Category: Finished Series: Action

After the first big action-oriented arc, Shingeki no Kyojin is in its intermezzo arc: the arc that does not focus on action, but instead is aimed at exploring the background of something, in this case the titans. Arcs like these don’t have action: they can’t depend on flashy graphics or fast-paced entertainment to keep the viewer busy, so their subject material really needs to be interesting here more than ever now.

Many series before have attempted to first show enemies as ruthless monsters, only to show a bit of humanity into them. My experience told me that this is very hard to really do well. The obvious solution would be to just hint that these beings also have some sort of humanity in them. Gargantia did that for example, but that was way too quick to really come of as convincing, especially how they used it. Shingeki no Kyojin has an intersesting approach here, by using this nutcase of a character really well.

This is new: a character who is so desperate to see the titans from a different angle. She’s fully aware of what they did, yet she forces herself to bond with the titans she caught, even though there are no hints whatsoever that they’re actually taking note of her and recognizin her. It’s like herding a bunch of amnesiac tigers, only ten times worse. And this actually worked.

In one way, Eren is a great main character. I mean, there is not much to his character, but as an observer he works quite well: he’s hardly ever in control of the situation, which gives the side cast tons of different oppotunities to shine and show themselves off. You way too often have these main characters who try to hog all of the spotlights, but he stays very surprisingly away from that.

Also, that final sentence of the episode intrigued me.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

This was a type of episode that you really don’t see often: a courtroom episode. It’s felt like ages since the previous one popped up, because it’s very specific: nearly an entire episode being set in a courtroom, and the conclusion of the episode being the conclusion of the judge. For this type of episode, it was fairly straightforward: should Eren be killed or not. But really: a battle of arguments without any big action scenes in this series? That worked out really well.

This episode showed a bit more insight about the politics in this series: the different forces that control the last settlements of humanity, and the way they presented their arguments, and reacted in this episode showed a lot about who the are in general and what they behave like. They are one-dimensional stereotypes, so this was not an episode for the characters, but rather it was one for the setting. And still, I love how Eren tried to defend himself, and Mikasa really got the chance to show a weak side of her. That’s actually very important because of how god-moded she threatened to become. That black-haired guy has the same problem by the way, but he at least has his arrogance that prevents him from becoming the perfect character.

Also, is it me, or is there a new soundtrack? I at least think that I haven’t heard these tracks before. In any caes the OP and ED are definitely new. The OP actually looks gorgeous. The visuals are even better than the first. I do get the feeling though, that the song they used for it was originally composed for something like 5 minutes, and the 90-second version feels like this hastily cut-together version of this. Try to focus on one part of the song, rather than try and stuff everything in it. They did that right with the ED, but there I’m not a big fan of the song.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

And so the really long invasion arc has finally ended, and I must say that it did so with a bang. Eren in his titan form really looked gorgeous, and the creators did a really good job at bringing him to life there. Add that to an insert song that worked surprisingly well. Shingeki no Kyojin is obviously trying to be the epic of the year here, and well… they pretty much solidified that even more with this episode.

For a small while, there was hope in this episode. However, I also really enjoyedhow the aftermath brought everything back donwn to earth again, and to the series’ roots: despair. It did a really good job of showing exactly what kinds of sacrifices Eren had to make in order to carry out the plan of plugging up the hole in the gate, both with words, and emotions: every character was pretty much feeling the atmosphere and realized just what happened.

So after this there will be a recap, and from there on we’ll get to the second half of the series. With this the question will arise whether the creators will be able to get the entire story in, especially considering the manga hasn’t ended yet. For this there are three possibilities, I think: an anime original ending, the manga will end in a few months, or the series will be concluded in a movie of some sort. They all have their pros and cons.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

I have to give props to the soundtrack guy: Hiroyuki Sawano. It’s the guy who also did the soundtrack for Ao no Exorcist and Sengoku Basara, but I think that he really delivered his best work so far with Shingeki no Kyojin. Especially this episode showed how powerful the soundtrack in this series can be: it’s epic, yet unique. The big danger with those epic coundtracks is to just throw in lots of bombast and choirs. It sounds great, but all those soundtracks start to sound the same! Here it’s not the case though.

This episode contained such a fine piece of atmosphere building. I mean, Shingeki no Kyojin is all about despair: screwing over humanity as much as possible, while not turning it into a one-sided slaughter by providing pieces of hope. Eren may have turned into that giant, but this entire episode just kept reminding us that things would’t be so easy. Heck, Eren was out-cold for the entire thing, leaving everything to the side-characters to clean things up for him. This makes him quite a unique main character: yes, he has the power fitting of a main character, but this is more and more turning into Mikasa and Armin’s story.

Seriously, a character like Armin… in normal stories he’d perhaps get one crowning moment of awesome. Here, he just keeps struggling! And that’s the beauty of this series: everyone is fighting for their lives in a way that hasn’t been done for a very long while. I’m getting flashbacks to Blue Gender, only with much better production-values and much more bombast. This season may be small, but the series that stand out really stand out here!
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

It’s probably no mistake that I love series that know their build-up; the series that really manage to prepare, and use this preparation, rather than just going into random directions. Shingeki no Kyojin showed with this episode that it really knows its build-up. The climax of this episode was amazing, and in a very different way from what you usually see.

