I absolutely love Attack on Titan and it’s one of the best anime’s I have ever seen. Even the clown show ending from the manga has been fixed to an great extent in the anime. The anime has so many excellent moments which are some of the best written scenes in anime.

The fanbase is insufferable though. It’s either full of “Eren is literally me” mfs or glazers with no sense of reality and I’m pissed at liking the same thing as them.

  • Amerikan Pharaoh
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    1 year ago

    It reeked too much of barely constrained fascism, both in the media itself, and in the fanbase, for me to stick around for longer than half of the first season. Having learned about how hardline a nationalist the author is, that doesn’t surprise me-- but I also can’t tolerate it myself

    • jackmarxist [any]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      It’s supposed to be a dystopia in a sense. Paradis is a regressive island stuck a hundred years behind a already backwards world. It’s pretty much set in what would be the 19th century in the real world. I don’t think it’s really about Nationalism in the first three seasons.

  • 小莱卡
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    1 year ago

    Great worldbuilding but ultimately it is ruined by it’s childish politics.

    spoiler

    The deus ex machina they gave the attack titan (literally omnipresence!) also ended up ruining it for me, show lost the little seriousness left it had.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I would have liked it less if it was the “I win” button that got slapped in every fight. But sliding it in at the very end as a plot-hole filler was lazy but ultimately fine.

      spoiler

      There are a number of scenes I enjoyed. The choice over who gets saved by the Colossal Titan investiture and the passing of the Jaw Titan was great. The various betrayals have been well-motivated. And I genuinely like the origin story of the Titans, as these things berthed from an ultimately used up and abused slave people.

      The idea of power as a social construct is what resonates through the whole storyline. Memory manipulation as a stand in for mass media is a bit forced and lazy, but the value of history as a motivating force is appreciated. The Eladians getting a very straight line drawn to jewish ghettoes is overused, but the various turncoats expressing their rationales for siding with this or that group remains compelling.

      It is, all in all, a well done story with strong and enduring themes that resonate across the entire narrative arc.

      The endless fixation on “Is this anime fascist?” is exhausting. Because it is, at the end of the day, a Young Adult cartoon. And these cartoons always end up embracing childish politics because they are stories for children.

      But the history and the setting and the various lead characters all create the kind of space that is fun to think about and explore. I suspect we’ll see its influence resonate through the storytelling medium for years to come.

      • 小莱卡
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        1 year ago

        i dislike evangelion, but it is undeniable tha the opening is one of the GOAT.

        Edit: ill add demon slayer entertainment arc, SxF s1 and blue lock.

      • the_post_of_tom_joad [any, any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I like bebop, its up there. Eva never clicked w me. “Love is war” is top tier. Ill go check chainsaw and oshi no ko haven’t heard those yet.

        Ok i got a couple for you. what do you think of chobits op? Read or die? (I also love 1 punch but duh everyone loves that one, right?)

        • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I’ll be up front and say that I like my music big, stupid, and energetic. In that regard, Chobits and RoD are both decent starting points to build from but imo they don’t go far enough. Chobits especially has some moments where there’s a clear route to go higher energy but it stays low instead.

          And yeah agreed on One-Punch, though I forgot to mention it lol. Some other stuff now that I’ve had some sleep:

          • Gurren Lagann
          • Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun
          • Nichijou (both, but especially 2)
          • Mob Psycho 2 and 3
          • Baccano (Cromalin is right)
          • Spy X Family S1 (小莱卡 is right as well)

          Honorable Mentions:

          • Hunter x Hunter at 1.1x speed
          • My Next Life as a Villainess (both)
          • Summertime Render
      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Cowboy Bebop was a fun series of vignettes without a strong overarching plot. Also, lots of comedy.

        AoT is high drama with lots of mystery and gore inside strong narrative arc. Far more in line with Eva and Chainsaw Man.

        Even then, Eva is incredibly slow-paced, particularly at the beginning. Its far more psychological, on par with Elfin Lied or Monster. AoT and Chainsaw Man both hit the ground running, don’t shy away from intense action scenes, and present the mystery as part of direct human conflict rather than some cryptic intrigue read on the edges of the narrative.

        And the world building in AoT is much denser. Comparable to Twelve Kingdoms or El Hazard. There’s so much more there there. It isn’t just a handful of main characters grappling with their own inner demons.

        As an epic story, it feels like Naruto minus the interminable filler. Not nearly as visually artistic as your picks, but richer as a setting and less reliant on a small set of lead characters that you need to empathize with.

