I know exactly what emotional impact Attack on Titan was
going for this week and I know exactly why it missed the mark for me. While I
can respect the effort and I think a lot of people will be happy with how it
all unfolded, I end up feeling very much like Armin’s sacrifice in episode 5
has been completely undermined.
Which of course, might very well be the point. Armin
formulated a plan, he put it into action, he resigned himself to the outcome,
and he held fast right to the end. He as a character had more control over his
fate than almost any other this narrative has thrown at us and he didn’t die
screaming and pleading for his life or in a puddle of tears and piss. He died a
true hero.
Only, Attack on Titan doesn’t really like heroes. Or at
least that’s how it seems. It is a world where the horrible and the scheming
rise to the top and the honest and noble are beaten down or killed before they
have the chance to succeed. So in that sense, undermining everything that
happened at the end of episode 5 may very well have been the point in which
case it succeeded admirably but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Armin has
long been one of the few characters in Attack on Titan I’ve liked and seeing
his will getting overthrown like that was pretty depressing.
The choice?
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However, if we take Armin out of the equation, this episode
did an excellent job with Levi. Also with Mikasa, and Jean, and Hange, and even
Eren. Emotionally each of these characters faced choices that truly have no
right answer and all of them have horrendous repercussions if they make the
wrong choice and yet each of them, in their own way, stepped up to the plate.
It is rare that I say that I admire these characters for anything but their
absolute guts in the face of insanity, but episode 6 brought out the best in
them even as they almost tore each other apart.
I don’t think this settled who would win a fight between Levi and Mikasa given the situation but it was still kind of cool to watch.
Armin or Erwin, who to bring back? Erwin, who sacrificed
every scout essentially for the chance to maybe bring down the enemy and a
chance to peek inside the basement or Armin who sacrificed himself and thought
of how to save the others so that they might continue the journey. I kind of
agreed with that random scout that Erwin should not escape this hell so easily,
but Levi’s point that Erwin was the character they made him be was understood.
So instead of moved or caught up in the story, my head is spinning with all the what-ifs and maybes and questioning each of the character choices up to now and in this moment. The one thing that is true is that this episode was very Attack on Titan. I don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t know if I’ll ever sort out the mess it just created when I think about this situation. I do know though that I’ll be watching the next episode as soon as I can because at this point I just have to know what is in that basement.
Welcome to part two of the collaboration between Scott and myself as we discuss Attack on Titan and its latest developments as well as ask those pressing questions that have been on our minds. I had a lot of fun with this particular collaboration and it was a long time coming because Scott and I have had a number of scheduling conflicts. Hopefully this isn’t the last time we work together because this was a really fun conversation. That said, let’s get into the second part and if you missed part one, be sure to hop on over to Scott’s blog and check it out.
Watch out, there are spoilers below if you are not up to episode 5 of Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two.
Mind blown.
So, I wanted to ask you what your thoughts were on the Beast Titan. Mostly because I’m utterly confused by that character.
That’s a good question. I guess he’s related to Eren somehow? Maybe? Not knowing about him is kind of frustrating. I’m even confused on whether or not he knows about baseball because he’s been using pitching throws to chuck a bunch of rocks.
Yeah, the baseball references were a bit… let’s just call them odd. They absolutely didn’t fit with the rest of the world given we’ve been given no indication baseball, or team sports of any kind, are a thing. But I’m even confused as to his motive. He showed up all big and bad and then just disappeared for huge chunks of time only to conveniently show up at times when it is really inconvenient for the scouts. I just feel like if his objective was simply to destroy the humans he probably could have accomplished it a fair while ago without all the games.
A Titan sports anime would be kind of entertaining though. But in general, I definitely agree. There is something more to his interactions then just eliminating humanity. I don’t mind be left in the dark when it comes to some things and all his actions are guided in some way, but I wish Attack on Titan at least gave him more than flashbacks that only last a minute or two that let us in on him. The only thing that comes to my mind is that Attack on Titan is leaving us in the dark for a reason. I hope it’s a good reason.
Me too. Attack on Titan has this tendency to drag things out a very long time before getting to a reveal though so I’m not expecting answers any time soon. But there is one question I need answered by the end of this season. And that is of course, what is in Eren’s basement?!
