Reviews

Poorly thought-out and often self-contradicting story in gorgeous wrappings. That is Attack on Titan in a nutshell. I know that not having the story completely mapped out right away is the industry standard, when it comes to creation of a typical manga series. But I think the great authors of the industry are conscious enough of their own work that they can avoid trampling all over their previous story beats while they keep adding in new stuff. In Attack on Titan, it feels like every addition to the show's lore makes the setting less and less compelling.

"Why did the character say THAT if THIS happened?" or "If they knew about THIS, why did they act THAT way?" Good writing will keep questions like these from ever surfacing. In mediocre writing, the answer to questions like these is "because the plot demanded it". In awful writing (which is the territory Attack on Titan unfortunately keeps treading on) you often arrive at an unfortunate realization that the plot could have actually progressed towards the desired direction anyways, without having to sacrifice the in-world logic or the integrity of the setting.

The regular titans are sadly not really a part of S3p1 at all. All we get now are these transforming super titans. Escalating stakes and progressively stronger enemies are a mainstay of the action anime genre, but I am really sad to see my all-time favorite anime monsters reduced to basically just a slight inconvenience. This is a fanboy complaint, but S3p1 also kinda further shits on the Colossal Titan by introducing an even BIGGERER and more DANGEROUSER super titan. To me, the Colossal Titan was always the poster boy of the entire series. The image of it gazing over the wall is the first thing I think of when I hear the name "Attack on Titan".

Animation? Still excellent. Maybe a slight dip in quality in the middle, but no major flaws. The soundtrack? Great (all though some of the new vocal tracks I found a tad bit distracting). Voice acting? Great. Basically everything on the anime production-side is god tier. Unfortunately, it's all in the service of this story that is on it's way down a toilet and trying to hit the flush.