Attack on Titan: Good or overrated crap?

[porous_shield]

I've burned out on action anime. Many of them are fine but AoT shares far too much in common with Naruto, Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, among others, in the their pacing, scripting, and the way the fights scenes are drawn for me to get into. On top of that, it just seems like a run of the mill anime with an interesting premise that'll be inevitable ruined because it'll go on far too long.

 

[Snotnarok]

Considering it takes 3 years to graduate a single class, this and the fact that something like 60% die the first time they see combat, I'm surprised that they even have a military left.

Hell, it only takes 2 years to train a Navy Seal, and those guys are elite. They also don't die in droves like the AoT soldiers do.

To be fair, Navy Seals don't have to train in freerunning, hookshots, swinging from trees very fast, and swordfighting giants.

Maybe if they took more time to focus on doing their best to survive and win instead of cry and hide they'd win.
One soldier was disobeying the higher ups screaming "I just want to see my family" Okay, by that logic go ahead, go hide and cave to the inevitable death without trying. Good on ya solderman!

I'm pretty sure the point was that fighting giants that run around eating people is terrifying and most of the people crying and hiding in Trost are brand new child soldier recruits and glorified masons who've never fought one before. Something tells me you wouldn't walk up to a soldier fresh from basic who was just traumatized by a real world battle where his friends just died and tell him he needs to stop angsting about it.

That guy wanted to desert because he had just survived helping with the evacuation and was being told that he had to go back out there, because trauma and terror tend to make one not want to fight. When Pixis actually tells him that if he doesn't his family will be in danger he (and everyone else who was deserting) got back in line.

Also, after that first battle, pretty much no one goes about crying and cowering anymore, so... yeah, weird criticism.

Yes the whole concept of fighting giant monsters is terrifying, but these people grew up knowing about them existing and their threat and obviously at one point these people years earlier had fought them. These are trained soldiers, I don't care if your friend has just gotten eaten, discipline and focus needs to be kept or YOU get to die next. Is that a difficult thing? Sure is! I'm sure some military guys could vouch for friends being blown to bits and they had to fight standing over their friends remains. You mourn the dead when you're not being assaulted. Not to mention these soldiers have already seen titans do awful things, it was pointed out that many had dealt directly with them and many joined the military because of that.

Something tells me I wouldn't either, that's not the point, the show focus's so hard on this aspect, these scenes along with other animes or JRPGs it gets really hard to relate or enjoy. The show doesn't need to make these scenes the focus, especially so often. Every character angst-ing at once or one after the other while combat is still going, it's totally psychotic. I get they're trying to show some inexperience and emotion but it was over the top, they were trained for this, and again most had seen this already.
I'm not asking for heroic badasses all the time, show some hesitation, show tears, show anger, but don't show every damned soldier giving up. The girl had the right idea when she heard her friend had died, get your asses up and let's make sure that doesn't happen to any more. That part you could feel emotion. But then out of fuel, time to give up in sadness. Oooooor call for help, run inside, do anything to survive.

I don't care what that guy wanted to do, he was openly defying his commander infront of soldiers. Quietly abandoning would have had less trouble and could have been a nice subtle plot point. In reality, he'd likely have been dragged off to be sorted out and not openly disrupting the chain of command and lowering moral in reality. But that's not as depressing, the show needs to not only drive it in but really dwell on it, drive it in and drag it out. As it had already been in the previous battles with characters all over the city doing this and more. It was overdone. Maybe you're more used to that, maybe you've seen more animes and it's just sorta the norm.

You don't see that in other shows, because they do what they need to and any inaction becomes the topic later. They lament or reflect later, often written well where you can get how miserable they feel by the tone of colors, or angles in the scene. The lack of dialogue or an action like breaking something tells much more than constantly "we're going to die" "it's hopeless" and all of the above in over-exaggerated overstated scenes.

It's not weird criticism, it's an opinion feel free to disagree, I still like the show but these claims of it being a great show I am not seeing. Am I saying it's crap? No.

 

[THE_JOKE_KING33]

I just found it to be terrible through and through. Friend recommended it to me a while ago and I watched a couple episodes before I dropped it. It just incorporates two of my most hated things about anime: Obscene amounts of blood and gore and stoic "badass" character/s. I really did not like a thing in that anime.

