Anime Review: Attack on Titan Season 1

So I haven't talked about this yet. The rest of the internet is. Heck Team Four Star even started a fan parody dubbed abridged series of a show that wasn't even officially dubbed yet.

Is the show that good?

Oh hell yes!

Every so often I will go on in my head about how the halcyon days of anime are gone. It's all moe and yaoi. Seriously how many protagonists are there floating around right now who can't be described as average Japanese high school students.

Then...

BOOM!



Crashing through the gates like ... where was I going with this?

Okay, context. In a world. I don't mean to start like that but it is unclear how the backstory happened. Anyway in a world where carnivorous humanoid monsters roam the countryside, humanity is protected by a giant wall... because those are never breached.  Guess what happens in the first 5 minutes?!

Yeah. Oh and it is horrific. Buildings and bodies and oh the humanity. And the aftermath with the refugee camps and discrimination.  The initial attack instills in our young protagonist a quest for vengeance for the sake of his mom who was killed when the wall fell.

And anything after that would involve spoilers about why now and the show is too damn good.

Apart from those though the monster fighting sequences are breath taking. What drew me to anime as a medium was action. A masterful artist has the capacity to depict the movement of the human body in ways a camera just can't, at least not without a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of harnesses, winches, dollies, fight choreographers and stunt actors and the insurance to maintain all that. And since one of the main weapons of the good guys is a harness they use to fly isn't the right word. How would Buzz put it. Falling with style, the show is rife with the sensation of movement.

Remember all of those awesome Spider-Man positions as he web slings to show the movement through his anatomy and musculature. You could teach a class with the stuff in this show. Yes partially because the titans are naked. Get you hayucks in now.  But it's mostly because the animators put so much attention to detail into how cloth, the human body, muscles, hair and bone move.  When there is a fight and, god there will be fights, you can see muscle flex before a punch.

It's sort of spoilery but later in the show there is an extended running chase sequence and I was just amazed at the form of it. I'm not an athlete but damn in that moment I wanted to take up track.


And while the science nerd is geeking out it all works towards the show's gothic horror autistic because the titans are well into uncanny valley territory.

You can catch it on Crunchy Roll and Funimation.