Reviews

Toward the end of the series, a certain character tells Erin Yeager that in order to overcome monsters [titans and internal conflicts] one must also abandon their own humanity. This advice encapsulates the tone of the entire series that had been so dedicatedly upheld by the writers and director: the feeling of existential nihilism and all is for nought. Countless times the characters try to retain what little separates themselves from the Titans such as trust-building and compassion towards each other that the audience considers it commendable. Such held beliefs only further the tragedy when the humans cannot achieve any goals relying on compassion or camaraderie for each other. In this series, love doesn't conquer all, neither does teamwork. The titans as enemies do not admire their opponents, the humans, for how honorable they fight. Therefore, the human warriors throw all that to the wind and have learned to fight horrifically, as depraved as needed be, showing no mercy. The real eye opener is that this shift in tactics shows hardly any gain as well, which leaves humans in the complete dark making them wonder, “Hell! If fighting honorably won’t win the day, and fighting dirty doesn’t help either, how are we supposed to defeat the titans?” This is Existential Nihilism, the lack of any glimmer of hope, lack of any salvation, that no matter how the humans fight to survive, it is all for nought. This series can be thought of similarly to trench warfare during WWI where one army in the trenches would jump out (sometimes tens of thousands of troops at a time) and charge towards the enemy trench just 100 yards ahead through no man’s land only to be cut down completely and utterly by the other entrenched army. If the charging army actually won the forward trench, what cost in human life was it? Followed by, was the charge worth only a 100 yard gain? Attack on Titan juggles all these questions. Civil War general William T. Sherman said that, “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” Same with this world that there’s nothing rewarding or glorifying when the humans and titans fight each other. Attack on Titan makes sure to drill it in that their world is a horrifying reality of war.



Simply read this ppg for the final review, if you are not interested in reading further. I gave this series 5/5 Stars (10 out of 10 equivalent on MAL) due to outstanding story, characters, music, voice acting, and overall direction. I anxiously wait for how this story will continue. Plenty of Macguffins weren’t fully explained, but not forgotten, (What the Hell is in that basement??).


The anime I had watched up until this series had all been about empowering the protagonist and celebrating the intelligence of the main character. Whether that be Jotaro Kujo (from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) finally outsmarting Dio Brando (which felt so good to watch!) or Gon Freecs and Killua Zoldyk (from Hunter x Hunter) teaming together to overcome the powerhouse Gaki, I always felt hope that though these characters may come across challenging foes, the final fight would not amount to nothing. Attack on Titan turns the tables by making humans prey and the titans predators and sticking to the nihilistic tone that was established early on and continued throughout. Wherase Shonen shows would spend time to teach the protagonists skills to dramatically improve outcomes, this show deconstructs that trope and argues that in the Attack on Titan world, all effort is for nothing. In one instance, an army of 250,000 soldiers stormed the titans to try to regain lost lands, and only 200 returned. In another instance, a squad of top brass cadets spent 3 years mastering their combat skills only for half to be wiped out by the titans within 30 seconds of their first encounter. Hell! If Quantity didn’t work against titans, maybe Quality will! Neither works. Back to f***ing square one! This deconstructed approach on the Shonen genre doesn’t empower characters, it humiliates them instead and makes me feel awful and sympathetic towards them.

The original theme songs are excellent because the opening choir lines invoke a sense of urgency. It is a collaboration of choir, rock band, brass fanfare, and synthesized string section. This epic hodgepodge also implies that when watching this series there are no rules regarding anything, everything is up in the air, and nothing is really predictable. That is the exact tone of the series. The presto tempo established by the electric guitar rifts impresses an image of stampeding humans towards or away from danger. Chromatic modulation upwards also paints a frantically growing danger, as if from the humans’ perspective the titans are closing in on them. The rest of the soundtrack is much like this.

