It’s hard to write a review on a Manga and its plot point without spoiling it. Due to why I am trying my best not to spoil it. So, I will explain certain in such a manner that if I succeed then you will realize what I was trying to say after you have read through the event. But if I failed you will be spoiled halfway through it. So, sorry in advance. Beware contain spoilers for HxH as well.
ART STYLE
Let’s get the basic thing out of the way. The first half of the Manga is artistically weak. The second half gets better but
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not much only the inconsistency problem is fixed and the design of many Titans gets better that many panels look just amazing. Looking at them you will be amazed that this was drawn by the same person that drew the first chapters. After the first 33 chapters, it will get better.
The art style is nowhere close to the amazing art style of Berserk, Vagabond, The Five Star Stories, Real, Slam Dunk, and even Bleach. But we all know about that. Because Isayama can not draw people. They do not look like their races. And some females don’t look like a female. The noses of many characters are similar.
And his shading technique is really poor. To great lighting, he uses to draw lines across the face sometimes. And sometimes he draws an area of the face completely dark. But the worst thing of all the sometimes forgets where the light sources. So, the shadow and the shade are on opposite sides. And the facial features are pure ugly. Some facial features are similar to each other like shock, anxiety, and anger. And sometimes he to show the things like wrinkles on the face again uses do it by drawing lines across the face.
CHOREOGRAPHY
The fighting choreography well mainly for the scouts using gears is the problem. These ODM gear will get to know in the Manga are basically like spiderman web but with hooks. This means they, of course, need an object that can hold the user's weight from which they swing from. They sometimes hang on to nothing and change their direction in mid-air. And not like there isn’t always no reason for it. Because half of the time it isn’t drawn well so the reader is confused about what happened.
STORY
Story-wise this Manga is the most unique. Humanity being pushed back by giant humanoids monster known as Titan. Forced to live inside giant walls to survive. With so much mystery around everything. And all the questions raised in the first chapters are answered. Not like all the theme going around was unique. Many stories have used it before but in such a manner and mixed all these perfectly without making a mistake. Because when a story focuses on too many themes. Some of its aspects are not properly focused on. This gave the readers suspense, drama, and a very tragic experience. As well as some moments that were hype.
And we later realize that the story was about something even bigger from the first chapter of AOT, to begin with. Which was mind-blowing. And believe it or not all of it makes sense. I always wonder how certain things happen and why didn’t many characters not do things in these types of stories. But in AOT many things make sense. Like why aren’t they using guns? Or why can’t they just aim for the head?
We also got to learn an amazing lesson on; ‘Cycle of Hatred’. Showing us that children should not be treated depending on the sin of their parents and ancestors. It is the ideology of a foolish and a cruel person. Showing us that the oppressed can become the oppressor. The message was so beautiful I almost cried few times.
But that is only for the first half of the story. Second, made so many mistakes that they started to raise questions that never got an answer to the very end.
Some of the messages Mangaka tries to deliver made no sense. Because one of the things the story is teaching is:
Be completely evil. Leaving no victims will break the ‘Cycle of Hatred’.
Which makes sense in the Manga later on. But you are teaching us something that only makes sense if we were going through things that happen in this story. But would never happen in reality at all. Then it should be just there for our entertainment only.
CHARACTERS and THEIR DEVELOPMENT
The character writing in this Manga was a phenomenon. We get to see many well-written characters. With amazing backstories to show us how they became like this and what their motives are. Giving heavy meaning to some of their actions. And many characters get amazing development. Each character has their lovable trait.
But 2 characters in the series whose character development and personality were ruined by the conclusion of their character arc. So, one motive of one of the characters was what made him/her compelling. Because of his back story we rooting for him. Because he/she lost his loved ones. But in the end, it turned out he/she was the cause of his/her loved one's death. Now, what reason is there left for having such motives? Then we were rooting him/her for no reason. The worst part about it was that he blamed another character for it. And the story paints him as he/she is right and we should route for him/her. Which is disgusting. This means he/she risked and sacrificed his comrade's lives for his pointless motives. Played with people's live and innocent people died because of him/her. Also, he/she had not caused the death of his loved one. Their other loved ones would have also been saved. And his/her allies would have gained an upper hand against the enemies. He was a bootleg Aizen (a character from Bleach Manga).
And the second character's arc was ruined by the Mangaka by making him switch sides at the very moment others need him. His switching side is debatable. I thought it made no sense because he was completely dedicated to his beliefs.
But the real problem is that Isayama realizes there is no way that his enemies can win against him now. So, instead of properly ending his arc he was made more relevant. And deemed so important to an event that makes it easier for his opponent. So, if they convince him they win because he is still given control to stop it.
BAD DECISION MAKING
So, in the story, there has a decision made that makes no sense. The character that made the decision had previously made many harsh but logical decisions. But he is given a choice to save one person from between 2 people. One of them is a person with great intelligence and amazing leadership and the other is a person that is still young and was learning from other characters that need to be saved. And since humanity is in a very poor condition that they need someone like him to lead him out of the tyranny of the Titans. So, it makes sense to choose the first person.
But the decision-maker doesn’t; give in to the pressure applied by others. Just because one person was screaming his friend never got to see the ocean. His lifelong dream. And for your information. All the mistakes I complained about happened right after this point in the story.
TIME SKIP
So, now Imagine there is an extreme sense of suspense on what will happen next or can they accomplish their task safely. At the same time as the event unfold you are seeing other perspectives of people thoroughly of their life, relationship and other detail that make them more than someone that dies later on or just show up in front of the screen. Because there is no problem with time management and pacing. Since all the things are infoldings altogether.
