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I think it's safe to say that Shingeki no Kyojin is the most popular anime of 2013. Whilst I can see why people would be attracted to it and that it's a very entry-level anime, it's also a pretty mediocre show.

Let's start by looking at this show as just an adaptation. So, ignoring the story, characters, etc. I'll just look at how well the manga has been adapted into an animated series. The artstyle is quite unique, it has a certain appeal to it and I quite like it (even if the quality of the artstyle suffers in the manga). Production I.G managed to ... do a nice job of preserving the good aspects of Isayama's work. However, when we come to animation, things seem to go downhill. I could write a book on how many very poor examples of animation there are in this show. From QUALITY drawings to a still frame being shaken around the screen with some wind effects over it in place of an actual action scene to purple bricks. The bottom line is the animation is rushed, cheap and poorly done. There ARE some good examples, sometimes whole episodes go by with very few issues, but other weeks it'll be god-awful. The inconsistencies in quality leave a bitter taste and I would have to call the animation, overall, average. Having taken a look at some comparisons between the BDs and TV releases, the BDs seem to have improved on the QUALITY moments quite a bit. Those comparisons were cherry-picked, however, and I’m not going to re-watch the series to adjust my review for the BDs. All I can say is that if you want to waste your time on this series, you might as well try watch the BDs.

As for sound, another major aspect of a manga adaptation, I think they did a decent job here. In fact I think the OST carries entire episodes sometimes. The OPs and EDs are pretty great, and never fail to get fans hyped for the show. I'm no music geek, so I find it quite hard to express what I thought of a soundtrack in a review, but the music for battle scenes fits quite well and made up for some of the poor (or complete lack of) animation in some scenes. However, only a couple of tracks are memorable, so I'm not going to call the OST great.

Direction and pacing are truly the worst parts of this adaptation. 4 episodes to move a boulder speaks for itself, but I'll mention all the filler later on.

Now leaving the adaptation-specifics to one side and looking at something that crosses both forms of media, the story. I think this show has a decent plot. In fact, the premise is really great and I think that's how the show got so popular - it has a very interesting premise. All of humanity trapped inside giant walls that protect them from the horrific titans outside, and finally the titans break down the wall? Pretty cool. It's a shame, however, that this premise was somewhat wasted. Once the show gets to the boulder arc, it just starts to lose its appeal and becomes very generic and shonen-y with TONS of filler. Seriously, there is an amazing amount of filler in this series and I struggle to comprehend how more people aren't complaining about it. Maybe it's because they've organised the filler in such a way that it's less noticeable to the teenage audience? This is the general formula for the show: Up to 3 minutes of recapping what you already know, the OP, 15 minutes of sweet FA and dragged out speeches, 2 minutes of something happening, the ED, then a preview for next week. It never fails to leave the only interesting part until the last couple of minutes, then just cuts off so you have to come back next week for your weekly dose of filler. In fact, they hinder the actual show by forcing each and every episode to end with some sort of cliff-hanger. It would be a lot smoother and better if they didn't force this every single week.

Back to the story, besides the premise it's nothing that special and has a rather large amount of plot holes and things happening for nothing other than plot convenience.

Characters. Characters. Characters. Wow, it's amazing how two-dimensional they all are. Besides the changes characters go through early on in the series, there is 0 character development. Almost everyone is the exact same cardboard cut-out they were to begin with. The main character is nothing more than 'hurr must kill muh titans!' and the female lead is nothing more than 'hurr must save muh not-brother-pseudo-boyfriend!'. It gets very boring, very quickly. Jean is the most interesting character and has the most believable development, why isn't he the main character instead? ing characters are usually pretty bad and I've never felt anything when someone died. This isn't because I'm a heartless monster, it's because trying to empathise with ANYONE from this series is similar to trying to empathise with a brick wall.

To summarise, the lead cast are some variation of Mary Sue (albeit Eren fucks up 24/7 and is just generally retarded) who have a shitload of plot armour whilst almost everyone else doesn't matter and dies. The plot and characters follow so many shonen tropes and cliches that leave me feeling that this show wasted so much good potential.

Overall, the show can have its enjoyable moments. The plot is generally interesting, but falls really short with its characters. I can see why the show got popular due to its premise, and I can see why it remained popular and why people like it. However, this show is simply just not that good and is seriously overrated. The last few episodes, whilst good, did not make up for the countless time wasted throughout the series.

5/10 - would recommend you read the manga instead to avoid as much filler if you were really wanting to watch this.

Tl;dr average and overhyped :¬)

This is a review of Sword Art Online’s adaptation. I do not care for the light novels, this review is based entirely on the anime adaptation.


The Story (4/10)

The plot for this anime falls below that of an average seasonal anime. Sword Art Online begins with a good, interesting premise. The first two episodes are actually very promising. However, once you get past those initial episodes the show doesn’t really do anything of interest and feels like it was written by a sexually frustrated teenager. As I said, the concept is good and somewhat tragic. A new virtual reality MMO opens up and thousands of ... players begin grinding away, only to find they cannot log out of the game and are stuck in this virtual world. There are so many possibilities and interesting things to be done with this premise. Sadly, it’s all wasted. Forced romance, time skips, filler and a random love triangle plague this anime.

It’s not that the story is dreadful, it’s just that it was incredibly mediocre when there was so much to be done with it. Disappointing. And that’s without mentioning the second half of the series, which is legitimately awful. Seriously, if you are going to waste your time on this show for whatever reason, just drop it when you get to the halfway point. You’ll know when you’re there. There’s a load of bullshit, Gary Sue, rule-breaking nonsense. I could go on all day, but then I’d have to give actual spoilers.

Art and Animation (8/10)
Very solid, actually. High production value and nothing to complain about really. Other than the fact that this decently-sized budget was wasted on a terrible show.


Sound (7/10)

Ahh, Kajiura Yuki. A shame his time was wasted on this tripe. Honestly, it’s not one of his best works. It fit the on-screen stuff but nothing really stood out. The first opening by LiSA is great, however. Possibly the best thing to come of this series.


Characters (2/10)

Nope, nope, nope. I can deal with silly characters like Yui from K-On. I can deal with whiney characters like Shinji. But the whole point of this main character is wish fulfilment. He’s a self-insert; an antisocial, somewhat pathetic, MMO playing teenager. I’m not sure if they were trying to make a character as close to the intended audience as possible, but they damn well succeeded. He’s then somehow amazing and brilliant at the game purely because he did some beta testing. In fact, he even defies the rules of the game. The hard-coded rules matter not to this Gary Sue! He also becomes some sort of courageous leader, somehow. He changes in the series but there’s no character development. He just kind of decides to be different.

Now for the female cast. I’m sorry, but how is this loser surrounded by attractive young women? Why are so many attractive young women even on this game? Way to ruin any suspension of disbelief. The female lead, Asuna, was perhaps the one character with some potential. Unfortunately, just like the premise of this show, the potential goes to waste and they turn what should have been a strong female lead into a damsel in distress.


Conclusion (4/10)

This series is below what I’d consider average, even with the high production value. If the second cour never happened this might have been above average for me, but the latter half was just too awful. If you are the target audience for this show (a teenage male who enjoys playing MMOs) then you may very well like this series. It is watchable, and some episodes are pretty good. Think of this as the Twilight of anime; there are occasional good moments, but to actually enjoy the whole thing you need to be a specific type of person.

I would not recommend this show to anyone outside of the aforementioned target audience. Those people will probably love this series, but to everyone else you’ll probably feel that you’ve wasted your time. Good premise ruined by childish wish fulfilment.