03.13
"...I didn't know Levi could bend that way."
There’s no doubt that Attack on Titan is the most popular anime among Western fans in years. Cosplayers storm the cons like there’s no tomorrow. Merchandise ranging from dolls to Mikasa hangers get sold. People who otherwise aren’t anime fans have put this series on a leagues-high pedestal. It’s a reception that’s boggled the original creators to no end, causing them to drastically alter the planned ending in order to satisfy this new horde of followers. It’s the anime that’s made quite a few people watch anime again, with the wait for the eventual second season being one of the most hyped installments coming out of Japan in a while.
So that’s why I’m here to talk about why the show’s kind of dumb. I like the show and can understand perfectly why fans love it. It’s a non-stop ride of action and suspense where you’re not sure who will survive the onslaught, full of characters that sacrifice everything they have in order to protect what they hold most dear. The cast all have their distinct goals, often wondering if their cause can truly be called the correct ideal. However, plenty of the series’ elements strike me as a bit silly. I could take the easy route and talk about how dumb the Titans look, but I can get past that. Rather, it’s what goes on between the lines that bother me the most.
I know as a show where humans are struggling to survive, it’s going to be bleak. It’s going to have plenty of drama over how a single Titan can ruin the lives of regular people. But sometimes, it just hits you over the head so much about how dark the world is. From Eren having to cut himself in order to become a Titan to that scene where the Female Titan stomps on the religious crowd, it’s all so unrelentingly edgy. Those scenes reek of “You don’t know the pain that goes in fighting for my friends!” or “Only weaklings need a phony god to survive.” The show really wants to prove its maturity with all of these scenes. But in the process, this starts to feel like a teenager’s Warhammer 40K fanfic.
These “the World is a cruel place” or “humans are the real monsters” messages get so overblown. Scenes like where a young Mikasa gets kidnapped for sex slavery are as common as snowflakes in a blizzard. So much angst gets poured on this series like the author’s trying to complete a checklist of ways to torture his characters at a breakneck speed. Yes, horrible things happen to people, but not all at once. Give the characters time to breathe, and remind us why these characters deserve to live instead of hammer home how the Survey Corps are all born to die. Merely reading a chapter of the manga makes me think Isayama is this over-the-top pessimist who believes he’s deeper than he actually is.
And yes, I know criticizing a show for being edgy comes off as hypocritical from the guy who writes Kill la Kill articles. But Kill la Kill knows not to take itself seriously. The show knows its premise is silly and runs with it, while Attack on Titan seldom acknowledges the absurdity of giant naked men fighting each other. It’s the kind of blind grimness that plagues Naruto music videos set to the tune of Disturbed. While this helps the series stand out from other anime, it just overdoes the whole situation. Just because life isn’t always sunshine and lollipops doesn’t mean it’s automatically blood and desecration. That’s why Hange’s my favorite character out of the bunch, since she’s the only one who doesn’t see the world as neverending doom. And of course she’s treated as the crazy one because of that. Maybe future chapters will try to not be so full of itself with darkness, like that scene where Mikasa smiled for once, so I just try to hope for the best. After all, you can’t have true despair without hope.