Anime 38524 Shingeki No Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 Reviews Filter Check 2

I don't like writing negative reviews, and before I start I have to say that I gave this a positive average score. However, not everybody think that Snk is the best thing out there, and I feel it's necessary to give voice to "other" opinions too. Mine, in this case.

The show is nice. The animation is good and it's very entertaining. I'll give it that. However it has a lot of flaws, and this season, while it's in some aspects more interesting than the previous ones, it's also lacking a bit.

My biggest probleme with this anime is more of an adaptation issue. ... I may criticise some aspects of the story itself, but what I find specially disappointing is the narrative structure of the animation.

The narration style tries to make the plot more mysterious by giving small fragments of information here and there instead of going for the big punctual revelations, and that's supposed to be original, but the truth is that once you start to put all the pieces together, it feels like they are doing it so they can hide the weaknesses of the plot. When you put the pieces together, you can see that the story has many incoherences. During the previous seasons I expected those incoherences to be fixed with deep and surprising answers, but as the show progresses, the answers never seem to come, and when they do, they are always partial and disconnected. Basic narrative rule: If your plot is lacking something (as it seems to be the case) at least try to compensate it with a good hype. First mistake: Fragmenting the revelations is the death of hype.

In this season, now that we know more about what is going on, we can see that the story is not that deep, and the reasons behind the action are not that plausible, maybe because, at a psychological level, the characters are not fully developed either. Their personalities are very basic and random, they don't learn or evolve, and so their actions are lacking of meaningful purpose.

When watching this show, I always feel like something huge and awesome is going to happen right around the corner, but it never actually does. All the supposed important information the main characters have gotten and all they have achieved... truth is, I don't care... They drop a plot twist about a random character that has had almost no screen time at all until then. How are we supposed to get effectively empathetic with characters we don't know? Basic narrative rule number two: When you drop a bomb about something, make sure your public actually knows something about that, otherwise the impact will be completely pointless. That happens when the distribution of information is poorly done.

Besides, for a show that relies so strongly on the "emotions of the sacrifices made in war" most of the conversations are pretty empty and lacking deep insight of human emotions. They use so many words to give so little information. The characters almost never say anything that may help to grasp their personality or the basis of their actions any better. Even when they talk about something important, they never let the conversation completely flow towards what the audience actually needs to hear in order to empathize or be effectively amazed by the plot twists, and while that's a narrative resource that can be nice to use now and then to create intrigue, it's almost impossible to build 3 seasons systematically using that resource.

This might not be a problem for people who already read the manga, but it may make it frustrating for someone who hasn't. I guess it might work if you are watching it merely for the action. The story almost never stops, they are always on the move and there's always something going on, so it's overall entertaining, even though at a deeper level it has flaws.

I've watched it because honestly, it's very easy to watch, but I think for a full experience with the story, it might be a better idea to read the manga. Again, this is my personal opinion and it's ok if you watch the show and think otherwise. I respect that. But just know that not everybody thinks that this is the ultimate show and that's to be respected as well.

One of the most hyped shows this year....yea, but it still has its flaws that even the craziest Big man fights can't hide.


SPOILERS for everything up to Season 3 Episode 12/Season 3 first half

Art:
The Art style this Season changed quite a bit, by that i mean how the whole show is drawn is way closer to the art style of the Manga than in previous Season wich is good.
The overall animation is good most of the time, but a big no no for the art part is that it tells its story not with visuals and instead relying on dia/monologue to explain every bit of ... information.
Sound:
The voice Acting is pretty good for most of the Characters,but a big fail for this Series is the shallow dialogue they explain tactics way to often and some of the dialogue just explains the things every Human with a functioning brain can see.
As for the music wich always was a strong point in SnK its still pretty good, but the new OP is not as amazing as every OP prior to it, the ending is fine i guess.

Story:
It's Return to Shiganshina time...this follows the probably best action arc so far in the anime, the Story was always a strong point in the series but after this Season the story will get even better and because of this i turned into a SnK Manga fan. This Season is bascially the turning point, but as i said its just the turning point, it builds of brilliantly but all those 3 Season of build up, the story was fine just fine.


Characters:
There you go, this is the point where SnK always had its problems and this Season still has those.
The main Characters wich should be the "stronger" or more developted Charcaters in the series fall flat. In a Nutshell Eren developed from "i will win" to "we will win".Mikasa is still just "EREN" "EREN".Armin is the only one of the 3 that actually is a well developted Character, he is the generic Shounen third wheel Character trope, but what makes him stand out among other Characters of this trope is his development and that it wasn't in the span of 1 episode and instead the development of his Character had his ups and downs but in the end he actually found something to not feel useless about.
The series also had some problems with being based on shock factor, in Season 1 they killed some Characters who no one cared about....in this Season nothing Changed some Characters will die who no one cared about, just to show us "oh yea its dangerous".
As for the rest of the cast, most Characters are Mediocre they miss much development but some still have some points speaking for them.Jean is generic but how he reacts on the Titans seems pretty realistic, its the same with Connie both of them are basically our view on the world because they react in a way most Humans would react if they would see a Titan eating some Humans, despite this Connie is a Character with near to 0 development, the rest of the side cast is similar with every Character having one or 2 good points and 1 or 2 bad points.Reiner and Berthold are both similar Characters that i cant really judge without spoiling Manga things.The one that stands out is Erwin, he is a Character that on the surface is just "SHINZOU WO SASAGEYO" but at his core Erwin is a Charatcer that HAS A DREAM and will do everything to acquire it.


