Rent Attack on Titan: Series 1: Part 1 (2013)

Attack on Titan: Series 1: Part 1 (aka Shingeki no Kyojin) review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

The world of Attack on Titan is one of roaming giants that terrify the human populace. But these are far from dopey oafs that stumbled down the beanstalk searching for their golden goose. These giants dubbed Titans are naked, brainless bi-pedals with deformed faces driven specifically for food. They hunt down humans with swift speed and mouths wide as Ichi the Killer to swallow them whole (though they’d rather chew their food). The human villages isolate themselves in massive dam-like walls to prevent the advance of the monstrous Titans, but, if we’ve learned anything from the film Pacific Rim, that’s never a solid solution. The only chance for humanity is to fight back with a special soldier class that specializes in Titan slaying via suspension cables and swords as if they were a squad of murderous Spider-Man clones.

The latest recruit for this giant slaying army is the young Eren, a frightened boy who watched in horror as his mother was gobbled up by the Titans. When he finds that the population keeps retreating further back with dwindling resources for food, he decides to put aside his fear and fight the massive people eaters. He undergoes intense training as he masters the equipment that will allow him to zip across rooftops and carve up the Titans. But it won’t be as easy as it sounds. The Titans may look silly with their nude and deformed bodies, but they’re frighteningly efficient at defending themselves with brute force. They swat down the soldiers like flies and consume them with gruesome chomps. The army missions end up being less about how many Titans they can slay and more about how many soldiers don’t end up as chow.

What makes Attack on Titan so irresistibly watchable is for delivering on the key mood of terror. I have seen so many anime series that try to phone in this atmosphere with bucket loads of blood and gore that just doesn’t cut it. This show has a real sense of scale and ferocity where I found myself frightened by how these creatures can topple mountain-sized structures and wreak havoc on these simple towns. The contrasting art style helps contribute to the otherworldly quality of the monsters. While the human characters appear as your standard anime character designs, the Titans have a real sense of texture and sketchbook detail as if they were invading figures from an art student's project. While that choice does make the show very uneven in its visual appeal, it certainly delivers on the intended emotion.

The show is kept fresh over the course of the first 13 episodes by bringing in so many unexpected elements. Characters are given just enough build up so that when the carnage is unleashed, we’re shocked by the amount of them that bite the dust at an alarming rate. But there is also more intrigue given to the Titans themselves as with a more intelligent version dubbed the Colossus Titan (he looks like a horror movie version of Mr. Goodbody). And there is a very clever aspect in which humans can gain the abilities to transform into Titans themselves.

The more I write about this show, the more it sounds like a zombie apocalypse. It shares similar traits with finding sanctuary, surviving on little and fighting your way through hordes of feasting baddies. But what separates itself from that genre is that while zombies are easy enough to step aside and avoid, the Titans are like trying to get out of the path of an oncoming hurricane. Also, I’m fairly sure that in a real zombie outbreak local wildlife would consume the slow-moving undead. Whereas if it were an outbreak of Titans, the giants would be the ones consuming all the wildlife. I have to imagine that such an environment would have made some hefty additions to the endangered species list.

Also worth noting about the show is the world building. This isn’t just a random medieval setting of peasants and knights. Several angles have been considered when it comes to how humans live around these giants. Food is scarce so the government forces the population into tough spots of working for their fair share. The air of uncertainty and confusion leads to slave traders of the region. And the general paranoia of the Titans is completely justified given the ineffectual results of the military. In the first episode, a squad returns to tearfully report that they not only lost too many men, but failed to deliver a satisfactory blow to the Titans.

Attack on Titan is one of the few anime series out there with an original idea and solid direction. It slips into a few anime tropes of bland dialogue and expected character development, but it's a far cry from the cookie-cutter templates of anime series I’ve seen after many years. It features real characters of varying degrees as opposed to tired stoics and silly comic relief. The violence packs a real punch and is shocking not for its brutal depictions, but the grisly implications. While I can’t exactly say that Attack on Titan is up there with the best anime series of all time, it’s certainly one of the most iconic and addicting as of late. Any anime that can effectively make you feel terrified by the presence of giant monsters without the need of a giant robot to smash them is certainly worth a look.