Nearly the entire episode was about hope: trying to convince everyone in this series that the best course of action would be to send Eren to plug up the hole in Wall Maria. There were a lot of uncertainties, and so the characters had to resort to using hope: this can work. There were so many people in doubts in this episode. If it works, then this will be the first time mankind has ever won from the titans. This will turn the tide and we can actually start to fight back with Eren that way. It will be worth all of the sacrifices! And then Eren just started to smash in random walls. Oh, the despair! It was awesome.

As for the budget, this episode showed that this is really a manga adaptation: there were quite a few still frames, that looked like they came right out of the manga. And that, combined with some beautiful money-shots of Eren and Mikasa flying through the city. It’s clear that the best animator of this week’s episode worked on that city, and it’s the kind of action scene that really is unique to this anime.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Shingeki no Kyojin is addictive, it’s just as I hoped, even in episodes like this when there isn’t any action. This episode instead was all about paranoia, and panic, which is what it used to create its atmosphere. I deally the pacing could have been a bit faster, but that’s just a minor nitpick. This still worked really well and because of that it actually made sense for that commander to be stopped by his superior, because he took so damn long to give the order to fire.

Armin was the one who got the most development in this episode. And heck, his performance in this episode was over the top crazy, but that definitely grabbed me by surprise. He’s really slowly growing out of his stereotype as well, and he’s shown quite a few times that he knows how to think and come up with bold plans.

The strange thing here is transforming: usually when a character transforms he just grows, shrinks, turns, or just generally morphs into a different shape. Eren though, he just grows 20 times his size, he regrows his limbs, and stays inside the titans like it’s some sort of flesh-puppet.
Rating: 5.5/8 (Excellent)

At this point I stopped reading the manga, so here too I’m just blank. And it seems that I quit at a really awesome point in the series, because this episode again was really tense as it showed some hints about why Eren managed to turn into a titan in the first place, as well as hints to how the titans could be defeated and why Eren is special: his father.

People behaving illogically. That’s difficult to do, and yet this series is full of people in panic. In the past it went a bit over the top with how it portrayed the rich guys as egotistical bastards, but in this episode it was really good: Eren indeed is the key to beating the titans. However when you just saw that giant thing turn into him, all you do is want to kill him, yeah. I’m only not sure how Eren knew that he could activate this by biting into his thumb…

And really, the artwork for Eren’s new titan form looked gorgeous. Heck, the atmosphere here was just awesome in how the second episode just kept building up the tension by showing Eren’s inner struggles, and the background music really helped with that.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

So yeah, the spring season is the worst spring season we’ve had in a decade when you look at the overall amount of series and the diversity. However, there IS definitely something interesting going on here, and that is how much praise I notice on Shingeki no Kyojin. I mean, it really stands head and shoulders above all other series that are even remotely action-oriented this season, and really: I believe that this series both gives a new spin to the action genre, and most importantly: it’s a great series to introduce people new to anime with. I feel that this is the type of series that really gives anime its good name, and shows what can be possible in this medium.

This was the episode that I had been waiting for since the start of the series. What happened in this episode really made me a fan of Shingeki no Kyojin in the manga, and I’m excited to see how right they got it! I mean blahblah, it was to be expected that Eren wasn’t dead and all, but that’s not the point. What was so amazing here is how this series developed its atmosphere. Up till the previous episode, the characters looked completely screwed. There was no hope. And then that giant started fighting back. This episode developed what that meant: if used properly, this would be the only chance for humanity to actually survive. The delivery would have been everything: the atmosphere needed to be tight, the action needed to be awesome. Otherwise these emotions would just come off as shallow, since Shingeki no Kyojin basically is about a bunch of characters, struggling for their lives against almost certain death.

The start of Shingeki no Kyojin indeed is a bit bland, mostly due to the characters only having one side when they start out. Here though, with every episode this show starts to push the boundaries of them (Jean in particular was hit hard in this episode). That’s another big part of what made this so addictive.

One detail also that stands out here: the giants don’t make any sounds, aside from that Eren-giant. It did not stand out at all in the manga, but obviously a very important detail in the anime. And really, I am glad that they didn’t try to give most of the giants a voice. It makes them all the more creepier.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)

Yes! This would be the chapter for the anime where it had to boil down to whether the creators knew what they were doing or not. If they didn’t get this part right, then I had to question whether they knew what they were doing with this adaptation. But they nailed it! They actually made a smashing episode here.

This episode really meant to drive home that the characters are just completely screwed. Everyone gets slaughtered, the main character is death, the only way to escape only leads to even more giants. It’s hopeless. Even the ever-strong Mikasa gave up and just lead all of the survivors on a suicide mission. It all was meant to build up to that one giant who started to fight back.

The atmosphere was very different from the manga, but it worked! This entire episode just had me on the edge of my seat, and the characterization was great. That’s what lacked in the start of this series: it’s really good, but the characters are very one-sided. Here is where they lose all that and get multiple sides.

And the choices behind the music and animation: they really work. The style of the manga made it impossible to animate directly, but the movements here have their own styles and they were awesome! Especially near the end of this episode.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)