    • 小莱卡
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      1 year ago

      even tho its about genocide, the rumbling opening was pretty goated.

    • jackmarxist [any]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Removed the Armin “Thank You for becoming a mass murderer for our sake” and replaced it with Armin taking responsibility for creating Eren and not downplaying the severity of the situation which is far better imo and feels inline with his character.

  • FanonFan [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Haven’t read the manga and I haven’t watched the last episode, but I like it well enough.

    Idrc about author’s intent in this case because I read it as a portrayal of imperialistic nationalism taken to its logical conclusion: total annihilation. I deliberately ignore most parallels between the AoT world and the real world (Japan, Israel, Holocaust) because if I acknowledged them the show would probably be incredibly lib.

    And I love me some overdramatic slop sometimes.

    I’ve watched it as it was released tbf, maybe if I get around to it I’ll rewatch it from the beginning with a more critical eye.

  • GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Idk about AoT, I bailed after a person got eaten, but can’t all anime be described as having an insufferable fan base? I literally don’t talk about it IRL. If someone starts the conversation, maybe I’ll join in, but only when it comes to mecha. Average people don’t give you as much side eye if you’re talking giant robots. I won’t talk about all the other shows I watch bc they associate that with weirdos. It’s true, I am a weirdo, but at least I know when to keep my mouth shut about it.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I hear a lot of people say AoT is fascist, but I’ve never seen it and only know the most basic details (medieval setting, giants attack fortress city, heroes fight them off). Can someone fill me in.

    • Cromalin [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      the guy who wrote it is fash

      and it has a dogshit holocaust metaphor where the jews are actually monsters who kill 85% of life on the planet

      i’ve also never read it though

  • Aculem [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    I’m a big fan of worldbuilding and historical lore in shows, so I was pretty impressed with Attack on Titan, plus the characters all seem to have rational motivations, and it was fun to piece together everything on a re-watch.

    I’m a bit confused about the claims that the author is fascist. I admit I haven’t looked into in great depth, the biggest evidence I’ve seen is that the character Pixis is based off of Akiyama Yoshifuru, an imperialist general, and that the author has stated he admires him greatly. Granted, that’s not a good look, but I’m not entirely sure about the context on this, for all I know, he might admire him the same way one might admire Genghis Khan, not based on any sort of moral compass, but rather on a “Wow, that’s a lot of conquering.”

    But I digress, regardless of the author’s views, just from watching the anime twice with at least a modest amount of literary analysis ability, I can’t see how the show can be interpreted as anything other than anti-fascist. Eren Jaeger is not sympathetic at all once he goes genocidal. Marley is basically a stand in for Nazi Germany and is portrayed as barbaric and monstrous. Most of the atrocities committed by the Titan Holders is based in trauma and is the direct consequence of military indoctrination and nationalistic fervor. I must admit, Armin justifying the slaughter of thousands of civilians left a bad taste in my mouth, I do wish the show went further into exploring his traumatic change in character. As it stands, he’s usually portrayed as the level-headed one, so people might think of him as morally justified. But all in all, it seems like the thesis of the show is that trauma begets trauma, and nationalistic attitude is the root cause of most of it.

    I mean, please correct me, I definitely do not want to be militarist apologist, but I’ve heard this sentiment quite a lot on the internet, and I don’t think it’s been satisfactorily explained to me yet.

    • jackmarxist [any]@hexbear.netOP
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      1 year ago

      Armin justifying the slaughter of thousands of civilians left a bad taste in my mouth

      When did Armin do this? From what I remember, he was always against violence. Even when he nuked the Navy, he was clearly distraught from that.

      Eren Jaeger is not sympathetic at all once he goes genocidal

      Assuming you’re talking about Eren after the rumbling started. Because during the duration of season 4, he was genocidal(wanted to start the rumbling) yet had great character development and moments when I sympathized with him. I didn’t agree with him but seeing him evolve into a villain because of his never ending trauma was genuinely great to watch.

  • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    true dat, WIT fight scenes were goated and MAPPA wasn’t bad either

    but

    did they fix the utter plot armor given to the heroes during the final battle? Like they fought multiple powerful titan shifter clone thingies at once and yet none of them died.

    • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      !The plot armor in the final battle was, in Eren’s words, intended by him. Everyone was supposed to live once he got power but he accidentally let Sasha and Hange die!<