Attack on Titan review

        Shingeki no Kyojin, literally "Advancing Giants", "The Attack of the Titans", or Attack on Titan, is a manga series written by Hajime Isayama. He earned an honorific mention in the Grand Prinx Magazine,  and its serialization started october 10, 2009 in the Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine from editorial Kodansha. In current time it has saled more than 20 million manga copies.

  Attack on Titan has a live-action in production and 4 videogames developed by Nitroplus with the assistant and collaboration of Production I.G. (Blood, Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Psycho Pass, Kuroko no Basket, Flcl), and they will be released with the 3rd and 6th anime Blu-Ray. The animation series made its debut in april 6, 2013.

Chronology:

Year 738: the Titans rise, gigantic creatures within 3 to 15 meters high. They have humanoid form and low intelligence, and its only reason to exist is to feed from humans. These Titans carry out the extinction of more than half of mandkind.


Year 745: human race builds 3 walls: Maria, Rose and Sina. The Titans are unable to enter the walls, and humanity can enjoy survival for 100 years of peace.

Year 845: the Armored Titan and the Colossus Titan(60 meters high) made their apparition, destroying part of Wall Maria. This allows the invasion of human territory, causing incredible losses.

Year 850: the real plot starts here. Mankind begins a counterattack, and Eren and his comrades fight against the titans to stop humanity extinction.

Plot:

   The story follows Eren Jaeger, his adoptive sister Mikasa Ackerman, and his friend Armin Arlart. After the fall of Wall Maria and Eren´s mother death, he swears revenge against all Titans. Years later, he discovers he can transform into a Titan of 15 meters tall.

   This is the real beggining of the story, all until now was just the setup for this "medieval" world, the weapons against titans, the 3D maneuver gear, the powder canyons, the metal blades, and the weak points of the titans. In these aspects, it is incredible innovative: weird weapons, weird enemies, and a medieval fantasy universe with credible technology for the viewer. From this point, year 850, the author starts to develop the real story of Attack on Titan.

Titans:

            The Titans (Kyojin) are the enemies in the series. They can reach 3 to 15 meters high. They keep increasing their numbers, however, there are many questions about them: where do they come from?, how do they reproduce?. They don´t have proven inteligence, remain inactives if they don´t have enough solar light, and they don´t need to eat anything to survive. The titans have no more objective than the killing and consume of humans, and don´t seem interested in attacking animals. Their skin is extremely hard and have extraordinary regeneration powers. The only way to kill them is a big slash in the back of their necks. This weakness leads mankind to create the 3D Maneuver Gear, allowing humans to reach the titans weak point.
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Colossus Titan (超大型巨人 Chō-ōgata Kyojin)

    The biggest Titan ever seen. It has around 60 meters tall, and its body is like a human without skin, and therefore, its muscles are exposed. It exhibits signs of intelligence when it shows itself in Trost in the year 850, destroying the canyons over the wall. Spoiler: Later, it was revealed as the transformation of Bertolt Huber, one of Eren´s partners in militia.

Armored Titan (鎧の巨人 Yoroi no Kyojin)

    An unusual Titan. It has unusual speed and its body is covered by plates almost impenetrable. Spoiler: Later in the manga, it is revealed as the transformation of  Reiner Braun, another comrade of Eren in the militia.

Female Titan (女型の巨人 Megata no Kyojin?)

    A 14 meters tall Titan with the structure of a female body. Later, Armin is able to take her to a trap and reveal her true identity: Annie Leonhart.

Beast Titan (獣の巨人 Kemono no Kyojin?)

  This 17 meters in height titan has its body covered in hair and an ape face. His look is more like a primate than any other titan. It is the only one in showing interest in the weapons created by humans.

   
   If you ask me, I believe the Titans are humans transformed into giants, that´s why I call them "Giant Zombies". Their behavior is similar to a zombie, although they show some intelligence in "Ilse´s Diary", where a titan couldn´t stop itself from its "need to eat humans".

Reception:

    One of the curiosities of the manga is that different characters are based in martial arts fighters: Eren Jaeger is based on Yushin Okami, and the body of the Armored Titan is based in the fighter-wrestler Brock Lesnar.

     Another curiosity is the cultural impact caused over the japanese youth: they create pictures or little productions showing gigantic humans eating little humans.

    The tv format was made as a big production, the opening and the animation have great quality. Also the music, almost inaudible some times, but I consider it just right for this horror and frighting world.

    We are used to see giants with a laugh in the face, with the kaiju series like Godzilla or Ultraman. But Attack on Titan achieves to put the viewer in an environment of horror and desperation, where humans face the terror induced by the Titans.

   Another achievement is the combination of genre: the horror, something physical to scare the viewer, making him away from the screen because of the gore images; and terror, something more intelectual which can be related to the suspense, making you wonder about the secrets of the titans.

   The author puts forth also a social complain by showing us a cruel world where the "law of the stronger" reigns, and presents some of the worse thing humanity commits.

   From a personal poitn of view, it´s an extremely sloooooooow serie. The animation tries to extend the most it can, especially the 1st chapter: you wait the whole chapter the aparition of the titans and only, just only, in the 2nd chapter they appear, destroying the city, and... that was it. This was something known from before the animation series even started.

   The current manga (chapter 53) is horribly bad drawn, to the point where you don´t know who is who in each scene.

In the other hand, it has suffered different critics for its visual impact and its raw images. I´m not the only one in consider that to tale a good story, you don´t need to show so much blood. There are a lot of examples of this, let´s see the case of my favorite movie of all time: "The Lord of the Rings", the only war with no cruelty with the humans deads

Many call it "overrated", and mmmmmm, it makes you think. In one hand, the story is very innovative, but the drawing and art is awful. The animation is a great production, but if it would have been released 15 or 20 years ago, it would be just one more of the great series we have seen in the past.

If we compare it with some other mangas, the Berserk manga is more raw and intense, and the animation of "Record of Lodoss War" is much more epic and has a better and more elaborated story behind.

Don´t misunderstand me, it´s a good one, but not the number one, as many others propose in the current time.

I recommend Attack on Titan to all of you who like gore, visceras, bizarre, and is accompanied with a good story. And like Carlo Santos said, "a masterpiece of death and destruction".