 

[Snotnarok]

Yes the whole concept of fighting giant monsters is terrifying, but these people grew up knowing about them existing and their threat and obviously at one point these people years earlier had fought them. These are trained soldiers, I don't care if your friend has just gotten eaten, discipline and focus needs to be kept or YOU get to die next. Is that a difficult thing? Sure is! I'm sure some military guys could vouch for friends being blown to bits and they had to fight standing over their friends remains. You mourn the dead when you're not being assaulted. Not to mention these soldiers have already seen titans do awful things, it was pointed out that many had dealt directly with them and many joined the military because of that.

So knowing that giant monsters who will eat you and your friends makes facing them not terrifying? Sure if they came out of nowhere it'd be worse, but the reason people know about them is because they know the history of titans eradicating the majority of the human race and how they inflict huge amounts of casualties on people. They basically traded ignorance for "these are the scariest things that exist."

And yes those sure were some trained soldiers. The trainees were fresh out of training and mostly consisted of child soldiers, and the Garrison consisted of what amounts to complacent masons who generally fought the titans from high walls with cannons, not by running around with swords. Were you really expecting them to be hardened, extremely disciplined soldiers when they're either brand fucking new or have spent their time as soldiers sitting around as glorified police? When the Survey Corps shows up, then you get to see what trained, disciplined soldiers are like, because those are really the only trained and disciplined soldiers at this point.

Something tells me I wouldn't either, that's not the point, the show focus's so hard on this aspect, these scenes along with other animes or JRPGs it gets really hard to relate or enjoy. The show doesn't need to make these scenes the focus, especially so often. Every character angst-ing at once or one after the other while combat is still going, it's totally psychotic. I get they're trying to show some inexperience and emotion but it was over the top, they were trained for this, and again most had seen this already.

The show focuses on it for one damn battle. Their first fucking battle. Did you watch anything more than the Battle of Trost or did you just decide to give up because freshly trained soldiers were reasonably terrified and traumatized by giant monsters eating their friends?

I'm not asking for heroic badasses all the time, show some hesitation, show tears, show anger, but don't show every damned soldier giving up. The girl had the right idea when she heard her friend had died, get your asses up and let's make sure that doesn't happen to any more. That part you could feel emotion. But then out of fuel, time to give up in sadness. Oooooor call for help, run inside, do anything to survive.

Yep, so you didn't pay attention. That girl's idea was to basically commit suicide by titan, because she was so obsessed with the guy she thought had died she didn't care anymore and wasted fuel just flying about. And when she's out of fuel, they give up because the people who were supposed to be going around resupplying everyone aren't doing their jobs. The officer of the supply group abandoned his post, which left brand new recruits who had no idea what they were really doing and the building they were in became covered in titans. And, when they do run out of fuel, they do actually come up with a plan to go get more.

I don't care what that guy wanted to do, he was openly defying his commander infront of soldiers. Quietly abandoning would have had less trouble and could have been a nice subtle plot point. In reality, he'd likely have been dragged off to be sorted out and not openly disrupting the chain of command and lowering moral in reality. But that's not as depressing, the show needs to not only drive it in but really dwell on it, drive it in and drag it out. As it had already been in the previous battles with characters all over the city doing this and more. It was overdone. Maybe you're more used to that, maybe you've seen more animes and it's just sorta the norm.

...The guy wasn't just trying to desert alone, he was trying to cause a mass desertion. He even fucking talks about how a bunch of them want to desert and how the trainees should go along with it. It was "overdone" for you because apparently, you think he was just going to slip away alone, and that he was the only one who wanted to desert. It has nothing to do with me watching more anime, just with you failing to pay any attention to it.

It's not weird criticism, it's an opinion feel free to disagree, I still like the show but these claims of it being a great show I am not seeing. Am I saying it's crap? No.

It's a weird opinion founded in your inability to actually follow the story. Seriously, maybe you should actually pay attention to the shows you watch so when you come on the internet to criticize them you don't look like someone who watched bits and pieces of the first few episodes.