OMG, yes. The question that has been there ever since the second half of season one. Eren’s dad was hopefully up to something interesting and extravagant for making us wait so long. Probably not though. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a combination of a mad scientist lab and carry some important historical documents about this world. What do you think, Karandi?
Wouldn’t we all like to know why.
I think that would be nice. I keep having this horrible feeling that after dragging it out this long they’ll get there and find the house completely collapsed in on the basement or it all burnt up in the most recent explosion/fire in the town. That would be so cruel to the viewer and so typical of Attack on Titan. The other option is that it is something completely game changing only I have no idea what that would be. Maybe a new syringe that gives Eren’s titan the ability to disintegrate other titans with a look? I’m mostly joking about that.
It’s still possible though. Definitely would be the longest and most aggravating shonen power up I’ve ever seen to achieve if that was the case. Whatever it is, I definitely feel like it would hopefully change everything that we know so far even more. Didn’t even think about it all being ruined until you brought that up for some reason or another, even though that is an obvious thing that could happen.
I know this is the wrong side of the wall but the damage on the other side was worse. These houses do not look like they are going to be standing much longer.
Maybe I just have too negative an outlook on life at this point. Then again, I have sat through three seasons of Attack on Titan and I can’t think of one time when everything actually went their way without some casualty.
Completely fair. Definitely not the kind of show you watch casually or when you need something uplifting. Still, I find it so captivating for some reason. Dang, it’s been such a long road.
Agreed. Season one grabbed me with its first episode and while I found a lot of the second half of season one and a lot of season two meandering, there’s something compelling about the story here and the world they are in. Then season three started building on all of that and now I’m completely hooked again with this second part. What’s really true is that none of the last couple of episodes could have happened without all of that previous stuff as even though it wasn’t as fantastic to watch there’s really nothing at this point that we could discard and have the impact we’ve been getting. This one is definitely one where we have to take a long view of it and episodic reviewing doesn’t really fit with the story and yet we’re all trying to do it anyway.
I’ve been generally more positive with Attack on Titan’s second season then some people, because it had enough good character moments to make it at least passable as a watch, but I agree. Throughout most of season three so far, it’s been mostly hit after hit with. While still having issues like the Beast Titan being there for some reason, everything else has very worth it. I really like how the ending of this part of season three has been focusing on the Scouts training because it really fits with everything that has happened this season and is a big reminder of what the humble beginnings were like.
Anything else you want to discuss before we wrap this up?
Not much comes to mind for me, how about you?
Super important question: who do you think would win a fight between Mikasa and Levi?
Somewhat biased opinion, but I am leaning towards Mikasa a little bit because she’s younger and probably has more energy to spare when it comes to combat. A little bit of that younger and plucky vs experienced and veteran sort of thing.
You don’t think Levi’s experience would give him an edge?
Oh dang, you got me. Still, I know that combat is somewhat about the same with swinging from at each other and attacking with swords, but maybe Mikasa could come up with some attack that Levi wouldn’t expect. Of course, then again this me thinking on the fly here about this. Gah.
Not that it matters. Unless Levi kidnaps Eren in which case I’d put money on Mikasa winning the fight. Don’t stand between her and Eren under any circumstances.
Agreed, Not even Levi could withstand that rage.
But I think we’re done. I’m so glad we finally managed to organise this and I had a lot of fun even if we’re still both stuck waiting for the next few episodes to find out what actually happens. Want to bet all our guesses turn out wrong?
You know what, I would take that bet. This show can throw some curveballs at us (hopefully not from a beast titan), so I expect that is what is going to happen. I’m glad we finally got around to doing this.
Guess now we’ll wait and see what Attack on Titan throws at us next.
But hey, Attack on Titan has just been great to watch this season and if you want to join in speculating about what will happen throw Scott or myself a comment or a question. I’m just going to ask you keep them spoiler free for those of us who haven’t read the source.
Wow! Ouch! Wow again. And let’s throw an ‘ooh’ in there for
good measure.
Yep, episode 5 of Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2 has
rendered me effectively speechless and trying to describe the emotional
response to this episode results in onomatopoeia, word salad, and mostly
inarticulate phrases. Shock, horror, celebration, stunned silence, horror
again, utter depression, minor triumph, followed by the stillness that comes
from being so confused about how I feel and yet moved nonetheless.
A truly hopeless situation and one where there will be no eleventh hour rescue. Regardless of how contrived, this works emotionally.
