Attack on Titan may very well be the defining anime of this decade. It started as a huge hit, then it faded into obscurity, just to return with a huge bang and end with huge disappointment.
The premise is quite interesting: pre-industrial age; humanity is close to extension, locked behind gigantic walls. Outside lives the biggest threat man has ever faced - Titans. Race of gigantic, humanoid beasts whose only purpose in life is to attack and devour humans. We meet our main heroes - Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, just before the Titans breach one of the walls.
The following 4 seasons differ in quality.
The first one is interesting, but suffers from terrible narration where we are constantly interrupted by internal monologues. We either learn what we already know, or random ideas are thrown at us. The second one has no idea what it wants to be, and this is where viewership dropped sharply. Then came the third one. It seems to continue to downward trend from s2, but halfway through everything changes. Without spoiling anything, AoT stops being dumb fun and seems to become an intelligent commentary on human condition. Before that, I was watching the series because I had nothing better to do. After this scene I instantly became invested and shocked. Then the fourth came out, developing on what made the third great. I was close to calling this a great series, but unfortunately it’s all thrown out the window with the 2.5 hours long finale, which is almost entirerly one, long fight. So much potential, such great buildup. All wasted in the name of a boring action scene. I don’t remember when was the last time I felt so betrayed.
The great part of AoT takes a lot from history and great fiction like Dune. We’re seeing great idea one after another. The story is full of interesting twists. By the end, it’s all meaningless.
Story-wise, the only two redeeming qualities of this series are personal journeys of Eren and Gabi (introduced in S4). Only their stories interest me. Not that there is anything bad about the rest of the characters, they are ok1. Run-of-the-mill anime characters.
Yes, the series looks and sound pretty. It’s full of nicely animated action scenes. But I can’t stop comparing it to Evangelion.
Both series start cool, but are not memorable. Then they develop into marvels, pure greatest. But NGE never stopped being great. After it gained actual meat, it developed it culminating in the greatest movie I’ve ever experienced. Full of story, drama, meaning, and emotions.
AoT ends in Iron Man 3 - a prolonged, boring fight scene.
And while the scenes shown during end credits return the series on its track, it changes nothing. They nicely connect and develop the great ideas behind the golden era of AoT, but they should not be the one good part! The ending should be it, as the way it happened is I wasted 2.5 hours filled with boredom.
AoT could have been great, but it is not. It’s an ok action series with huge unresolved ambitions. If it was just a dumb action show, then ok - I would have some fun, then forget it. It would fail in comparison of other shows we see now, like Jujtsu Kaisen, but it would be very much ok. Unfortunately with added ambition, it ends in a huge disappointment.
It was very close, everything was going great. And then it hits a wall.
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Except of Armin who single handely ruins the first few seasons. He is the character who is able to calculate probability to 4 decimal places. I see this kind of characters all around modern anime, and every time I have to roll my eyes. Remember how Big Bang Theory was often describes at how “dumb people think smart people are”? Yeah, that’s Armin. The same kind of bullshit ruined shows like Kaji or Code Geass for me. ↩︎