Nexus Academy: Attack On Titan– They're Not a Mystery Anymore (Ep. 2-8)

BETRAYAL IMMINENT.

You know, between the time I've written the last review and now, I've had some time to contemplate my reasons for disliking this series, and at the same time, try to understand the appeal this show has for people. I've even heard that it's so ridiculously popular that they play it in bars and celebrities report having watched this series in Japan. There's got to be something to this show. There's got to be something to like about it.

It's been brought to my attention that maybe I didn't like the pilot because I'm already predisposed to dislike this sort of genre. I'll talk a little bit about how I feel about apocalypses and the grim and gritty, "Realistic" fiction, but the short version is that it would have taken a lot for a story like that to impress me. I may have expected a great deal more from this series than it could have offered me.

So, what's the appeal of this show? As far as I can tell, in order to give credit where credit is due, the stakes are death– no one is safe. There's certainly something to be said about the very real threat the antagonists pose. People also seem to take this show a lot more seriously than most, and I feel like the lack of copious amounts of fanservice is a contributing factor. There's a great deal of emotional intensity from most of the characters, to the point that I'd call it hammy. When this is being drawn, though, it's always a treat to see expressive faces in anime.

I've said that about 8 episodes into this series is where it's at its worst. Part of it is what happens in episode 8, but part of it is also because with episodes 2-7, a story arc I've come to call "They're Not a Mystery Anymore," I was actually starting to LIKE Attack on Titan. Yes, even having been duct taped to a chair to watch the series, there was something I was starting to like about the series.

Let's see how they ruined that, shall we?

One thing that Attack on Titan really suffers from is poor pacing– it's part of why I've taken to reviewing entire chunks of this series at a time. Despite the fact that the first half of this series that I've seen is only 13 episodes long, it feels like it's taking forever for anything to happen, and at the same time, like a lot has been skipped over. It'll take whole episodes to make a single decision, and it becomes more pronounced later on as the series progresses. We have a whole episode dealing with the decision to join the military, and to address that there's a sort of food shortage behind the walls.

We go through a time skip and see that the gang are all at a military training regiment, where they get yelled at by the crazy-ass drill instructor that I had for the first picture of this post. If you miss seeing his handsome face, here it is again.

It's here that we get to know our side cast, characters who the show will pretend matter, but really don't, because the world revolves around Eren. We go through the drill instructor trying to mentally break all of his recruits when– wait, who is that?!

WHAT'S THIS?! A CHARACTER WHO DOESN'T SPEND HER ENTIRE TIME ON SCREEN WHINING, AND AROUND WHOM THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE?! A PERSON WHO HAS EMOTIONS, BUT DOESN'T PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE WITH THEM CONSTANTLY?! SURE, SHE HAS ONE NOTE– SHE STEALS FOOD BECAUSE SHE'S HUNGRY AND FROM PLACES WHERE FOOD IS SCARCE, BUT I CAN GET THAT! I CAN CONNECT WITH THAT BETTER THAN EREN'S INCESSANT BITCHING AND IRRITATING VINDICATION BY THE UNIVERSE. IT'S COMPLETELY, TOTALLY SETTLED. POTATO GIRL IS BEST CHARACTER.

Okay, yeah, she's a side character. She's not one of the main cast, so she'll get next to no development and, frankly, that disappoints me. A lot. When it comes to this series, I keep asking myself "Why isn't this story about X?" Hell, even the snobby dude who wants to join the military police has more of an arc than Eren does.

The arc we get from Eren is him trying to master the Omni-Directional Gear, the weird Tech Spider-Man BS that lets them fly around and do things. Like Spider-Man, only at incredibly fast speeds that should give them all spinal injuries. Eren is failing miserably at this, hanging upside-down during the stationary positioning test.

Watching Eren fail and get yelled at for it brings me a perverse amount of joy.

Naturally, because he's part of the main cast and this show can't have me be happy for long, Eren eventually manages to master the Omni-Directional Gear, training happens and eventually everyone graduates. Hooray.

At some point, the knowledge of the Titans gets explained, and frankly, this is where I start really losing patience with this series. What we know about the Titans is that cannon fire is apparently ineffective on them, their body temperatures are ludicrously high, they have this infinite regeneration bullshit, no genitalia and the method of reproduction is unknown, and the only way to kill them is a cut to the area at the base of the back of the neck.

What they've mentioned here is that apparently the Titans can regenerate from having been incinerated, which raises a natural and, at least I believe, perfectly reasonable question.

WHY IN THE NINE CIRCLES OF HELL'S KITCHEN DOES BLOWING THEM UP NOT WORK?!