It isn’t as though the episode is some model of perfection.
There’s sections of animation that aren’t as polished as some of the sequences
we were getting in season one, the character points are all very much
orchestrated as are the emotional notes. It isn’t in the slightest bit subtle
as we see the death and disaster roll out before us and other than a moment of
excellent timing there’s nothing overly clever about it.
Ouch!
What makes this episode work is that it is the culmination
of the all the events leading up to it. Each character moment, whether it is
Levi, Armin, Eren, Jean, Bertholdt, Reiner, or the random scout who apparently
survived the suicide charge, fits beautifully as the next step in their journey’s
even if that step seems to be the end of the line.
In this moment I finally understood the Levi fandom.
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This is where episodic reviewing is a problem. In terms of
spectacle, this episode brought it. Again, it could have been more polished in
places, but it looks good enough (significantly better than a lot of anime out
there). There’s enough going on to keep the audience hooked and invested with
sufficient pauses for the characters to have their moments. However, this
episode doesn’t progress plot or the like. It consolidates a sequence of events
we’ve been watching and invested in over the last few weeks and as such it
nails the perfect emotional climax.
The moment of death – approximately two seconds after this image was captured. Again, ouch.
I’m not going to say what happened, you should just watch it. However, new respect for Levi. That was pretty amazing. Eren gets an incredibly bitter-sweet triumph with a heavy dose of the bitter side of it. And Armin… well, as I said, just watch the episode.
In my review of episode 2, I said there was a real pleasure
in seeing the humans occasionally looking like they might come out on top. The
key phrase being ‘looking like they might’. See, realistically what hooked me
into Attack on Titan in season one was how utterly brutal it was and seeing the
humans getting beaten down and driven into a corner. The humans who broke and
the humans who stood and fight and the utter indifference the titan showed
regardless of the character of the human in front of them.
Simple and yet effective destruction and absolutely devastating to the human characters.
Therefore, it kind of makes sense that episode 4 of season
three part two (that is such a mouthful) hit me very much like the very first
episode of Attack on Titan. While for a lot of season three (part 1 and now
part 2) I’ve been finding reasons to enjoy it again and new respect for the
characters, this episode actually managed to bring back the awe and the very
real horror of the situation the characters are in.
There were so many moments that just left me breathless and
I watched many sections multiple times just to try and absorb and process what
had happened. It wasn’t that the episode was fast paced. Arguably, it is quite
slow in how it moves forward. It is more that each event is so pivotal to this
fight and there’s so many emotions attached with each section that my brain just
froze and I had to watch it again.
Eren tries to take on the Colossal Titan.
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Whether it was Armin freezing in his role and then throwing
the torch to Jean in an act of desperation, Mikasa’s reaction to Eren getting
kicked through the air to land atop the wall, the scouts freaking out as yet
more groups are wiped out in an instant as the beast titan flung broken
boulders at them, or Erwin’s ‘motivating’ speech before the last charge, every
single moment just hit hard. Everything is so raw and human as characters faced
with an insurmountable challenge either crumble or attempt to rally for a last
act of defiance and it is beautifully brutal in its delivery.
I really wish I knew what was with this guy’s hair.
It has been a fair while since I’ve really gotten this swept up in an episode of Attack on Titan but realistically there isn’t a thing about this episode I would change. It just worked. And while we’ll once again have to wait for the next episode to really see the outcome, I’m actually happy for now. I need the time to contemplate and digest and that is the mark of a really solid episode of anything.
This world really is cruel, but that’s what makes it such a compelling viewing experience.
Episode 3
Understatement thinking that leaving us mid-battle was going
to become the standard this season. Not that there is anything wrong with this
episode as it gives us some more Bertholdt and Reiner moments back before they
revealed their identities before plunging us back into the battle.
It does feel odd to be getting this kind of back-story now
on these two characters who have been there all along, however it does put a
new spin on the death of Marco all that time ago and we continue to see that
pretty much the world these characters inhabit is just plain horrible. There
have been so any moments in Attack on Titan where the phrase ‘that sucks’ has
been appropriate and seeing the characters this week and the choices they make
and the choices they could have made which were ultimately just as bad, you can’t
help but agree with Bertholdt when he points out that the world is ‘cruel’.
