The concept of humanity being at the brink of extinction, this is one emphasizes it's fight for survival and the ups and downs of their fight for victory. With the first episode starting off with a great clincher to get you excited for the rest of series, you get a little view of how each character is and their view point towards the situation.
Due to the story of humans being driven to extinction, you often get an anime that can be a hit or a miss depending on how they unravel it throughout the series. Humans are declining with titans appearing onto earth and they eventually make a wall tall enough to the point where even the tallest titan can't break through.
With the show being a fight for survival, it does an excellent job actually dragging out the battle to its actual length. With anime these days battle scenes are usually only an episode with the exception of it being mostly dialog. Attack on Titan has arcs of each fight against the titans or progress in the story. You're given arcs that focus on a battle to take back a city, an expedition outside the walls, and even a battle taking place inside their safest town.
Throughout the anime you get stories of some characters past and they're definitely something that makes each character enjoyable and much more interesting to watch as the series progresses forward. The characters are mainly focuses on Eren, Mikasa and Armin. They're what drives the story and is the foundation for all the events that happen.
You have the main character Eren, a boy who does before he thinks. This often gets him into a lot of fights and is what drives his friends to do more than they expect they can do. With his mother being eaten in front of him, you get a lot of realism towards his feelings to the situation and an actual reason for his hate rather than the generic hero title.
Second you have Mikasa, a girl who is brave and does anything to protect Eren. They're not related, but they're brother and step-sister, but act just like siblings. They bicker and often get into fights due to different feelings and agreements. She's usually level-headed and very mature, but you'll see when something happens to Eren, she breaks down and becomes very agitated.
Lastly you have Armin, hes the brains of the group and emotional support for both of them. While lacking in physical strength he excels in strategy and decision making. While not being the main focus of the anime, he's probably the character with the most development. At the start hes weak and afraid, but towards the end he becomes mentally strong and definitely a changed person due to the events that occur to him and his friends.
With anime being military themed, you're given characters who are joined in with them due to squads and become their friends. You have characters who disagree with a lot of what they do, and some that are just like them and get along well. The side characters are also important for what happens and really drive the story with their back stories and talent that they bring to the group.
Known for having excellent art, I have nothing to say that can disagree with that. The art through the entire anime stays at top quality and even has detail in every aspect of the show. With all the scenery being changed constantly through the battles, you see buildings that were once standing being ruined and detail in everything. You can see the emotion on all of the characters faces as they witness their comrades being eaten alive.
The scenery seems to be staged in what seems like Europe, you see a lot of forests and old-style buildings. With all the scene changes you can see detail in everything such as trees, buildings and even the clothes that the characters wear. It makes it feel like the Middle Ages or so, with the wool and texture the clothes has.
Thanks to the theme of extiction, you get 2 wonderful openings to hype you for the anime. With the first half being set around emphasizing their survival, you get an opening that has lots of action and despair to give the feeling of struggle the characters are going through. The second half is more towards the counter attack that mankind has and their subtle victories and their path towards winning against the titans. The opening gives that feeling of excitement and shows their steps to becoming closer to surviving and prospering once again. With battles happening constantly and emotion going across the board with characters dying, or even victory, you get excellent background music to support those feelings even more.
Overall this anime is something that lives up to its hype and does a good job having a really serious tone, but also giving off some comedy to balance it out. The story is something that has been done often, but this is one that emphasizes humanities survival. The art is top quality and is the best of the 2013 season to make every battle scene beautiful and movements very clean. The characters were all really well developed and really makes the viewer sad when they die, even though they've only just been introduced a few episodes ago. Anyone who enjoys an action or looking for a great anime to pass time, this is definitely worth checking out.
