It's been a while since my last Attack on Titan post. I keep wanting to sit down and write something about it, but I found that I just didn't have an awful lot to say.
In that sense it is a bit of a weird show. Most other shows I watch provide a certain amount of material to discuss each week, but Titan is a bit different. It's almost universally agreed that the pacing of this show is glacial, and sometimes 2 or 3 weeks will pass before a certain even is resolved, which leaves very little to discuss in each individual episode. I hear the manga has this similar kind of pacing, which in my mind is like that of a soap opera (as I've mentioned before). However, recent episodes put me in mind of old time serials as well, where one storyline would be spread across many episodes so that each one would feel like a fragment of one storyline as opposed to a self-contained episode. "Join us again, same Titan hour, same Titan channel, kids!"
The two arcs that passed since my last post (Prelude to Counterattack and 57th Expedition Beyond the Walls) dealt with Eren's public emergence as a human-form Titan, and humanity's debate on who gets to use him and how. It revealed an internal power struggle between the Recon Corps and Military Police, which put Eren in a position to be used as a political tool as well as a military one, and the introduction of the mysterious Female Titan. We also see Eren learn to develop trust in his superiors and comrades and come to grips with military structure – you don't always know why you are given a certain order, but trusting your commanding officer to make the right call means that you don't always have to know why you are doing something. One thing I find Titan does quite well is show you the flipside of heroism. It does a good job of showing that despite being driven and heroic, you can still die an inglorious death and be left to rot in the streets after a battle, with your name and identity lost forever. It shows that trust in comrades and superiors does not guarantee success or survival, but that makes the message more powerful – after all that's said and done, you could still fail and die, but you do it anyway.
On the technical level, Titan still suffers from uneven quality, with spectacular action sequences interspersed with static and less polished parts. I'll say again that I'd really like to wait for the Blu Ray versions before passing final judgment, because I feel that they will be more polished, and later on those are the versions everyone will remember and watch anyway.
I also think that this show would work better in marathon fashion as opposed to weekly airings. As mentioned above, the way it is paced lends itself to watching a bunch of episodes in a row, which could also improve the perception of the pacing. If you watch 4-6 episodes in one sitting, suddenly it won't seem so slow anymore.
Another observation I have now that there are only 3 more episodes left (2 for me but this post does not include episode 23 that just aired) is that we are heading towards a completely open ending. Titan will undoubtedly get a second season considering its popularity, and the manga is ongoing so there is still plenty of story to tell. I just hope we get at least some kind of closure regarding the plot of this season, not least because we don't yet know when the second season will come around and waiting indefinite amounts of time for a story resolution is never fun.
I will probably write a summary post when the show is over, but I already have a sense of my final verdict. Titan is definitely entertaining and quite good in certain areas, but it never really rose to the Olympian level that the advance hype seemed to suggest. I would contrast it with a show like Gatchaman Crowds, which also suffers quite a bit on the technical level, but transcends above its logistical struggles by being very unique and a stand out on many different levels. That isn't to say Titan doesn't do this at all – it has a lot of memorable parts and aspects. Shows don't become this popular for absolutely no reason, after all. It's just that a show this intense and action-oriented can't also move at a snail's pace. Admittedly the 57th Expedition Beyond the Walls arc did a good job of countering the slow pace by jumping around the formation and exploring simultaneous events from many perspectives, but overall it feels like many episodes could have been cut, leaving room for more plot within this one season. The pacing seems too manga-ish and doesn't take enough advantage of the anime format to move things along at a better pace.
Stay tuned for my final Titan post in a couple of weeks. Hopefully we will get a certain amount of resolution and perhaps maybe even a second season announcement, both of which will definitely be good for this show.