For the scouts there is a moment of triumph but also tears
as they finally bring down the Armoured titan but even then, what little
success it was is momentary before taken from them again. However, even before
we realise the futility of their efforts, Conny and Sasha are dealing with the
trauma of essentially taking the life of someone they trained with and worked
with. This isn’t a nameless titan or an unseen enemy but someone they know very
well and they were directly involved in taking him down. While the other
characters attempt to remain more detached you can tell the action takes its
toll on all of them.
But, there’s no time for processing emotions when you’ve got
a colossal titan blowing up and setting fire to the town. Armin might briefly
attempt negotiation but what is there really to negotiate in this situation?
Neither side intends to change their minds now so the conclusion is decided
before they even really begin.
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Despite the very limited progress in terms of time, it feels
like a lot happened and to be honest the visual sensation that is the end of this
episode (even if the animation was quite what it could have been) is more than
enough payoff. There’s something just gut-wrenchingly horrific about the
entirety of what is playing out here and the colossal titan flailing about
surrounded by the burning buildings that it is using as projectile weapons is
kind of the perfect visual to capture the true horror of the entire scenario.
This war is either just getting started – or it’s about to end tragically for everyone.
Episode 1
I feel like this is cheating and Attack on Titan should just
call it season 4 but whatever, here we are for season 3 part two. As usual the
humans are in a terrible situations, titans are terrifying, and every character
is walking around like the weight of the world is on their shoulders and every
line of dialogue is delivered as if it is the defining moment of the episode.
But none of that is new and if you’ve watched Attack on Titan up to this point
that isn’t going to make you walk away now.
Besides, this episode looks great, the plot seems to be
progressing nicely, Eren doesn’t shout, and the hook at the end of the episode
to get us to come back for the next episode was pretty spectacular. There’s
just very little to complain about as this gives us more of Attack on Titan.
Are we just trying to raise a death flag here?
I still have to wonder about the sense of walking past the
sleeping titan in the dark and not dealing with it. I just kept thinking as it
stared at them creepily in the dark that it could be sending messages or doing
anything for all they knew and yet they left an enemy alive behind them. That
just seemed to be asking for trouble. Not that it really mattered given they
were clearly always going to be walking into trouble.
Armin actually got to play an active role for the first time
in awhile and I loved his reaction to being put in charge of something. It was
a rare amusing moment in Attack on Titan that hit the perfect note and yet didn’t
distract from the overall tension of the scene. It’s a shame Mikasa remains
pretty much solely Eren’s shadow and seems to still have no personality or life
beyond that.
However, the coolest moment of the episode goes to Levi who
is very much going with a stab first and ask questions never approach to
dealing with the enemy. It may not have actually worked but it was still a definitively
cool move.
All and all, here we are for another round of Attack on
Titan. Here’s hoping it all works out.
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Episode 2
While this episode is entirely the first part of this
massive battle they seem to have set up, at no point does it feel like Attack
on Titan is dragging its feet. From Erwin making his decisions and ordering his
troops to seeing Levi in action before cutting to the awaited Eren and Reiner
rematch with the other scouts ready to make a move, it all comes together
beautifully and even while you are waiting for everything to fall apart and the
screaming, shouting and dying to kick off again (come on, this is Attack on
Titan), there’s a real pleasure in seeing the humans occasionally look like
they might come out on top of something.
And we’re shouting again.
There were a few moments visually where the titans movements
felt really clunky or large groups of people or titans seemed barely animated,
however you can kind of see why when you look at the incredibly fluid motion in
the second half of the episode. While it isn’t quite as thrilling as the first
time seeing the ODM gear in action, it is still pretty awesome to watch and
Eren’s fighting style as a titan has become vastly more polished now that he’s
a bit more trained and more self-aware.
As an episode, about the only issue is that it directly
picks up from the previous one and leaves us hanging still in the midst of
battle (and I suspect that’s going to be the MO for this season for awhile
because it feels like this battle is going to take a lot to get through). Binge
watching it would be awesome but waiting a week in between means very limited progress
given I’m wondering if we even saw ten minutes of actual conflict play out.
This doesn’t actually make this bad, but it is where seasonal watching is at a
distinct disadvantage to those who wait for an anime to be completed.
Still impressed by Eren’s lack of shouting, fairly happy
with how events are unfolding, and certainly keen to see what happens next.
