The anime adaptation of Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan has recently concluded its Second Season with a planned Third Season to come out in 2018. This has many of the franchise's fans, as well as those within the anime commuinity, to rejoice as we don't have to wait that long for the Third Season to show up. Indeed the huge popularity of Attack on Titan has made it the defining anime of the 2010s, surpassing even the likes of My Hero Academia, and Dragon Ball Super.
I was awfully late to the Attack on Titan bandwagon as I didn't watch the first season until I saw it on Netflix two years or so after the Japanese release. And it didn't turn me entirely into an Attack on Titan fan at that time. Let me explain.
When I was observing fans talking about what made Attack on Titan great, the one common thing I find in their conversations, is the amount of gore like it was the most brutal and horrifying thing they've ever seen. I was like "Seriously, you're into this because of the gore?". I'm not a gore fan, or 'guro' in the anime/manga world, and I do understand that Attack on Titan is a horror-fanstasy series. But I've seen a number of guro works and I have seen much more brutal and sickening gore scenes than the stuff Attack on Titan portrays.
And once you strip away the horrror-fantasy, the gore, and all that, at the heart of Attack on Titan, is your typical Shonen story. Believe it or not, despite what Attack on Titan portrays, it's primary audience is the young boys crowd - the very same demographic that watches Dragon Ball Super, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Boruto, etc. In case you haven't noticed or you haven't been into the anime or manga industry for that long, Japan, unlike the US and other countries, has a unique way of determining which content is ok on which demographic.
Even in shows like Doraemon and Shin-chan, both aimed at the Kindergarten crowd, it is acceptable for the characters in these anime shows to be at times shown in their birthday suits. Imagine if this was Dora The Explorer, for example. That kind of thing would no way in hell be allowed in other countries, let alone the US! But in Japan, it is ok. And it is just as ok for the Shonen demographic, meaning the boys in the 7-12 year old range, to feature female characters showing off their 'assets' like in Keijo, or in the case of Attack on Titan, the extreme violence.
Anyway, going back to the Shonen genre of Attack on Titan, Eren Jaeger is your typical Shonen protagonist. He is outclassed by his peers, but he makes up for it by having a special power that plays a vital role on him to defeat the other Titans. We've seen this before in many other Shonen anime out there. Throw in the many common tropes and this is exactly what Attack on Titan is. All that gore is merely a garnish. It's not a bad anime, by any means, but I don't find it as great as what others say it is. For me, the First Season of Attack on Titan is just average, or if I give it a rating, a 3 out of 5.
After four years since airing in 2013 (more on that later), Attack on Titan's Second Season finally came out this year, though with a much shorter 12 episodes than last year's 25. Prior to the release of the Second Season, I was actually reading the manga and I already know what to expect and what arc the 2nd Season would cover. Despite all this, even though I know what was going to happen, the anime adaptation just blows me away. Director Tetsuro Araki really did an amazing job drawing viewers in to the series, glued to what was going on, and just as things were getting intense, he pulls the carpet right under you by ending the episode in a cliffhanger, making you yell "WHAT THE ****?!" and wanting to come back for more.
And while it is tradition for Shonen anime to show a bit of background on some of the supporting cast like Sasha and Ymir, it was very well executed. We've seen a side of Sasha in which she is more than a gag character who just wants potatoes, and Ymir's story lets you sympathize with her, and her relationship with Christa. I dare say that if you're looking for a female character that would go alongside the current Wonder Woman film, that would be Ymir.
It comes at a bit of a cost, though. Because the Second Season is focused on the supporting cast, not much character development is given to the main characters - Eren, Mikasa, and Arwin. I find that ok, however. And in the end, Eren and Mikasa did show a bit of development. Mikasa all but confessed her love for Eren, and Eren "kind of" returned the favor, somewhat.
A small picking, but I already knew Hange is a woman, though she was androgenous in the manga and the first season. But in the reprint editions of the manga, and in the 2nd Season of the anime, it is made official that Hange is fact female. Besides, while I haven't read that far in the manga yet, I hear Hange and Levi are to be paired up, so I'm pretty much all of it.
As to why it took four years for the Second Season of Attack on Titan to be made, it's from a variety of factors. The first is that the original manga series releases new chapters on a monthly basis, unlike weekly like we see in others such as One Piece and Naruto back then when it was still running. The first season covered the first 34 chapters of the anime and the manga is still ongoing to this day currently at 94 chapters. So time is needed for Isayama to advance the story further before it can be animated. The last thing we all need is for the series to have filler arcs like we saw in Naruto and Bleach. And you know what happens when it comes to filler arcs.....
While Isayama continues doing the manga, Wit Studio went out to do other projects. Among them is Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress, which is a huge hit that a Second Season has been announced also for a 2018 release.
Another factor is that the Anime Industry is currently experiencing a crisis on the shortage of animators. I won't go into the details, but the short version is it sucks to work in the anime industry because you do so much and get paid for so little. Wit Studio doesn't want the animation quality of their works to suffer the way Toei did with Dragon Ball Super. So they had to find the right people for their works, but those said people are slowly become scarce to find.
On that particular note, it does explain in part why the recent Berserk anime is so bad in terms of animation because of the lack of really talented animators.
Having said all that, the Second Season of Attack on Titan is well worth the wait and is everything fans wanted and even more. I personally enjoyed it just as much that yes, this Second Season indeed turned me into a fan of this series. I, and everyone else, am looking forward to the Third Season in 2018, where things really kick into high gear. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give the Second Season of Attack on Titan, a 4 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment