Attack On Titan

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This is going to be my first time writing a review, I'll try keep it as coherent as possible. You can take what I say as a grain of salt as I'm using this as practice for writing other reviews. I'll also try and keep this as spoiler free as possible. If this isn't possible I'll mark spoilers.

Story Premise

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A quick summary of the show before I begin: mysterious creatures have driven mankind to the brink of extinction and are left with no other choice than to keep themselves within 3 walls:

1. Maria (The Outermost wall)
2. Rose (Second inner wall)
3. Sina (The last wall that humanity lives inside of)

The idea of the show if common place among Western and Eastern producers. The idea of a force greater than humanity and humans becoming pray is one that roams in peoples minds often and makes for quite enjoyable stories to many. With that being said, the genre does get overdone and some stories in my experience have lead to more disappointment than engagement. However AOT never failed to do this as they kept my attention. The main Factors to this are as follows:

1. Fear
I have never encounter a show that has conveyed the emotions of fear and sorrow as greatly as as amazingly as this one. The Japanese voice actors did an exceptionally good job of screams of anguish and pain when having to watch a comrade die. One of my grievances with this show is that it didn't develop certain characters well enough before they die for example:

Spoiler, click to view

when Erens mom died, there was no emotional attachment for the watcher.

However I didn't need the emotional attachment to feel the pain Eren felt. Every contortion of his face painted his pain very vividly in my mind and I've never experienced that in an anime before. I didn't need emotional attachment to feel sorry for a character
2. Forcing the viewer to think
Instead of spoon feeding viewers the plot through exposition, the anime forces the viewer to think for themselves to gain answers. For example

Spoiler, click to view

in the fight against the female titan, viewers for forced to think about the greater meaning behind this. Most people would have guessed the Female Titans identity from the moment they saw her face, but this would have given more questions to the viewer. Are there more out there? What do these human transforming titans want? Who is their leader? Questions like this rushed through my mind as I watched the characters struggle. In addition to this, an encounter I found really interesting to me was the conversation between Levi, his squad and Eren through the large tree forest. Eren watched as the Female Titan trampled one soldier after another and was desperate to help. However their main goal of the mission was to keep Eren alive. While Eren understood this, he couldn't stand by and watch his comrades die. Levi kept a cool head and explained to Erren

You can choose to have faith in the people you trust

Or choose to trust yourself. I do not know the right answer myself, the outcome always remains a mystery.

Levi's squad backed up this sentiment pleading with Eren to have more trust in them
Eren decided to trust in his allies. Only for them to all be slaughtered right before his eyes. As he relapses to the conversation with Levi regretting not trusting in himself from the start. This encounter is very emotionally compelling as it challenges the ideals of the main protagonist and forces him into being seen as vulnerable. I completely sympathised with his situation because I've recognized this idea in my own life as well.

Conclusion

Attack On Titan is a great read and watch that would give you the Shonen satisfaction you need. It's gory nature paints the reality of the situation these characters are in and makes you sympathise with them wholeheartedly. I hope this review will encourage you to pick up the anime and give it a watch. Apologies in advance for any mistakes made. This is my first review and all constructive criticism is welcome :)