Attack On Titan

I remember first hearing about Attack On Titan from a friend at Church several years ago. At the time I had no real understanding of it, or what in fact it was!There was a lot of information and I was completely confused as to what this Titan thing was. I just sort of let it pass and forgot about it. That all changed though when I saw the trailer for the live action adaptation. It looked pretty grim but the premise from the trailer alone was pretty interesting.

For anyone not aware of Attack on Titan or is unsure as to what it is; Attack on Titan is a Japanese Manga series set in the far future after a time of great calamity as humanity faced an unstoppable enemy in the form of the Titans: giant human looking creatures that ate humans. Humanity, on the edge of extinction built giant walls and surrounded themselves in, protecting themselves from creatures now too small to get in. Hundreds of years have passed since then but one day, A Colossal Titan appears over the walls, and smashes a hole in the first of the three surrounding walls, and now, smaller Titans can get in and rekindle their taste for humans.

When I saw that trailer, I had more of an understanding of what the story was about; but I had no real interest in it at the time. A couple of years later I decided to give the live action film a go. The film was made into 2 parts and so far I have only seen Part 1. Part 1 though was fun. Its set up was interesting, and the first sight of the Colossal was epic. The creature’s blood curdling roar, its grotesque physique all set up the incident nicely, and the original human massacre was terrifying; and I really liked the Sasha ‘Potato Girl‘ Blouse character. Then I picked up a copy of the animated series from a branch of CEX, and that just blew me away. At first, it was a hard one to get into and took time setting up, but the show had one thing that made me want to come back for more; the opening theme tune.

The opening theme tune opens on a note of the sound of a crisis, a shout; and creates this serious panicky heavy sound that just grabs you. The opening animation helps too as the chains start flailing and running across the screen. The tune then keeps pace but goes into a build up and its just an incredible opening theme, it’s a theme which rivals and rises higher than those of most major TV shows.

The show on the whole is one which I think parallels and even succeeds over other major TV Dramas. Yes, its animated, but I wouldn’t even for a second call it a Kiddie’s show; what with the excess levels of blood pouring over the characters, and with a death rate seemingly higher than that of Game of Thrones! There is a lot packed into each episode, a lot of Action, but also a lot of Drama. There is great character creation and development, as each character begins to shine more as the series goes on. Rivals turn into Allies, and Allies turn into Villains. It’s a show which builds up trust then shocks at the cliff edge. It has suspenseful moments, and sub stories that can take several episodes to conclude and when things begin to look like they are going to heal and conclude, then things just get a whole lot worse!

As quickly as the speed of sound, I went from not knowing anything, to becoming a huge fan. While I struggled at first to get into it, the theme tune kept hold of me long enough to become seriously engrossed, and I didn’t look back. At the time, it was the show I wanted to watch more than any other. Every evening that I had a chance to, I would go to my room, and stick in my DVD and let it run. Now, Season 2 is on my DVD shelf, just itching to be let out and unleash its contents. 

In 2017, there were three TV Shows that I discovered which stood head over heels above everything else I had watched, or was in the process of watching. Number 1 was Westworld, Number 3 was Brooklyn Nine-Nine; and Number 2 was Attack on Titan!