Your next box setAnimation on TV This article is more than 9 years oldReviewAttack on Titan box set review - teens tangle with people-eating giants in this spellbinding anime
This article is more than 9 years oldAdults are confined to the background as sword-wielding youngsters fight to survive in a spectacular Japanese animation that’s becoming a global phenomenonWe’re told the year is 845, but we have no idea whether this means we’re watching an alternative past or some terrifying future. Twenty-metre tall giants roam a seemingly medieval landscape, with most of humanity confined to a huge, walled city. These titans, as they are known, arrived mysteriously 100 years ago and quickly whittled the human race down almost to extinction.
The city walls offer just enough protection for life to continue – until the arrival of even bigger giants. The colossi are over 60 metres tall, look like skinned humans, and quickly breach the walls, leaving holes for the titans to enter and wreak havoc.
Who will save humanity? Step forward Eren, Armin and Mikasa (the sole Japanese character in this manga show). In the first episode, we see these teenagers lose everything and enlist in the military to fight back. As the action progresses, we learn just how dire the situation is and also see how life was before this big new threat arrived. It was hardly plain sailing: there are kids from broken homes everywhere; the parents of one, we discover, were murdered by outlaws. Giants, clearly, are not the only danger in this desperate world and Attack on Titan doesn’t hesitate to show the effects of such trauma on those deprived of a proper childhood.
Japanese animations can frequently be an off-putting tangle of customs, characters, codes and mythologies. But simplicity is the key here, which could explain why the show is becoming something of a global phenomenon, although it has yet to air on British TV. Boiled down, this is about humans being knocked off the top of the food chain, although you can also view the imbecilic giants as a metaphor for government – or indeed parents, since the show is clearly aimed at teens.
Not that you get much time to ponder as the plentiful and spectacular action scenes unfold. The writers are ruthless: characters are developed over a generous number of episodes, only to be brutally killed off as the man-eating behemoths attack. And we are never left in any doubt as to the hell the teens are living through. Growing up in a warzone and fighting for survival, many just snap. Some find skills and talents they never imagined they had, blossoming into great leaders, tacticians and fighters; others discover, touchingly, that they are cowards.
The animation is spellbinding. The teens fight their massive foes with steampunky devices that shoot out ropes and enable them to swing in high-speed circles around the beasts before delivering kill-strokes to the one weak spot: their necks. It’s all wonderfully acrobatic and intense. One minute the combatants are sitting around complaining about some boring task; the next – wham! They’re being eaten. The nightmarish titans, rampaging through quaint towns with rictus grins plastered across their faces, don’t even need to eat humans to survive. They are just deeply cruel creatures who enjoy chowing down on us, pulling off our heads, snapping our bones and flinging us around like ragdolls.
The teen-centric approach works brilliantly. Adults are mostly confined to the background and the heroes are shown to be at an age when everything matters. But it’s not pop stars or fame these kids are obsessed with. It’s friendship, duty, romance – and staying alive.
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