Anime Review: Attack on Titan

 

Let me first start off with a confession.I haven't really been invested in anime in several years. There are a lot of reasons for this: generic art character design, overemphasis on chibi and childish humor, and fan service (pantie shots, boob shots) of underage girls that seems to highlight a specific pedophile perversion in some Japanese directors and animators. Fortunately, Attack on Titan has non of these common tropes. Taking place in either an alternate history or alternate world (this part is not clear), a walled city has been fighting humanoid giants, or Titans for man years. Humanity is afraid to leave the walls for obvious reasons. A few nitpicks I have with this are: Where do they get food? How do they farm. How do they build structures within the walls when they would need materials from the outside.
Nitpicking aside, this is a serious anime, with spectacular animation and contains enough dramatic tension to keep viewers hooked. If I were going to pick any show on American TV similar to this, I'd have to go with AMC's The Walking Dead. There are a lot of major deaths in the show, and the tone is very bleak. Often times anime shows will teeter between cheerful and dramatic, and more often than not this is a failure. This show doesn't pull any comedic punches, and since my humor is very different than that of the Japanese, I was glad there wasn't any.
Similar to The Walking Dead, there are some real dull moments, especially about 3/4s of the way in. Characters could use a bit more development, and the world's mythology could be a bit more fleshed out. Since I haven't read the manga (japanese comics), I can't argue that this isn't explained, but being that I have seen all there is to offer as a complete show, it feels very incomplete. Once again, I'm referring to the show, not the ongoing manga. I hope that this isn't the end of the series, but I won't hold my breath.
Overall, if you are into anime, this is a must. If you are hesitant about anime, I'd say give it about 3-4 episodes (each one is about 25 minutes long). I also am stopping the rating system on this site, because I think that it cheapens the art form to rank quality.