Attack on Titan

Note: The score is 60/100 because that divides out to 3/5 stars, which is what I would rate it in this review if I could.

This review is going to be spoiler-filled because the things in Attack on Titan that for better or worse are worth talking about are almost completely concentrated in the back half. If you've already decided you want to read it but don't want to be spoiled on it then the short version is this: It takes fifty chapters to get good. After that you have great fight scenes, some good character moments, a few solid twists, and a rather infamous political subtext that people are still debating. The most I can say about that last part without getting into spoilers is that I think the complaints are valid. You will simply have to deal with its flaws, and while I can't quite recommend it because 50 chapters is simply too much of a time investment just to find out if something is for you, I did enjoy its good aspects.

The spoilers are below this message.

Regarding the politics of the series: The thing I keep coming back to is the backstory of the Eldians, who for those of you who have stuck around but haven't read the series are the people trapped behind the walls. That they ruled the world for thousands of years before their atrocities promted an ultimately successful rebellion. Their king, though he had a weapon powerful enough to win the war, chose instead to wall off the Eldians from the rest of the world and dedicate himself to peace, then erase the collective memories of the Eldians. This ultimately leads to the situation where the Eldians' enemies are able to send the Titans over in an attempt to contain and/or kill them all.

In short, a once-great (read: powerful) country is now at the mercy of its former enemies because of a weak leader who gave up the fight, which is a story that virtually every nationalistic nostalgist peddles. Attack on Titan is, in broad strokes, the story of a great Eldian national revival because of the actions of a rogue military unit that overthrows an authoritarian government by installing a monarch more favorable to themselves, but keeping the rest of the structure intact. There's a bit of nuance in the series' last third when protagonist Eren Yeager decides that the only way to secure the future of the Eldians is to use the aforementioned weapon to annihilate all non-Eldian life on the planet, and the rest of the major characters join forces to stop him. But even then this action is portrayed as the end result of Eren's particular personal issues rather than anything systemic, and the story doesn't take the time to explore exactly why there are so many nameless Yeagerists who support his decision even though the main cast members, who have a similar background and set of experiences to the Yeagerists, do not. The author tries to characterize the Yeagerists by padding their ranks with a few previously-mentioned but ultimately underdeveloped side characters. It doesn't really work.

The controversial ending doesn't help matters. I'm personally ambivalent. It's a very grim ending, which is fine. It's consistent with the story's themes and mood, but it's abrupt and leaves a few too many questions unanswered. It also seems to imply that Eren's plan was the only thing that would have saved Eldia in the long run, since it eventually ends up getting wiped out in a war, though one whose causes we admittedly never learn. The story never quite refutes Eren's philosophy. There is a concerted effort to humanize everyone, the Eldians' enemies included, but it always feels either tangential or merely related to the main thread of the story, which seems to have a fundamentally zero-sum view of national relations in general. If you want to read the series, this is just something you're going to have to deal with.

But all of that happens after the story's first third or so. Before that you'll have to get through the first fifty chapters, which I found very dull. The titans simply aren't an interesting antagonist. A thoughtless, inhuman force of nature operates by affecting how the protagonists explore themselves and the people around them, but Attack on Titan doesn't do that effectively. The characters aren't particularly well-developed at that point in time so there's no depth, and almost all of them are in the military/government, which means that the story is always looking at the titans and their effect on society from the same perspective, which means there's very little variety. The story really picks up when the protagonists start facing off regularly against the human characters and the titan shifters, who are just more interesting. More to the point they provide better fight scenes, which really is where the story shines.

The battle scenes in the second half are meticulously illustrated and spaced out very well. They come frequently enough that the story remains exciting but not so frequently that they lose all their impact. The absolute peak of the series is the second battle of Trost, which combines intriguing tactical decisions with frenetic action for a thoroughly engaging setpiece. It's the first time in a very long while that I've felt something during a shonen action scene, if that helps sell you on it. The others are pretty good too, but they don't stick in my mind the same way.

For all that, I'm not too keen on the stuff happening between the action bits. Some of the character moments are nice (the character development for Zeke and Mikasa in particular were very well-done), but it's generally a bit too wordy. I would have liked it a bit more if the images had spoken for themselves, and not every conversation was necessary. Still, I appreciated the little moments of introspection that added weight to the action. I'm not asking for everything else to be cut out. Just streamlined a bit.

The gist of it is this: If you want to read Attack on Titan you're going to have to take it as it is: Arguably fascist and slow-starting, very grim, with great fight scenes and memorable characters. I'm not recommending it, exactly, because telling someone they have to read fifty chapters before they get to the good parts is silly. But the good things about it are there, along with the bad. Take that as you will.