TV Review: Attack on Titan Season One (2013)

Attack on Titan Season One (2013) based on the manga by Hajime Isayama

See my review of the first manga here.

After enjoying the first volume of the manga, I tried the first episode of Attack on Titan and was blown away. The show is more vivid and visceral just because the format is better suited to the action-filled story.

The time is the far distant future. Humanity has become trapped inside a walled area (there are actually three ring walls--Sheena, Rose, and Maria). Outside the walls are Titans--gigantic humanoids who eat humans. The average Titan is typically between two to fifteen meters (six and half to fifty feet) tall. The walls kept them at bay for a hundred years, but then a new sort of Titan appeared. The Colossal Titan (sixty meters (two hundred feet) tall) is able to break a hole in Wall Maria and the other Titans came pouring in. The Colossal Titan mysteriously disappeared and the surviving humans were forced to retreat behind Wall Rose. Eren Jaeger is a boy at the time and witnesses the death of his family. Before his father died, his father told Eren he had a secret in their basement. Eren has the key but has been unable to return. He trains to join the armed forces, hoping to take revenge on the Titans for his losses. Five years later, just as he and his friends are graduating from boot camp, the Titans (including the Colossal) attack again and the rookies are drawn into battle immediately.

Little is known about the Titans except some key facts--they appear mindless, they eat people, and their only truly vulnerable spot is the nape of the neck. Any other injured spot will grow back alarmingly quickly. The humans developed a harness with gas-powered grappling hooks as a way to fight the Titans. Battles are very tough (though also very cinematic, with lots of Spider-man-like swinging from buildings and walls and trees). The humans suffer great losses but still fight on. Sometimes battles lead to more information about the Titans, fueling the hope that humanity can eventually take back the world.

The story is a very gritty and gory war. The Titans do eat people and viewers see that fairly graphically displayed several times. The Titans are brutal; sometimes the humans are brutal to each other. The characters talk a lot about personal sacrifice and the duty to follow orders, even in hopeless situations. Occasionally the officers don't provide all the information about what's going on, leading to conflicts and bad decisions that seem like good decisions. The loss of comrades is tough on the military and also on the families back home, who are both proud of and concerned for their children who have gone to war.

The style of storytelling is very Sturm und Drang. The characters' emotions are often hyperbolic. The life and death situations involve the seemingly worst sorts of death. The music emphasizes the heightened emotions and peril, making the series exciting, if occasionally over the top. Check out the initial credits, which captures what I am trying to describe:



The animation and editing also enhances the storytelling, with the occasional freeze-frame or odd angle to create visual interest and show the chaos. The story also provides mysteries about where it is going, making it just as fun to think about after the episodes as during the episodes.

Highly recommended. I watched it streaming on Netflix, though it is also available on disc and from other streaming services.

Book Review: Attack on Titan Vol. 1 by Hajime Isayama

Attack on Titan Volume 1 by Hajime Isayama

Humanity hides in a walled-off territory from the Titans, gigantic humanoids. The walls have preserved security for a hundred years but a new threat arrives in the form of a colossal Titan, taller than the wall and powerful enough to destroy it. After he breaches the wall, other Titans swarm in and eat people. The remaining humans retreat into the area of a second wall (there's a third wall also) with five years of relative peace. The Titans don't come back; occasional survey teams go out and try to drive back the Titans. Those teams have always failed.

Eren and Mikasa are two youths who witness the attack and the death of Eren's mother. They are trained to fight and after graduation have three choices. They can join the Garrison, which reinforces the walls; the Survey Corps, which takes the fight to the Titans; or the Military Police Brigade, which maintains order within the walls. This year's graduates debate about which branch to join. The MP Brigade provides the safest life. The Survey Corps paradoxically provides hope to humanity that they might overcome the Titans, if the Corps can ever find a way to win. The Titans have only one vulnerability--a brutal blow to the back of the neck that will stop them from regenerating (even if their heads are shot off by cannon fire, they regrow in a few minutes). As the graduates have one last celebration together, the colossal Titan appears again and they are forced into action before they can even get settled into their new life.

This manga is the basis for the hit anime show and seems to anticipate it. The volume is divided into four "episodes" that have titles similar to four of the first five episodes of the television show. TV episode three, about life in the training corps, is an addition. Maybe the manga will have a flashback to training in a future volume? Otherwise, the story is identical.

The action in the manga is a little hard to follow at times. The battle tactics aren't immediately clear. The art does a good job of showing the scale of the Titans and the horribleness of their eating people. I found the anime easier to follow, except for the exposition about the walls that flashed by too fast. And the anime is more visceral. The music and vocal performances add a bit extra to the story.

I found the manga intriguing but I'm going to stick with the anime version for the rest of the story.