Apr 13, 2021
TL;DR: Pretty consistently great for 131 chapters, then retroactively ruined by the conclusion.
Isayama has said in interviews that his biggest inspiration in writing this series was Muv-Luv Alternative. That is extremely obvious. You can predict the plot with surprising accuracy from episode 1 if you've finished Muv-Luv Alternative. The characters in SNK are essentially just rehashes of Muv-Luv characters. There are multiple plot points that are 1:1 to Muv-Luv. What do both of them also have in common? An ending where the main character's development is tossed in the garbage.
The funny thing about the characters in SNK is that they all start out being really
...
interesting. You get to the training camp arc and feel almost overwhelmed by all of the characters being thrown at you, while none of them really feel like throwaways. As the series progresses for the first arc or two, these characters get fleshed out and receive their backstory chapters/episodes, and you think it's going to keep going like that. Nope. A few arcs into the story, Eren essentially becomes a black hole of character development. Every panel without Eren in it feels like a waste. Most characters don't get any spotlight, and most of the time you don't really care. Most of the side characters in SNK become extremely one dimensional as the story progresses as the complexity of Eren increases. In the last arcs, Isayama just starts picking out the characters with the least development and killing them off to make more spotlight for Eren.
Let's talk more about Eren. He's one of the most compelling MCs in a manga or anime for my money; especially in shounen. The fact that Deku and Eren are two of the most popular shounen protagonists of this era, while essentially being polar opposites (i.e. Eren isn't a little bitch, for the first 138 chapters or so at least) is mindblowing. This is occasionally to the detriment of the story, however. You can feel yourself realizing how one-note most of the other characters as the story progresses: is the writing getting worse, or were they always like this? Yes to both, but I digress. The bottom line is that the ONLY reason this is a readable manga is because of Eren's character development and his role in the later arcs. If you want a series with a strong side cast, I find SNK's characters to be heavily overrated. If you want a series with an incredibly keyed MC, read SNK. I gave this an 8/10 character rating; that's as high as Eren could carry it without being dragged down by Armin the TNJ bot, Levi the resident Itachi, Historia AKA literally Meiya, etc.
As far as art: there are some great panels, but I'd just call it above average. Freedom panel earns it an 8/10. Not much to say for me, I think the art is slightly overrated but still very solid. There was talk about people wanting Isayama to take over Berserk. Strictly speaking from an art perspective: I think it'd be a downgrade. Speaking generally: please God, no.
Overall, I don't regret reading this manga at all. It's a great ride and has an incredible climax and falling action until it doesn't. Without going into details, I feel that the ending was extremely safe, extremely boring, and was borderline character assassination. It has some decent points, but is markedly disappointing. The decent points left me thinking "that makes sense", and the awful points retroactively make the entire series worse. A lot of shiptrannies will argue as if the greatest flaw in the ending is their ship not working out. They arrive at the correct overall point that the ending sucks dick, but their reasoning is misguided. That may be a relevant sidenote: if you're a shipper, the only good female character in this series is taken out of the story for the vast majority of it. Not only does the protagonist not give a shit about women, it's entirely justified that he doesn't because they all suck.
9/10 manga ruined by a 5 or 6/10 ending. 2/10 character cast carried by a 10/10 MC. 7/10 art with some great panels. Some of the best arcs in manga and a ride worth taking even if the destination is pure unadulterated disappointment.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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