Enjoyable side story, among the better manga spin-offs to a popular franchise. Well, I say manga, but it’s a bit more complicated – the first two stories were originally short visual novels bundled as a bonus with blu-ray of Attack on Titan series. The 3rd story was included in a book compilation of novelization of the previous two stories. So this is really part visual part light novel adaptation side story.
Anyway, you want to hear about the content, right? The stories are about the titular lost girls – Annie and Mikasa, arguably fan favourites among the female part of the cast.
The first story is a nice detective story (of course, set in the world of AoT). The mystery that needs investigation isn’t just shoehorned in for the sake of having a mystery, but presents reasonable reasons as to why the main character is actually involved. The crime and investigation itself is well written, so even fans of detective fiction shouldn’t be disappointed. The story also shows more about Annies thoughts and her relationship with her father, so here’s that sweet extra info for fans of the series desperate for more background content.
The second story is a bit more tricky as to where to put it on the timeline of the main story. Both the manga and the light novel are a bit more vague, while the anime adaptation in form of OVA actually handles the introduction more clearly. It’s an alternative story of Mikasa’s and Eren childhood, though with the more clear explanation from the anime we could kinda place it in the chronology of the main story too. This time we explore more of Mikasa’s relationship to Eren and Eren’s ambitions from his early days. Part of the subplot may feel a bit silly and a certain mysterious character didn’t end up clearly explained and doesn’t appear anywhere alse, but again, given the full context that I won’t spoil it’s acceptable and could be theorized upon.
The art of the manga is definitely well done and is one of the strengths of the spin-off, and the reason I liked the manga adaptation more than the light novel. I hope that we’ll see more works by the illustrator.
Overall, this is a nice extra content that fans of Attack on Titan shouldn’t miss on. Well, most of you have already seen the OVA adaptation, but as mentioned, the art is great, so feel free to pick this up anyway, even if for the illustrations.