I'm glad you can sit there and judge me by my opinion of a show. I watched it in it's entirety and I get showing drama is part of a story, however an over abundance on focusing on angst to the detriment of the characters survival was not fun for me to watch because it didn't make sense.

I'm sorry you don't agree with my opinion and feel the need to try and make excuses for a show I told you I enjoyed however thought was over filled with angst. However I'm not going to sit here and have you berate me for my opinion on a tv show.

You don't understand what an opinion is clearly, if I feel like there's too much angst, well there's nothing you can explain away about it, the show has too much angst for me and if it's fine for you, I already said that. You defending it tooth and nail isn't going to make me change my mind, I watched it, a strangers condescending rant isn't going to change my opinion on a show that I watched for myself.

None of your reasons work for me, he wanted to make a mass military abandonment? Yes that man wouldn't have been allowed to continue openly defying him. Other soldiers would take him away for a nice talk and that have been sussed. Nearly every elite solder falling apart? I don't think you realize people are trained to deal with this kind of mental pressure. Yes they're terrifying, but they can either choose to sit there cry and die or take action, I'd accept a few doing that but nearly everyone too scared to move? That's not believable and stupid.

But whatever, I'm not really interested if you're going to be condescending about opinions, ours is clearly different, I respect you fully enjoying the show, learn to respect that I don't. =

 

[Product Placement]

Me and my girlfriend really liked the plot twist with Eren being...

Spoiler: Spoilerrific

...straight up eaten, along with a decent size of the crew we just spent few episodes getting to know at the training camp. We were disappointed when he showed up later, and instantly realized that Titan was him reborn.

Personally we would have preferred if they had been dedicated to that twist. It would have added so much severity to the plot if the creator had shown that even the main protagonist wasn't safe from the Titans and have the show now focus on the sister instead.

So, why this sudden renewed interest in Attack on Titan? Did the English dub just come out or something?

 

[Product Placement]

Yes the whole concept of fighting giant monsters is terrifying, but these people grew up knowing about them existing and their threat and obviously at one point these people years earlier had fought them. These are trained soldiers, I don't care if your friend has just gotten eaten, discipline and focus needs to be kept or YOU get to die next. Is that a difficult thing? Sure is! I'm sure some military guys could vouch for friends being blown to bits and they had to fight standing over their friends remains. You mourn the dead when you're not being assaulted. Not to mention these soldiers have already seen titans do awful things, it was pointed out that many had dealt directly with them and many joined the military because of that.

Just to throw in my two cents, there are couple of things you should consider.

All of these people didn't actually grow up that aware of the threat. Remember that the kingdom has 3 layers of defense and only the people in the outermost layer were used to the threat associated with the titans.

When Wall Maria fell, people living within Wall Rose suddenly needed to deal with the fact that they were now the vanguard. There definitely was a false sense of security among the people that lived within the inner layers and a solid belief that the walls would never fall. You could also tell, during the scene where Eren and the rest of the refugees were picking up bread, that people in the inner zones consider themselves superior to the outer layer residents.

After Wall Maria fell, there was a giant influx of volunteers from people that used to live inside that zone. These people were essentially given two choices. Work in farming colonies, in order to make up for all that lost farmland and provide enough food for everyone, or volunteer to the army. These were the people with first hand experience of titans and had motives to go and take back the land they lost.

Volunteers from the Wall Rose zone (second layer) had a different motive. They want to rise in the ranks, so that they can be promoted to work within the inner most zone; the area furthest away from the titans. These are the people who don't want to have anything to do with the titans and the kingdom want the best men to guard the inner layer. Hence the irony that the people best capable of dealing with titans are the ones that end up being walled away furthest from the front line and people's sole motivation to train hard is to get away from the Titans.

Since the guy who was screaming about leaving had a family in the city, I'm assuming he has always lived in the Rose zone and thus was both unused to the threat and joined the army for selfish reasons.

 

[Snotnarok]

I disagree with your incredibly ignorant reasons for your opinion. wouldn't be a problem, but you didn't, so there is.

This is exactly why I have no interest arguing with you, you can't handle a simple civil conversation with a stranger and go right to insults and out right not even respecting an opinion.