The dedication to the absurdist, nihilistic tone I thought was outstanding. The tone was consistently depressing to the point of being emotionally draining. I almost cried during many instances of intense emotions and combat helplessly watching comrades falling by the hundreds wondering, what’s it all for? Though one may think that this depressing sentiment would lower my rating of the show, the fact that Attack on Titan was so consistently sombering and never randomly something else makes this series focused.

The only silver lining in this Lovecraftian world is in the love that binds all the cadet characters together. In addition to there being I feel a romantic spark between Erin Yeager and (Insert Name Here), there is a brotherly love that Erin has towards his comrades. Because of this love they have, when certain characters are on the brink of insanity, camaraderie love reals in and reassures each other. Much like in real world combat forces, even though cadets and marines may despise each other’s opinions, they are willing to lay down their lives saving each other. What a reassurance (this is deconstructed when two cadets debate over whether or not this altruistic philosophy is effective or not. Does it really pay off, or do humans just expect each other to save their friends? Plus, “love thine enemy” has no place in this battlefield). Paternal and maternal love for Erin occurs when specific veteran warriors take him under their wing. The scenes where friendship and camaraderie are developed are refreshing breathers between actions.

This series struck me to be similar to Albert Camus’s 1947 book, The Plague. Both stories deal with a quarantined city where humanity tries to survive through an absurd existence. Both are Absurdist stories. Though most survivors huddle together accepting their penned up fate, both main characters refuse to sit idly by and instead try to make a difference, no matter how small that difference is, or how difficult it is to achieve. From accepting fate to trying to change it shifts these stories form Absurdist literature to Existential literature. The difference between both styles is that in Absurdist literature, the characters passively accept fate. In Existential literature, the characters try to actively change fate, or try to fathom it and persevere despite setbacks. The titans’ motives cannot be understood. They are Lovecraftian like Cthulhu (or the Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise) in that no matter how much effort the humans put into understanding their enemy (as knowing is half the battle!) nothing new is learned. How wonderful. Despite that setback, the humans persevere and continue trying to learn about the enemy if only modicum of knowledge is gleamed. This defiance towards the inevitable makes this story Existential literature.

“Once upon a time, there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly, that everyone died! The end!” “That didn’t make me feel better at all, Patrick!” The point of that famous Spongebob scene was that Patrick’s fable was supposed to provide a moral to the story, despite how hard the ugly barnacle’s life was. But there was no moral. The barnacle just lived an absurd life. No matter how patiently Spongebob waited for Patrick to provide meaning to the ugly barnacle’s existence, none was provided, the barnacle simply was. Same deal with this show. The titans do not kill humans for any other reason other than because they do. This is not lazy storytelling to blame the writer for. Such is the nature of Existential Absurdist literature. A retelling of Patrick Star’s fable for Attack on Titan would be, “There were survivors huddled in the last village on earth. Many of them were eaten by grotesque Titans. That’s it! No reason why!” What a slap in the face that is! So refreshing to watch an anime that slaps me in the face! I mean what was I expecting? A kick as protagonist slicing titans by the hundreds? How shortsighted of me.

This show also provides insight to what life must be like on the second highest rank in the food pyramid. Until this show, I never appreciated that we are on the top of the food chain, unrivaled by far, every other animal subject to us! I never considered how horrifying it must be to be second place and to be abused by the first place monsters. In this series, Titans reign supreme, humans come second. Though we are still in second place out of millions of other species (which is pretty damn good placement!) humans are driven to the brink of extinction. This show turns the tables and humans become the prey.

I am very intrigued that this series is so popular with the people of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong people interestingly see themselves as the walled up humans living in an absurd reality where outside of the walls exists and impending colossal threat. Hong Kong interprets their “titans” as the Chinese government. This realization is so moving to them that the Chinese government banned all of Shingeki no Kyojin in mainland China. The manga and anime are influential enough to be censored by mainland China. That’s points in my book. Freedom of Speech! Freedom of Press! USA! USA!

Thank you for reading all of this review! I know I had a lot to say, and didn’t always organize how to say it, but thank you for sticking through it to the end!