Attack on Titan’s third season definitely got me hooked back into the story and
part two seems to be setting up a pretty spectacular battle here.
I was asked by DMWonder on Twitter whether I was going to do a anime I’m looking forward to post for the Spring season. As a general rule I just kind of wait until the season starts because when I do look ahead, I get excited about an anime and then realise it didn’t come out somewhere I could watch it anyway which leads to disappointment. That or I get hyped for something that then fails to deliver and again, disappointment.
So to avoid disappointment, I have taken the bury head in sand approach to seasonal viewing and while it is impossible to avoid hearing some of the titles coming out as other bloggers and anime fans on twitter share their thoughts on the upcoming season, I don’t go digging for more information until the season starts. Still, after I was asked this question, I got curious.
To make a not so thrilling story shorter, I went and had a look at MAL’s list of what was coming out in the spring and so here we are with me listing the top 5 anime I’m anticipating. If they don’t come out on services I use or they suck, I never made this list. Just saying.
However, though a lot of my readers have already shared their lists on their blogs, I’d love to know what Spring titles you are looking forward to, so be sure to leave us a comment below.
Honourable Mentions:
There are a few. These are titles that I kind of thought might be interesting but until you see how the first episode goes there’s really no way to tell. On this list I’ll add: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Fairy Gone. Both look like they could be really interesting, but they could also both fall completely flat depending on how the ideas come together.
Number 5: Shoumetsu Toshi
I don’t know what it is that is really grabbing my attention about this one. Maybe it’s just the opening line of the synopsis where it says a city just disappeared. Whichever way, something about this one kept grabbing my attention. That said, it lists a game as its source and that may or may not be a problem, but I’m still going to be hopeful about this one.
Number 4: Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin
Alright, this one is just asking for it to flog big time, but the write up on this one looks interesting and that supernatural label always gets my attention even if I sometimes regret it after the fact. Throw in youkai and potential exorcists and you at least have me looking for your first episode ready to enjoy. Whether I will or not remains to be seen but this one seems like it should be right up my alley.
Number 3: Bungo Stray Dogs Season 3
While this isn’t one of my favourite franchises, Bungo Stray Dogs has enough fairly awesome moments (particularly the start of season 2) to keep my attention. Visually it is always a spectacle and the powers are really cool. While I’d like a bit more from the story some times and find the focus on Atsushi a little less than thrilling when there are so many better characters in the show, I must say I still had a bit of a smile when I saw this was coming back.
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Number 2: Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2
Weird that I thought I’d be dropping Attack on Titan when season 3 started. But part one of this managed to get me really excited for the story again and even made me appreciate a lot of the characters more and so here I am getting hyped for a part two. Let’s hope it holds up because this one has got a lot of hype around it and just being okay won’t really be enough to stave off disappointment.
Number 1: Fruits Basket
I was completely in love with the original series of this, though always found the art style and the incomplete nature of the story a little frustrating. This was one that I looked up the manga online because I had to know what happened next but ended up realising there were quite a few changes. With all of that said, this one had been on my list of anime I wanted a reboot for, for a very long time and finally getting a reboot is incredibly exciting. I will definitely be watching this anime during Spring.
I’m not the biggest fan of military movies or war focused stories (at least not realistic ones). I find them a little bit depressing to be honest. There are exceptions, usually science fiction or fantasy is enough of a hook (such as Starship Troopers), and I’ve definitely noticed a soft spot for anime that brings in the military (though being told something is military focused isn’t the draw).
Today I’m looking at my favourite military focused anime. Authenticity isn’t a concern. I don’t care whether the ranks and positions are wrong, whether characters would actually be able to behave in certain manners in a real army, or whether the military exists or is part of an entirely fictional setting. I’m just concerned with anime that I really ended up enjoying that had a strong military focus. As such, I’m sure there are many great military anime that aren’t going to get a mention and I’d love to know your favourites so feel free to give them a shout out in the comments below.
Honourable Mentions:
Honourable mentions this time around go to the entire Gundam Franchise, which I continue to have a love/hate relationship with as the various entries either really grab me and pull me in or I end up abandoning fairly early on, and Heavy Object. Now Heavy Object is an anime in general that doesn’t get enough conversation so I really wanted it on my top 5 list, but the numerous flaws with the show prevented me from putting it above anything on the list. That said, I really liked Heavy Object, a lot more than I expected.