I think the show focus too much on angst, no matter how you want to spin that, no matter how you want to say it's the point, regardless of it actually being over done or not, me not liking the aspect is absolutely a fine reason NOT to enjoy something. Too much drama, too much action, too scary are all reasons many use to dislike something, but angst isn't?

How do you reach a guy in a crowd? Of ...soldiers? Order them aside, or tell them to drag him over. That's how it works, solders don't get to openly cause that kind of nonsense and disrespect.

How long were they in training? Marines have a 13 week training period in reality and that's where they are trained to understand how to work and react in combat without compromising your allies.

Look, I don't care how you want to spin this. Your options are TRY and fight, or die and let everyone else die, that is not something I can grasp. I'm not asking for elite badasses bumping chests, I'm asking for a variety of reactions that the show does not show with these troops. Anger, sadness, rage, compassion, freakouts are understandable, but not the -entire- army. The girl has 1 shining moment where it falls apart when she runs out of fuel and 100% gives up instead of doing what she can to survive. The main characters rival had a nice bit of character growth but he was the only one pushing for survival?
Look whatever, agree to disagree, I've given my reasons, I watched the show and it was fun but it's not something I'd watch again.

Yes the whole concept of fighting giant monsters is terrifying, but these people grew up knowing about them existing and their threat and obviously at one point these people years earlier had fought them. These are trained soldiers, I don't care if your friend has just gotten eaten, discipline and focus needs to be kept or YOU get to die next. Is that a difficult thing? Sure is! I'm sure some military guys could vouch for friends being blown to bits and they had to fight standing over their friends remains. You mourn the dead when you're not being assaulted. Not to mention these soldiers have already seen titans do awful things, it was pointed out that many had dealt directly with them and many joined the military because of that.

Just to throw in my two cents, there are couple of things you should consider.

All of these people didn't actually grow up that aware of the threat. Remember that the kingdom has 3 layers of defense and only the people in the outermost layer were used to the threat associated with the titans.

When Wall Maria fell, people living within Wall Rose suddenly needed to deal with the fact that they were now the vanguard. There definitely was a false sense of security among the people that lived within the inner layers and a solid belief that the walls would never fall. You could also tell, during the scene where Eren and the rest of the refugees were picking up bread, that people in the inner zones consider themselves superior to the outer layer residents.

After Wall Maria fell, there was a giant influx of volunteers from people that used to live inside that zone. These people were essentially given two choices. Work in farming colonies, in order to make up for all that lost farmland and provide enough food for everyone, or volunteer to the army. These were the people with first hand experience of titans and had motives to go and take back the land they lost.

Volunteers from the Wall Rose zone (second layer) had a different motive. They want to rise in the ranks, so that they can be promoted to work within the inner most zone; the area furthest away from the titans. These are the people who don't want to have anything to do with the titans and the kingdom want the best men to guard the inner layer. Hence the irony that the people best capable of dealing with titans are the ones that end up being walled away furthest from the front line and people's sole motivation to train hard is to get away from the Titans.

Since the guy who was screaming about leaving had a family in the city, I'm assuming he has always lived in the Rose zone and thus was both unused to the threat and joined the army for selfish reasons.

No that's fine I understand that most of them never saw one, but after the actual event you had people ready and willing to sign up, even a general making a note to those who had experienced them first hand in the worst way. On top of this with actual military training they make sure to train you to keep you focused even when something traumatic happens to make sure you and your allies are ready for a situation.
That isn't to say they're emotionless, more than likely to have a variety of responses, sadness, anger, rage, compassion, even to extremes, but they didn't. It was all angst and all hopelessness, the ONE time that I got excited was when the girl found her friend died, she got up, motivated the troops, pressed on and kicked ass because of passion and anger. Note: I'm NOT saying everyone needs to be a badass, but a variety of emotions would have really made the show stronger. This was only made more irritating when she ran out of fuel and out right seemed to give up, don't run, don't take cover, don't TRY and strike.

The other thing is, even if there is a lot of despair- the show doesn't need to bring light to it every time. There are many other shows that convey loss and being out matched and they have despair, but they show it in more ways, they have a variety of reactions which I just didn't see.

I get what the show is going for, I do, and it was a good watch for what it was. But I think it could have really pushed for more and gotten a really varied cast of characters. I'm poor with names but the one rival to the main character who was incredibly cowardly actually had character growth, picked himself up and his allies and pushed on.

The guy wanting to leave, I just felt that was insane, letting him freak out and cause others to get demoralized just ..ergh it didn't make sense. The general too when he was given no proof more than words only was going insane threatening to kill the main character and his allies, I was scratching my head over how that scene escalated so fast. The court session after made more sense because there was proof, and it was for political nonsense. Hands up, sorted I got that.

So, it was a fun show, I'm not denying that, but for all the praise and cheers I heard I expected it to be a bit better written with characters. Maybe it's hype that raised expectations or maybe it's just my natural reaction to giving up, emo/angst but those focuses brought it down for me.
I'm grateful for your respectful response though Product Placement, thanks.

 

[Weaver]

Completely average to me.

 

[Eddy-16]

I used to read the manga, that shit went down hill fast. Don't know anyone who still reads it know cause of how retarded it got.

EDIT: I decided to expand, so be warned massive spoilers ahead. It's basically just of a list of all the stupid things that have happened in the MANGA NOT THE ANIME

Spoiler: Really, these are some huge spoilers

1)The Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan literally walking up to Eren and saying "We are the Colossal and Armored Titan, please come with us its not like you have any reason to hate us"
2)Eren arse-pulling the ability to control Titans, because Angst
3)Entire 50 page chapters of cleaning houses
4)Fuck all happens for ages
5)The government stopping people from advancing technology, with anti-human maneuver gear, because reasons
6)Levi Ackerman, dun dun DUH!
7)Levi, a normal person, deflecting a bullet with a sword

That'll do for now.

 

[Myndnix]

Manga is better in every way. Mostly because the anime is so far behind it in story pacing.
Though the manga lately has gotten really, really stupid...

Spoiler: Megaspoils

What with the Titans essentially being scaled-up zombies and the entire plot being a zombie apocalypse plot with a giant ape that talks and leads the zombies.

But even though the manga is better, the franchise in general is still pretty...meh. It's nothing special, but I've seen worse.

 

[Kaimax]

One thing for sure, AoT is over-hyped as hell.

I used to read the manga, that shit went down hill fast. Don't know anyone who still reads it know cause of how retarded it got.

EDIT: I decided to expand, so be warned massive spoilers ahead. It's basically just of a list of all the stupid things that have happened in the MANGA NOT THE ANIME

It's getting to real stupid levels in the recent chapters, I honestly don't have any motivation read it anymore.

 

[Snotnarok]

This is exactly why I have no interest arguing with you, you can't handle a simple civil conversation with a stranger and go right to insults and out right not even respecting an opinion.

I think the show focus too much on angst, no matter how you want to spin that, no matter how you want to say it's the point, regardless of it actually being over done or not, me not liking the aspect is absolutely a fine reason NOT to enjoy something. Too much drama, too much action, too scary are all reasons many use to dislike something, but angst isn't?

Once again you'll notice I've said absolutely nothing about your opinion. I've said plenty about everything else but your opinion.

How do you reach a guy in a crowd? Of ...soldiers? Order them aside, or tell them to drag him over. That's how it works, solders don't get to openly cause that kind of nonsense and disrespect.

Yes, because soldiers on the brink of desertion (you know, the majority of the crowd) will completely obey everything they're told. Soldiers get to openly do whatever they want when they're surrounded by a crowd of other soldiers who completely agree with them, especially when the commander orders his men to let the deserters go.

How long were they in training? Marines have a 13 week training period in reality and that's where they are trained to understand how to work and react in combat without compromising your allies.

And the people in the show are trained for three years, but the majority of that seems to be spent learning how to use an incredibly complex machine, how to handle razor sharp swords, hand to hand combat, horseback riding, freerunning, how to handle a rifle, and how to attack a titan. If they did include how to handle combat in their training (they never show it, but why not just assume they did for the hell of it?), I'm not actually sure how you recreate giant monster situations for them to get accustomed to.

Look, I don't care how you want to spin this. Your options are TRY and fight, or die and let everyone else die, that is not something I can grasp. I'm not asking for elite badasses bumping chests, I'm asking for a variety of reactions that the show does not show with these troops. Anger, sadness, rage, compassion, freakouts are understandable, but not the -entire- army. The girl has 1 shining moment where it falls apart when she runs out of fuel and 100% gives up instead of doing what she can to survive. The main characters rival had a nice bit of character growth but he was the only one pushing for survival?

The entire army that you see is fucking trainees. Brand new soldiers. Children. Soldiers who've never fought before and are understandably traumatized. They don't even have a goal to focus on at that point besides "survive" which they can't do because they're out of fuel, and the fueling station is literally covered in titans with no way in. And that one girl was a shining moment of attempted suicide, not bravery or survival. She gave up and was leading all of her friends to their death because her pseudo-incestuous obsession had died.

Seriously, if you want to see what the -entire- army is like, look at the Female Titan arc, because that's where you get to see the actual army. And you know what you see when you see the actual army? No real angsting or crying, just people fighting and dying in an attempt to defeat their enemy. It's almost like having actual combat experience and exposure improves your ability to handle fighting giant monsters.

You keep assuming I never watched the show, I sat there entirely focused on it because I was insanely sick at the time and wrapped in a blanket and really had no option to do anything else but watch netflix. I marathon-ed it and I have a great memory for this kinda thing to boot...just not for names.

There've been much younger children soldiers in real life, fighting for their countries in very scary conditions.Yes it's not Titans but, literal children, gunfire, tanks, fires isn't exactly a ride down happy street.

13 months to get a soldier physically and mentally prepared for war, vs 3 years/36 months. I think they had time to train them for this, and they did. The writer just chose to make everyone react very similarly. Again, I'm not saying bumping chest badasses but you didn't see much variety in emotions, not everyone reacts to fear with cowering. Which was basically his theme for the show, hopelessness down to how the show was going to apparently end:

Spoiler

Everyone dies in the end

Which he changed his mind about, this is what I heard, so I wouldn't take it as fact.
Not everyone has to loudly vocalize their feelings with screams or just shaking in place, there are subtle ways of doing it.
Star Trek the captain was captured and was turned into a borg and forced to divulge all the secrets of the fleet and intel against his own fleet and destroy many ships and thousands of lives.
After all this they managed to save him, patch him up, get him control back and he was back to work in his ready room, what did he do? Cry? Panic?

He went to take a sip of his tea, stopped, stood up and looked out the window and all the emotion was conveyed without a single word. You got to see more later in the show, as well as a variety of character reactions from crazy situations.

Look, whatever, think what you want to. I don't like angst, I don't. I don't like helpess freakouts and if there's a reason for it? Sure but 3 years of training really set up for some kind of able fight, still could have been out of control or whatever but it didn't catch me. I did watch the female titan arch, which was more interesting. Doesn't change the large portion of the show I had mixed feelings about.

You're not going to change my mind, regardless of what you may think I did watch the show and I did like the show, the angst was too much though so overall I'd give it a pass if I was looking to view an anime again. Not bad but it wasn't this be all-end all show that my friends were making it out to me, who later agreed the angst was excessive but they still enjoyed it regardless. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise either, you're questioning my opinion on it and this is how I feel, so that's that really. Seriously if you like the show and felt all that angst was justified then super, that's awesome.
Thanks for chattin'

 

[Buidoirican]

I initially ignored this anime entirely when people started raving about it. It's my instinctual reaction to automatically shun what jumps to instant popularity with a few exceptions. That being said I ended up watching it randomly. I liked the initial premise up until episode 7( or somewhere around there. The first twist I guess ), and then I wasn't really impressed story wise afterwards.

Honestly, to me the story is nothing special which is probably why I'm not particularly interested in finishing it or seeing it through ( I did complete the first season though ). What I did like was the animation and some of the soundtrack. What kills it for me is the main character, pacing, story structure. There's a specific moment I remember where the writer is planning to crush an uplifting moment with surprises. The impending doom is pretty well telegraphed, but that's not what bothered me. What bothered me was the need to have the main character recall a statement from another character that precedes the massacre. I also can't help but feel that there's always an endless supply of nameless characters (a lot like Dynasty Warrior enemies) that are just there despite how often units get annihilated.

But yeah, meh to that anime.