Final verdict:
This was a very superficial Review, but in the end not much changed with this series its still a enjoyable show with some bigger flaws, maybe the show will improve in Season 4 with the new revelations happening in this Season but prior to that its a enjoyable show with a decent story muddled by mediocre Characters.

5.7/10

If you wanna discuss some points i made or just hate this review feel free to shitpost on my profile, the one last point i wanna make is that every anime only that doesnt read the Manga after this Season needs to be a real bad masochist.

Firstly, before reading this, note again that my rating is not a 10 out of 10. No, I'm not a huge fan of the show, but I also don't completely hate on it just for the sake of doing so due to popularity. No, I do not think this arc of AOT is a masterpiece, nor do I think the series as a whole is, and far from it. However, I do think this part of the series holds some merit regardless.

After the mess that I had witnessed, being the third season (mostly being comprised of political bullshit and ... story elements I was convinced to care about), a second part continuing on where it had left off was announced, albeit I was reluctant to continue on by that point. Thankfully though, I can pretty confidently say that the first half of this part puts to shame the boredom and lack of engagement I had previously. Essentially, without getting into any spoilers, our main cast is assigned to retake a district, and reach Eren's basement. From then on, we follow our crew, along with the Survey Cops in order to fulfill this goal. Through some great action, cliff hangers, and good pacing, twist and turns are met, as multiple characters are put through tough situations, leading to internal motivations and conflicts being resolved in commendable ways. Combined with some nice directing, there are more than a few shining moments during these episodes. The art (other than the CG titan and horses) and soundtrack still remained consistent with its previous seasons, with no downgrade in quality. In short, the first half was enjoyable at the very least. However, I can't comment and praise as much for the second half.

Most of what I don't necessarily care for in AOT would be in the character drama and backstories department. Much of what made up the third season was this, pertaining to the government and a hidden past. Hence, it is the same here, just minus the government part. Admittedly, it's not as a drag as it was for the previous attempt in the first part of season 3, though it just that in the end. It all feels sort of generic in the way that I could only describe as average. It almost feels like this show does it for the sake of doing it, almost like it feels like it has to. The main cast still feels underwhelming and sort of bland to me, despite the time spent with them. I never watched AOT initially in order to scheme across and discover a whole story of lore about what made this series up, more or less just to experience it and entertain myself with what was being presented. Sure its had mysterious elements, but those elements are treated as though since they exist, everything else must be explained, regardless of what it is, almost to create a feeling of a "fleshed out story". I know it's totally understandable for fans to find such backstories essential or engaging, and that's absolutely fine, but for me personally, they just hold no merit. They don't add any enjoyment for me to the series. (This may also be true for the fact that the mystery of Eren's basement as dragged on so for long, and I don't care for politics and government anyways, especially in a world run by man-eating titans).

Overall, this part was a huge improvement over what I was delivered last year. Although I do find many elements of this part of the show in this arc commendable and appreciative, and for the same token a drag and a bit of nuance to my enjoyment, it still just remains the ever popular show to have come out in 2013. I haven't suddenly deeply cared for, nor felt for the cast of characters or whole backstory of the plot as I did from the first season, but I can still see the improvement this show has made for fans of it. I only write this review to propose a view from someone who isn't a massive fan of the show, or one not willing to give it a tremendously high score. Again, I don't entirely dislike this show, and in fact, I gave the first season and this one an above average score. I just don't seem to share the same sentiment many others do for it, but then again, we all have different tastes.

The review as a whole will contain spoilers for the previous seasons. I usually try to avoid spoilers, but this time, the problems are so directly related to the story that I have to address some of the plot elements. Those that have seen the previous parts of the show are safe for now. I will give a warning until I get to the spoilers for Season 3 Part 2.

I actually loved the beginning of S3P2. The first six episodes, for me, were as good as the show has gotten since season 1. We are finally taking back Wall Maria. We will finally get to ... know the mystery of the cellar. We get the hyped up confrontation with the Armored and Colossal Titans - the one's that started it all. And the ruined district of Shiganshina is the perfect venue for this climactic confrontation. Seeing it again felt really cathartic. During the previous chapters, I almost forgot how satisfying it can be to be dealing with something that has been properly built up and not just hastily thrown at the wall with the hopes of it sticking.

