didn't like,
The pacing. Or more specifically, the incredible reliance on flashbacks for exposition. Seriously, the second half of the seemed like every episode had at least one flashback. It just felt like the writer had suddenly thought of some exposition or character development that would have been great 10-15 episodes ago, so decided to shoehorn it in now to pad things out a bit. Cutting away from what's going on right now, particularly action scenes, just to have a flashback to people sitting/standing around talking seriously killed the momentum for me. Even worse was when we were getting flashbacks to events that happened barely 1 or 2 episodes ago. Once or twice wouldn't have been so bad but it was happening way too much for my liking. And in all this flashback/exposition work, there was no time to take a peek back at when the Titans first appeared? That's pretty much the only historical event I wanted to see.
The reliance on flashbacks was pretty much the biggest issue I had with the series.
The intro/ending music. Completely didn't click with me, especially the second intro. I didn't hate them exactly, but once was enough and after that it was skip time.
The reveal of the female titan.
Just didn't really make any sense to me. The reveal of Annie as the female titan just seemed to come completely out of nowhere. There'd never been any hints that it was her besides the vague resemblance, and the complete lack of explanation as to how or why really grated with me. Maybe it gets explained later on in the manga, or in season 2 of the anime, but until then this is going to be a sticking point with me. The Scouts seemed to make some pretty big leaps of logic to figure out it was her as well.
So what do you say Gaf? Is it worth continuing on? Is it worth reading the manga/watching season 2 of the anime when it comes along? Do the issues with so many fucking flashbacks get resolved and the reliance on them as a story telling device gets toned down? Do some of all the dangling threads like
how/why Annie and Eren can become Titans