Now, I won’t deny that season two of Attack on Titan saw my patience wearing thin after a fairly big slow down in the second half of season one. But, the early episodes of season one really grabbed me and while the titan at the wall was a big part of that, so was Eren and crew’s original military training. It is such an integral part of the show and the characters and those early episodes were really good. Season three also picked up a lot of things and part of it is the power structure of the world including where the military fits into that. All and all, while this isn’t one of my favourite of all time anime, the military influence is quite strong and some of the better moments comes when the story focuses on these elements.
Whether it is FMA or FMA Brotherhood, the military focus of Armestris is pretty clear. Love the uniforms, as impractical as they appear, and a lot of the drama in the show comes from the higher ups withholding information from subordinates. Also, characters are regularly compelled to act against their own nature because being in the military does mean following orders. Both versions of Full Metal Alchemist really do an excellent job of showcasing both the problems of large military organisations as well as the camaraderie and loyalty that can grow between soldiers working for a common cause. All and all, a solid anime with a military focus to sink your teeth into.
Right, so we’re really moving away from realistic here, but I love Code Geass. The ongoing war, the terrorist tactics, the military responses and escalation of weapons of mass destruction… despite the mechs and the fantastical political scenario so much in terms of the themes and ideas are incredibly relatable but it ends up being over dramatised and becomes pure entertainment. From Lelouche’s flamboyant persona as Zero to the amazing feats Suzaku pulls off, everything about this story is great entertainment, even if a little tragic if linked back to reality.
Okay, I couldn’t find a nice picture of the military uniforms, but the school uniform is pretty military like.
This one had to be on the list. In fact, this was where I started and I felt for sure GATE would end up being number one. Alas, I remembered something better, but for now I’ll just go through why I love GATE. It reminded me a lot of the early Stargate episodes with the military going through to other worlds and Daniel Jackson trying to talk with the populations why they looked for resources and the like. Yet, it had all the crazy anime trapping we’ve come to expect from isekai with elf-girls and magicians, and of course Rory Mercury… Want to see the Japanese military face off against a fire-breathing dragon? Helicopters taking on bandits storming a fortress? GATE was great fun to just strap in and watch.
Lastly, we get to my number one entry on this list. When thinking of military focus of course I thought of the number one military maniac himself, Sousuke Sagara. I absolutely loved Full Metal Panic’s ability to balance a fairly serious military style story with hired mercenaries and various agencies as well as the high school comedy aspects. It doesn’t make a huge amount of sense if you stop and think about it, but it absolutely gets the fun factor right and some of the fight sequences and the tactics they come up with are incredibly impressive.
And there you have it, my top 5 military focused anime. As I said, I’d love to know yours so leave me a comment.
Here we are at Day 6 of the 12 Days of Anime. Yesterday we looked at a character who possessed poise and grace as she moved through her unrequited love (Sayaka from Bloom Into You) but today’s pick couldn’t be any more different. A shounen protagonist who throws himself at everything with the same bull-headed attitude, it is Eren Jaeger from Attack on Titan.
Now, Eren Jaeger is a character who I really haven’t liked for a lot of the three seasons and yet as season three progressed, I found myself finding a new appreciation for him. Admittedly, I’m not exactly joining the Eren fan-club anytime soon, but season three managed to see him going through some fairly well deserved character development – or maybe he just finally grew up.
Spending a large number of the episodes tied up and gagged was something I initially found amusing because in the absence of Eren yelling at things, it felt like we could finally see some of the other characters in action without him and let them shine. And that was true to a point, but what I didn’t expect was that when Eren finally got to speak, that for once he wouldn’t just be that angry, shouting little boy we’d endured for the previous seasons.
Suddenly, we had an Eren who was reflecting on the power he had and how he’d received. An Eren who was thinking about the long game and while he was also a little defeatest, understood that he wasn’t necessarily the one who was going to save everyone. Yet even at his lowest point, when push came to shove, Eren acted to save the other scouts. Even after that, he didn’t suddenly let it go to his head; instead he remained aware of his own individual insignificance and was working his hardest to contribute what he could.
Yes, season three of Attack on Titan gave me new reason to think about Eren’s character and the journey he has been on. While I’m still not the biggest fan of Eren, and I still don’t like shouting protagonists, it really was like watching someone grow up right before my eyes and the transformation felt natural given the circumstances, and earned, given what he’d gone through. Now I’m keenly looking forward to where his character goes from here, though given it is Attack on Titan I’m guessing he’s got more pain and misery headed his way.