Why, oh God, why, is the only way to kill them an extendo-exacto-blade cut to the back of the neck?! I know what bullshit they come up with later, but I have to ask, again, why decapitation or incineration are ineffective? It's not as if the Titans are helpless once humans know this weakness– even Eren points out later that they still get their asses kicked by the Titans, despite them not being a mystery anymore. It's becoming painfully evident that what we're dealing with is an idiot plot– the only reason you'd ever want to be that close to a Titan is that no one thought of a precision method to deal with them from a distance, and it's just narrative convenience that the obvious method would not work, and the author just didn't think of addressing the issues that would come with implementing a plan to blow the Titans' heads off, and instead wanted to make the Titans ridiculously invincible just so he didn't have to think about it.

Anyway, after graduation, everyone's at the top of the wall that's still remaining, things seem to look up as they have training and knowledge to deal with the Titans, then the Colossal Titan shows up through bullshit lightning teleportation stuff! Oh no!

After spontaneously appearing out of nowhere, this Titan sweeps away the cannons as if they'd really do anything and kicks a hole in the wall. Eren swings around and tries to take a swing at its bullshit weakspot, but then it disappears because of its bullshit teleport! Boy, this sure makes a lot of sense!

So yeah, now the Titans are in the city and they're wreaking havoc because it's what they do. The new recruits are sent out to try and murderate the Titans and, when they get sent out, Eren gets a leg chomped off and is sent tumbling across the roofs of the town.

Seeing him get hurt is also immensely gratifying... Or at least, it is now. Later, it'll become tedious and annoying.

Meanwhile, Armin's about to bite the dust by getting bitten by a Titan with a curiously big beard. He starts sliding down the Titan's gullet when OH COME ON, REALLY?!

It's not like I have anything against Armin, but the stakes here are death!

So Eren throws Armin out of harm's way, then tries to hold the bearded Titan's mouth open while reaching out for Armin to pull him out. However, he hasn't gotten enough strength to keep it up and–

Eren... Gets eaten by the Titan.

This was the point that I was starting to respect this series. I was starting to appreciate that the stakes really were death, and that the Titans were a threat to really take seriously. The character that's been pumped up as the lead has now– apparently– died. The world doesn't seem to revolve around him anymore. Suddenly, I feel like it's real now.

Isn't it great to know ahead of time that my respect for the series is going to take a nosedive soon?

But, allow me to set up what else in the intervening time really got me to start respecting this series before the ultimate betrayal at episode 8: Armin.

Mellower Mello Mode Engaged.

At this point, with Eren gone, Armin takes command and takes up a leadership position, and frankly, makes for a better lead character than Eren does. Armin is genuinely scared of the Titans, and rightfully so. Instead of just being branded a coward, though, and instead of doing what Eren would accuse anyone else afraid of the Titans of doing, he uses this fear to inspire him. He uses this fear to think tactically, realistically, and strategically. Hell, he even comes up with a way to deal with the Titans in a supply depot to distract and then destroy them with minimum risk of casualties.

The series was starting to be about him, and I liked that direction. It's about human beings being faced with terrible adversity and overcoming it with ingenuity and cunning, which is really how humans survive a great deal of what they do.

What doesn't get me to respect the series is the constant reference back to Eren. We get Mikasa's origin story, which is meant to get us to like Eren by showing that there are human beings that are bigger jackasses than he is, and that he was perfectly justified in being a psychotic killer, and that Mikasa's equally justified in being emotionally dead.

Some slavers show up to Mikasa's house and try to capture her mom and sell her into sex slavery, and end up killing her father. They kill her mom and end up trying to take Mikasa, only to have Eren barge in and murderate the crap out of one of them, and Mikasa murderate the other one. Frankly, this really doesn't do it for me. They're trying to show that Eren is valiant because they introduce 2-dimensionally evil characters for him to oppose while casting Mikasa as a victim who is now eternally submissive to a man who will never return her feelings. The relationship between Eren and Mikasa is ridiculously dysfunctional and is, frankly, kind of disturbing. The slavers gambit to get me to displace my hatred of Eren onto them did not count on the fact that, as Lewis Lovhaug has said, "I can hate them both at the same time, just for different reasons."

But this wasn't the final nail in the coffin. Mikasa's origin story, while a really cheap ploy to try and get the audience to like Eren, isn't truly worthy of my ire.

At some point in the story, we get this Berserk Titan, which is called an Abnormal, a Titan that just has weird and unexplainable behavior. This one has this thing about murdering other Titans.

This thing just comes straight out of nowhere, though the team figures that letting it rampage to kill the other titans is just the advantage they needed, so they let it do its thing. Eventually, it gets overpowered by the other titans and falls.

Well, sorry guys. Your Deus Ex Machina wasn't bound to last. Not in this universe. You were bound to get screwed one way or another, but at least this weird contrivance bought you some time and, wait a second...