The battle of Shiganshina has a lot of great things going on. Bunch of great heroic moments and lots of incredibly over the top, brutal, action. The beast titan is hurling boulders baseball pitcher style. The Colossal Titan can cause something akin to a nuclear explosion upon transforming now. Much of it is stupid, but it's stupid in the most entertaining way possible. We get epic heroic speeches. Moments of sacrifice. Couple of anticlimactic deaths too, to remind us that it's not all roses and heroism on the battlefield. Very Attack on Titan. The entire injector dilemma was a brilliant and tense sequence. It was so good that I find it difficult to accept that it emerged from the same mind that came up with the atrocious Reiss family story and thought it wouldn't damage the setting. In a vacuum, the battle of Shiganshina is a lot fun. What drags it down, is that it is constantly climbing uphill after what the previous chapters did to the story as a whole. But over all, I would definitely recommend the first six episodes to anyone who has gotten this far into the show - there is no reason to stop before experiencing this.

And then they ruin it. And by "it", I mean everything. A lot of dumb stuff happened during Season 2 and S3P1. But it was all still very tolerable. It could have been fixed... or at least you kept telling yourself that. But this was not only the last nail into the story's coffin, as far as I'm concerned, it was also enough dirt to bury the whole thing 6 feet under.

==SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT==

The entire world we have seen so far, is actually a secluded island. Beyond the ocean, there is an evil mega nation of doom that are persecuting an ancient race of people that once commanded the power of the titans. Their preferred method of execution for the descendants of these titans is to inject them with titan juice and set them loose on the island to terrorize the people living inside the walls. The Evil mega nation of doom, that are now being set up as the primary antagonists, are after the vast amounts of natural resources that can be found on the island. That's the spark behind it all! The nazis want some oil! If this sounds incredibly stupid to you... it's because I'm bastardizing it to hell... But also because IT IS!

So, it all took place on an island. We got characters with split personalities. Characters with very selective amnesia. Memory altering magic powers. Inconsistent magic powers that inexplicably work on some people while being useless against others. When your story has elements such as these, you know you are dealing with quite a mess. There are some satisfying revelations here and there but they don't outweigh the tremendous amounts of awful.

Also, every new bit of information we have learned about the titans as the show has progressed, has made them less and less cool. What happened to the "grim reminder" the mankind received at the beginning of the show? Living in fear of the titans? By the end of season 3 the characters are talking like the titans aren't even a factor anymore. And they are right! The titans are meaningless. In fact, they kill off all the titans! They JUST do it! Killing off ALL the regular titans, the once insurmountable enemy of mankind, isn't even deserving of a montage. Not even a dialogue scene. It's a passing sentence. One of the most horrific monsters ever created - reduced to this.

To wrap it up... The first 6 episodes of the season are a lot of fun. They are what drag my score for the season a little higher than it probably should be, considering the dreadful plot revelations in the final episodes.

Everything to make a great anime is here. It’s got the simple but deep plot, the tear-jerking character moments, the superb visuals, it’s got it all, but it just doesn’t come together in a satisfying way.

Do you remember Season 1? Of course you do, everyone and their mother saw the first season of Attack on Titan. For all the criticism it got, it knew how to do one thing: it knew how to make something feel like a big deal. The specific example I want to bring up is retaking Trost, between the dialog by the characters, the music, everything, we knew it was a ... big deal. It was the first real victory humanity had ever had against the Titans, the first glimmer of hope, hundreds of people died for that tiny victory, and it felt like it was worth those deaths.

If I told you right after that retaking the wall and winning the entire war with the Titans would be treated as a footnote, how would you have felt? You’d probably laugh me off, but that’s exactly what happens here. The series is so preoccupied setting up what’s next, that paying off all the hours and emotions that have been invested up to this point gets...forgotten.

Let’s take a look at what’s changed since Season 1: the main characters are still surrounded by an overwhelmingly powerful adversary, Eren is still completely defined by his obsession to defeat his enemy and has little character beyond that, and...wait, is that basically the whole show? Okay, fine, there was a lot of side content like the political fights, but let’s be real, those weren’t the appeal of the show. The appeal of the show was Titans, how overwhelming they were, how mysterious they were, how they affected the characters, and now that they’re gone we’re stuck with...Nazis? I might be overblowing the racist internment camp parallel, but the new antagonists just don’t have the instant impact Titans had at all.

Then there’s the characters. The only character that had any significant growth this season is Armin, he gets a little bit of the spotlight and actually thrives in it. Eren is baffling to me, he started the series strong, showing real human emotions like anxiety for about 5 minutes before he puts his angry face on again. So much happens to him this season and he just doesn’t react. He retook his home town, does he react? Nah. He finds out his dad wasn’t a murderer, and actually loved him, does he react? Nah. He finds out his enemy is his brother, does he react? Nah. He’s been basically reset back to his Season 1 self, except instead of shouting about killing Titans, he just internally broods about the new bad guys with nothing to his character besides that.

Erwin though is the big complaint I have as far as characters go, because he has easily the best moment in the season if you look at it in isolation. When he leads the scouts in the suicide charge, preaching about laying down your life, trusting your successors to make your sacrifice worth it, it’s incredible...until you remember he already had this moment in Season 2 when he lost his arm. That moment in Season 2 was great, it was high action, and it spoke volumes of Erwin’s character as he prioritized Eren, mankind’s only chance at survival, over his own life, making him a selfless, dedicated, and pragmatic leader. