I don't remember literally anything that happened in season 1 or 2 or the first half of season 3. I'd hardly call the second half of season 3 a masterpiece but it was at least somewhat interesting.
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How divided is the opinion on Attack on Titan?
- Thread starter hwarang
- Start date
Nah, what you described was my experience exactly. Fell off after mid-season 2 from lack of interest, friend convinced me to keep going, got to season 3 and experienced some of most intense twists and story in any anime I've ever seen. Completely worth it. Sometimes even your favorite shows have rough spots you need to power through.
So my interest waned after I heard the author was a Nationalist but lately I was trying to find some more info about that and didnt seem to find anything super conclusive, can anyone here expand on the matter a bit more?
AoT was never average. Every chapter of the manga moves the plot forward, and adds new suspense.
Nah, they kinda want to justify why the plot evolves the way it is because he was nationalist, but imo it's the fans doing to much speculation and conspiracy theory.
The story turns out fine, and it's chapter is still amazing. These days if your story has some kind of political element, people likes to accuse you of slipping a political message.
OP
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The first season is okay, but after watching the other two seasons I'm surprised someone would have this opinion tbh. Seasons 2+3 are exceptional and are not only superior to the first, but manage to elevate the first season retroactively.
some people seem to believe, at the very same time, that the Eldians' struggles (most of the main characters are Eldian) represent a glamorization of Japanese nationalism and that the Eldians are coded as Jews in an anti-Semitic way
I guess it's possible to reconcile those two views, but I haven't seen a lot of people really do that kind of finessing
anyway, it's definitely true that AoT's themes and plotlines unfold with some amount of awkwardness in how they somewhat haphazardly evoke some heavy real life shit, but the whole thing has been interesting and well done enough that I'm down to see where it ends up and hold off on a final evaluation
Yeah, I heard about what happened and it sounded... intriguing at least.
Not enough for me to catch up to a couple of seasons of the show, but hey. lol
Mikasa's entire character is just "please let me die for you because you're so great, Eren."
That's really reductive. He saved her life when they were kids and gave her a reason to keep living. She's just as broken as most of the people in the series and thus takes that to an extreme.
I was bummed when the colossal titan
, but as I watched, grew to love that direction so it can move on to more interesting characters and plot like end of season 3.
turned out to be a relatively nobody
the story is great for a while then dips a bit but comes back full force
i love it, lots of great stuff happens after season 1
i love it, lots of great stuff happens after season 1
For me this is a years-ago thing that me and my daughter who I watch anime with long ago lost interest.
Yes, but they fucked up. Anecdotally, I knew people who never even kind of cared about anime who were hyped about it. But season 2 took so long to come out that they didn't really keep up.
And I just read the manga, and later the wiki (because manga chapters also took eons to come out).
And I just read the manga, and later the wiki (because manga chapters also took eons to come out).
interest dropped after being so disappointed in season 1. outside of key S2 and S3 episodes, haven't looked back since.
The mystery of the Titans was really interesting and the ways they fought them were cool. Then they spoiled the mystery pretty fast and it just nose dived into being as stupid as possible. Everything I've heard explained to me after I stopped sounds just like they really want to drive home that they never should have spoiled the mystery. Be like if they solved who killed Laura Palmer in episode 2. I dunno if I should be comparing this to something as good as Twin Peaks though.
Then Later i find out after that Isayama seems to idolize a war criminal and seems to believe the Japanese invasion of Korea was not bad and in fact was actually an extremely good thing for Korea and yeah. Hmm.
Then Later i find out after that Isayama seems to idolize a war criminal and seems to believe the Japanese invasion of Korea was not bad and in fact was actually an extremely good thing for Korea and yeah. Hmm.
Will say that hearing things explained to you is never going to sound good.
It's all about the execution and the execution of the story is brilliant and I say that as someone that criticized the nationalist undertones of the story but now realize that Isayama really is turning it around and deconstructing said undertones...so far anyway.
I don't even like Eren and have to admit that his character arc is damn impressive.
He starts as an absolutely cookie-cutter shounen protagonist in the form of an insufferable moron with more rage than skill or sense, and becomes a vastly more mature and nuanced person by the third season. He became one of my favourite characters, when I was originally watching for everyone around him instead. His character growth is really good.
It definitely improves and keeps building to a wonderfully realized story, one of the best in manga/anime. I could go on about how the characters all feel meaningful and the reveals are actually worth it.
I feel legit sad for anyone who stopped at S1 or couldn't get into it.
I feel legit sad for anyone who stopped at S1 or couldn't get into it.
It starts like a generic mecha anime with interesting lore. Now it is something else. It became one of the most consistent great manga I have ever seen. There are some really amazing revelations later on and the author delivered on the hype.
It only got better as time went on. I never expected it to be this good. I was pretty hyped up after the end of S1 but the gap with S2 completely killed my interest until I chose to try it out and got blown away all over again.
I believe the whole nationalism business comes from an interview he basically Douglas MacArthur'ed an Imperial Japanese general that was in the occupation of Korea, who is the basis of a character in the manga who is generally presented as an asshole who sometimes does OK things. I think it isn't difficult to believe that he has nationalistic tendencies.
What I will say is that the manga itself, despite the exploitation of militaristic themes to sell product (this is a problem in general, Gundam has done this for decades), is pretty close to the opposite of 14/88 bullshit because he's cribbing shit from war media and the majority of war media is not openly* pro-war and pro-ethnic cleansing. If anything, he's more Polanski than Dinesh D'Souza.
*I can see why people might see why the manga is pro-militarist when combined with that interview but I still don't think the author was intentionally producing fascist propaganda. I dunno how people read the first chapter that introduces the scouting legion and think he's purposely glorifying it. Talking about Attack on Titan in general, I think conflating the idea that he's a nationalist and misreading the manga is a pretty bad idea as it is very possible for people to write media that doesn't align with their political views and personal actions. Its honestly better to just say don't read Attack on Titan because the guy is very likely a huge war crime denying asshole.
I remember a Robert Ebert article where he watched Full Metal Jacket, something people often consider to be a great anti-war film, with a Vietnam veteran. When Ebert asked him what he thought about it, he responded that it was just another awful pro-war movie because it would serve as a recruiting film. Considering how many people consider key scenes of the movie, including the boot camp sections, to be extremely awesome and cool, he'd probably be correct. It isn't to the degree of Top Gun, which is straight up US Air Force propaganda considering the movie wouldn't work without their involvement, but its probably a net negative in terms of encouraging sociopaths to join the armed forces. Entertainment media that directly involves warfare has a tendency of glorifying it due to the nature of the media being entertainment rather than a conscious effort.
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Is there evidence for the bold part? It all seems to be based on an unconfirmed twitter account of his that likened the Japanese war criminal to a character in the show and handwaved Japan's war crimes in Korea by saying that equating them to the holocaust is a crude misunderstanding. That was in 2013, the involved accounts no longer exist / are protected and everything is in Japanese to boot, so working with the source material is difficult.
In any case, the way the story develops is definitely not pro-war, pro-nationalism or imperialistic. There was also a discussion about aot possibly getting into "the jews did this / they deserved it" allegory territory, which was dismissed when the story progressed and more became known about where the series is headed. In fact (without trying to spoil anything post season 3), I think the core message is that an affinity for any of those things is bound to lead to destruction, and even people who fought for their liberation can get twisted into nationalist extremists. I think the current unfavorable take on the story is that it allegorically implies 'the past is the past, let's kinda move over the horrible war shit we did in the past and live in peace again' when it comes to Japan, which isn't the same thing as outright denial, but yeah it's iffy.
The second cour of Season 3 is my favourite part of the series, so my high expectations after the events of Season 1 were respected (note that I read the full manga before the anime, and this year, though). Looking forward to readint toe ending, too. I am sure the author will surprise the readers someway, again.
When it's all said and done AoT will go down as one of the GOATs. Season 3 was one of the best seasons of an anime ever.
No matter how it ends, it will always get credit from me for being one of the very few series that builds up a big twist as "it will change everything" and actually fucking delivers it.
Same and I have to say that season 1 was probably the worst one so far (tho still very good).
I haven't seen the season 4 trailer and I don't plan to (don't want to get spoiled), but I heard people saying that it's supposed to be the last season? Isn't the manga still ongoing?
It's literally called "The Final Season", so yes.
It is, but it appears to be nearly over. Back in December, the author said the serialization would end sometime in 2020, for what it's worth.
I remember watching the first season when I was a freshman in college. I didn't watch anime that much outside of mainstream ones like Dragonball Z and Yu-Gi-Oh when I was a kid, but I was definitely into Attack on Titan. I think it was sometime after the second season that I decided to spoil myself. I didn't even really read the manga; I only read the summaries on the Wiki page. But with the release of later seasons, I definitely got kinda mixed up on what happened when and who's against whom and all that jazz, so I'm probably going to end up re-watching all of the episodes sometime. I'm reading the manga chapters as they release now, and I'm not sure I like the direction it's going. But it's certainly different, and I'm eager to see how it ends. The break between season one and season two was a serious downer, though.