For a character I don’t normally talk about, I really felt this year he stepped up and so I definitely wanted to include him in this list of twelve characters as I counted down to Christmas.
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Less Shouting, More Plot, Still Great Action – Yes!
It’s taken awhile for me to get to this review and it isn’t because I didn’t enjoy the anime or that I didn’t have a strong opinion. It was more that the anime ended at a weird time of season and I’d already finished drafting my Summer anime reviews and scheduled them but I hadn’t yet gotten in to my backlog of anime to review and so Attack on Titan season 3 went on the list to catch up on at a future time and then I got busy.
But, now that I’m writing about this anime again, the only thing I can really think is ‘wow, I really had a lot of fun with season 3’. If you recall my pre-season thoughts, I was pretty pessimistic about Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin). Season one started great but meandered. Season two did whatever it did. I guess we did get an amazing reveal but it really felt like the plot was lost and we spent a lot of time just kind of reacting to things or rushing from action show piece to action show piece. Don’t get me wrong, some of them were cool, but it felt like the plot was lost or stalled.
Well, season three has come along and it has brought us some wondrous things. Levi getting into the action as Kenny attacks his squad in the early stages of the season is a solid and exhilarating beginning to season 3.One that captures the adventurous spirit as well as the danger and idea of life being pretty cheap very well and reignites enthusiasm for the series in a way that was badly needed (at least in my case).
Sure the fight across rooftops and through the streets of the district is over the top and from a physics point of view highly improbably(how dead is Levi if he actually attempted those stunts), but it is beautiful,fast paced, the sound perfectly complements it, and everything about the sequence just works from a raw emotional point of view. And it opens up the characters of Attack on Titan to us in a way we’ve never really had the chance to explore before.
From Eren and Historia, to the Ackerman’s, the false King, Eren’s father, Kenny, all of the cast get some life breathed back into them as we take a break from riding around on horses and fighting and actually look at what is behind all the mystery and intrigue. Do we get all the answers? Well, it is Attack on Titan so not really, but it brings together a lot of the plot threads, the half hints and ideas, and it seems to throw them back into forward motion in a way that ends up being immensely satisfying.
While I’m at it, I’ll mention that the OP this season is fantastic. I get that when you first hear it, or if you hear it without watching the show you will be wondering what that song is doing attached to Attack on Titan, but the opening perfectly captures what this season aimed for and ultimately accomplished. We see that the characters have grown up but that their pasts haven’t disappeared. Who they were and what they have been through has shaped them and continues to have an influence over their lives even as they try to find their own paths. The song and the visuals that go with it capture that, as well as the relationships these characters have formed. It really works and there’s a reason it ended up on my list of favourite OP’s for the year.
However, while the world and characters are being fleshed out there is a trade off. If you are after continuous bouts with Titans you may find season 3 a little bit of a disappointment. For me though, they more than made up for the lack of number of Titans early on by the sheer grotesqueness of the titan they fight just after the mid-season. And of course, by the end of the season we are back to many titans.
Still, the greatest accomplishment of season 3 is that it finally made me appreciate Eren as a character rather than merely tolerating him. As a shouting protagonist type, one of my least favourites, Eren has always been a sore point for me with Attack on Titan. While I joked early on in this season that gagging Eren helped immensely, when the gag came off, I found that Eren had finally moved forward as a character. Sure, there are still some stupid moments with him, such as his fist-fight with Jean, but Eren managed whole moments of character introspective later in the season without a single shouted line and with thoughts that I felt I could relate to and understand.This was quite the break through moment for him.
There are negatives of course. As I mentioned, there are less fight sequences this time around and so there are a lot of scenes of people standing or sitting around talking. There’s also a lot of characters from the political groups and military that you probably won’t be all that attached to getting a lot of screen time. And some of these moments could have been trimmed a little, though mostly I enjoyed it. The other thing of course is that we are still unfinished so now we’re back to waiting yet again.
Attack on Titan really does like to keep us waiting.
Overall though, I’d definitely recommend continuing with season three if you made it through one and two. In my view, this was the best Titan has offered us so far and I’m looking forward to see where they go from here.
Thanks for reading
Karandi James
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