As the opening of Shingeki no Kyojin's third season starts rolling, we notice a huge tonal difference to introduce the series: we see images of characters living their respective childhoods, memories of their families and "smooth" days. But even more important than what's being showed, it's what isn't: there's no titan wrecking bodies in sight. You see, I always thought the "problem" of Shingeki no Kyojin was the resorting to gore and violence to compose its ambience instead of minor and quotidian details that, undoubtedly, strengthens that universe more effectively. This third season seems to be quite aware of that.
That said, we're led to 12 episodes that value the bonds between the characters as well as the world in which they inhabit, becoming possible a scope of their experiences and personalities in a way that the previous seasons could never. I know that with this it may look like the series' problem for me is its' main plot, a.k.a the titans. Quite on the contrary, I always advocated the presence of the titans and the whole cosmos they bring with them as something extremely valuable and innovative for the genre (more as a dystopian futurist than as a shonen), but the approach on this subject in many of the previous episodes were just a mess.
Here, at least, we have more cohesive situations, aiming less on a sentimental and threatening physical action (which it has given us, in this anime, countless mushy gestures of hysteria and, mainly, bad screenplay if we remember the many characters who were introduced and killed in the same episode just to keep that unbearable horror flux active), but even so, that don't give up that energy that surrounds the narrative. When the protagonists just take their time to think about their own attitudes about the completion of a mission in the first episodes, we have a sign of growth both on those involved as on the screenplay itself regarding its approach. Effectively, the melodrama key turns to drama and the burden they carry is much more depurated in favor of a discomfort and horror adjacent to that reality than that worthless and explicit violence we've hopefully moved on.
These gestures that builds these relations are given time enough to occupy the majority of this season's episodes, and this brings us closer to an experience. A friend told me once that he knows he truly appreciated a show when he feels like "living in that universe". Shingeki no Kyojin provides these bittersweet moments, until we remember that there are titans eating people circling those walls. Turning this information in a latent memory is the best pace the anime got in a long time. It means that our intelligence wasn't underestimated at all, allowing us to have our own judgement about the related events.
Of course, the use of history as a science and the social institutions help to set the tone for this evolution, being these the details I've always said were the most important factors on building that society confined in walls. Maybe these representations were not so effective since they were delivered raw and explicit, providing small spaces for subtext or personal readings from each viewer, but it's in this season that these elements find their peaks as metaphors.
Maybe, with so many positive aspects (in comparison to previous seasons), only 12 episodes may be a hindrance. I mean, in so many episodes we get to see so many things happening with so many informations that I got the impression that they intended to hush this "easy-going" season full of origin stories by compilating them as much as possible. Which I particularly think it's a shame, since these episodes got more material and potential for a solid and less urgent narrative than the 25 episodes from season 1. However, the reaction as a whole was closer to a positive one than the opposite, even more when I take into account the depth the show aims at by taking time for a development both on the central as on the peripheral characters. (That is, apart from Eren. I really can't understand how the anime has such a hard time to cut its own protagonist out from the extremes: his nuances resemble more a wrecking ball than a pendulum).
In conclusion, the sci-fi ambience reaches new proportions by including in such a natural way the fantastic on its "nods" to the answers we're expecting from the anime. All the diegetic past we had access to in this season was capable of filling some of the blanks with informations and events of value. And it's only stimulating that the characters are getting as intereting as the universe they live in. Time did good to the show, so the expectation for the next steps are absolutely positive.
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P's REVIEW:
Succintly sayin', the fist half of season 3 of Shingeki no Kyojin is almost a masterpiece. I mean... when the show starts, it's clear things will be different, focusing on the characters' background and not on that violent and war nauseating appeal regarding the titans.
There's so little that prevent this anime from being perfect: Mikasa's submissive personality to Eren is something that always bothered me, and the protagonist itself who's such a pain in the ___. At least, here, he gets less screen time.
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F's RATING: 69/100
P's RATING: 93/100
MEAN SCORE: 81/100
