English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “To You, After 2,000 Years: The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 1”
See how the Japanese sensation fared after the jump!
So, this was the anime sensation that swept Japan last year, and we are finally getting our official first look. This is a review based on never seeing the series before, because there are some of us who haven’t. So, if you know what happens, good for you. Anyway, here’s the synopsis!
Eren Yaeger, the main character, told us how the walled in city he lived in realized that they were all cattle for the Titans. The Titans are genderless human-eating machines with creepy as fuck smiles. There, we get our first glimpse of the Titans fighting a bunch of people on shooting wires and big swords. After one of the better opening songs, we get Eren and Mikasa Ackerman under a tree. Mikasa is one of Eren’s best friends, and somewhat of a protector. They talk for a second, and go back to collecting wood. Eren and Mikasa go back after collecting wood, and get stopped by Hannes. Another guard comes over, and does nothing to calm down Eren. They end up leaving, and start to talk about Eren going into the Scouts. The Scouts protect the city from the titans outside.
The bells ring, signalling the scouts come back from their battle with the Titan, but they are annihilated. A mother looking for Moses approaches, and is given his hand. The commander is very downtrodden, because the kid died because of him, with nothing to show for it. The caravan leaves, and a villager is talking trash about the scouts. Eren knocks him upside the head, and Mikasa drags him off. She throws him against the wall, with the wood going everywhere. She asks again if he’s joining the scouts.
The kids make it back to the Yaeger residence, with all of the wood. They sit down to ear, where Mikasa blabs that Eren was joining the Scouts. Carla almost snaps, and looks for his dad to talk him down from it. Grisha says there’s no stopping him, but gets him to behave by promising him to show what he’s been working on. He runs off, with Mikasa in tow. They run into a bunch of bullies beating up Armin Arlert, another friend. They first see Eren, who doesn’t pose a threat, but when they see Mikasa, they scatter. Armin was getting the crap kicked out of him because of his belief that humanity’s future lays beyond the wall. Then, red lightning strikes, and shakes the Earth. The entire city empties out to see a huge Titan, over 50 meters high, looking over the wall. With one swift knee strike, me makes a hole big enough for the smaller Titans to go in.
Eren and Mikasa run off, with Armin just stuck. Eren and Mikasa run to Eren’s house, but the house collapsed on top of Erin’s mother. One Titan makes be-line to the Yaeger house, where his mom tells him that she will just hold them back, because her legs are crushed. Hannes shows up, and tries to pay up on the debt that he owes. He takes one look at the Titan, and he turns around to take Eren and Mikasa, and they leave. The Titan grabs Carla, and makes tasty treat out of her. The blood fountain from that bite speads across the city.
Bear in mind, I am writing this review as someone who hasn’t seen this before, because I haven’t. This show is a mixed bag for me. I really want to like this show, but there’s one nagging issue. For starters, why is it that this show has the biggest anime trope, ever? Eren is your stereotypical whining, hyperactive main character who has a female sisterly type who protects him. I’m pretty sure I would have endeared myself to him a bit more if he didn’t remind me of every other character ever.
This episode dragged for the first 23 or so minutes, until the huge Titan knocked in the wall. Hopefully with the next episode, things kick into gear. The fact that this 23 minutes could have been shrunk down to make way for more of the Titans attacking, or giving us more of that opening fight with the Titan, would have made this more enjoyable, and hook me into watching more. A friend of mine recommended to watch the opening, and that was one of the most generic openings I have ever seen.
Now that I trashed this show for a while, there are some good to come of it. I am glad that Funimation (Or Toonami for that matter) took the time to shrink the opening, and make it less generic and shitty. The show itself looks fantastic. It’s probably the best drawn series I have seen, next to Space Dandy. The action scenes are handled well, the Titans look creepy as shit, which is cool. I know that there is a lot of action coming up, because it’s on Toonami. But from what I saw, I expect a lot more blood fountains to follow. And that’s not a bad thing. Also, I am digging the graphic redesign for Toonami. It looks a little like art-deco lettering. Good job on the redo!
All in all, the opener is a lot of wasted potential. If the show picks up steam, and cranks the violence up while leveling out the terrible main character, then maybe this will amount to something. Until then, this was just a lot of hype, with nothing to back it up.