This is something that Isayama didn’t do. Instead, he skips to a time where we are only given 4 episodes to understand a whole new set of casts and their lives. Because certain event needs to quickly match each other. So, due to which some details became mysteries or shown through flashbacks. And the majority of the flashback is important to detail but isn’t as suspenseful as the current event. And mysteries didn’t even turn out to be mind-blowing and interesting as the current event apart from one. Which doesn’t even require having the time skip to be a mystery there were other ways of doing it.
Why is that so; because we know what became of those situations and events in the end. There was no suspense or mystery to do what will be doing now or what he is planning/doing now. We know what their conclusion is. So, there is no suspense or drama while watching it.
Like, a good amount of time was spent to find out what Eren and another character talked about. Just it turned out to be nothing special compare to what is going around. Waste of time.
For example, if Togashi wrote HxH Chimera Arc in such a manner that we only see the perspectives of the Hunters. So, we don’t know what is happening to the Ants and what development in their characters went through; what situation they are in; and what their reaction was as the whole invasion happened. And then we get to see Netero easily take the King to the desired site to fight them.
So, we don’t get to see the great development of Meruem and why he easily followed Netero to the desired site. We also don’t get to see that actually Hunters didn’t have it easy in getting Meruem. They almost engaged in a fight with two of the strongest guards. If it wasn’t for the circumstances that they avoid it and some of the Hunters are trying their best to holding two guards back; so they don’t interfere. But learning all that have no purpose now since we know how it ends so there is no suspense anymore. And we won’t get to see why Pouf, Pitou, and Youpi are going crazy over a girl until the very end due to the flashback. So, at the moment we won’t realize how much of a big deal that little girl is. And we won’t have conflicting emotions like we did when we saw Pouf trying to get rid of her. Or when Gon threatens to kill her in front of Pitou. The drama or tense won’t be the same after knowing how it ends and not realizing the value of a character until the very end. Unlike seeing it unfold with knowing all of the importance these events have to who and why. This way rooting for one side won’t be easy. Because we can’t recognize the dedication and effort of the other side.
This is the problem with one of its arc.
FORESHADOWING
In terms of foreshadowing Isayama is one of the best Mangaka today. His foreshadowing is what gives re-reading the Manga more value than other Manga. Because a lot of answers to many questions were hidden around us. Everything makes sense when the story starts to slowly answer everything itself.
But he not the best at foreshadowing because sometimes he forces foreshadowing. Which are spoilers. Foreshadowing is a detail that is not a clue and you won’t find any meaning in it until the event it was foreshadowing happens.
Clues are some details you piece together to solve a mystery. But the following scene falls into the spoiler’s category:
A character says ‘fight’ two times in front of a mirror after the military arrest him and another character comes to check on him. And found it suspicious; think he/she is plotting something: which have two phases: he is telling himself or someone else to win both times.
Even though he/she is an intelligent character. There are many ways to interpret it. Not even his/her personality makes it suspicious to require deep analysis. Remember people motivate themselves and repeat a single thing multiple times. Which is a way of saying ‘focus’ on that certain thing. She can be curious about what he is motivating himself but to such detail is just unreasonable. And she was accurate about it because it completely tells us about the final chapters of the Manga. Which many readers saw it coming for a mile away; since it wasn’t subtle.
@SSPULLS
Even though in this story we have things like Titans this Manga was logical most of the time. But there is the time when this Manga overdid. A character won’t die even though he suffered from so many blasts. Even though he had armor on but in some incidences, it made no sense. There is a time when his armor was damaged and he took direct impact from something ten-time his size and still got up and ran as nothing happened.
And there are special powers in the story as well. Sorry to spoil it for you. But it’s important. Because it turns out some people have different abilities than each other. So, someone at the very moment when the stakes are high has the most convenient ability. Allowing people to escape from having casualties.
One of the ridiculous which I am going to spoil also:
Dead coming back to life. With the laziest explanation for it.
THE MAIN CAST STAY INTACT
In the last arc, the main cast went through a lot of dangerous scenarios but none of them were able to kill any of the characters. The fact they suffer no casualty isn’t the only problem here. With characters still alive a lot of screen time is taken by characters that are not much important to the story.
UNORIGINAL AND RUSHED ENDING
Not just the fact the last arc was rushed the ending was as well. Means not enough answered questions and many amateur writing mistakes. With the most atrocious mistake being how completely unoriginal the ending. It was copied from 2 different shows. One is a scene from Naruto and the other being the Code Geass ending. Plus, even with Naruto and all its mistakes that scene he copied felt more emotional in Naruto. And even the Code Geass executed its ending in a way better manner. While in AOT it felt like a downgraded version of it. It not like the Manga did not have an option for an original ending and they were all interesting ones. Even after that, he went with the worst option.
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Apr 8, 2021
Shingeki no Kyojin
(Manga)
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It’s hard to write a review on a Manga and its plot point without spoiling it. Due to why I am trying my best not to spoil it. So, I will explain certain in such a manner that if I succeed then you will realize what I was trying to say after you have read through the event. But if I failed you will be spoiled halfway through it. So, sorry in advance. Beware contain spoilers for HxH as well.
ART STYLE Let’s get the basic thing out of the way. The first half of the Manga is artistically weak. The second half gets better but ... 
Jan 24, 2021
_This review will be on the technical aspect of this season. The story will be excluded. I will make a full review when all episode have been aired._
ED and OP: Both Studio did a well job on using songs and visuals for the OP/ED to match the theme of the show. The best are 'Sasageyo' OP from season 2 and 'Shock' ED from season 4. Sound effect: Unlike Studio WIT; MAPPA did a mediocre or (let say) an awkward job on using the sound. Some of the recorded sound doesn't match few action. Like when the Eren rip apart the cord that was attached with ... |
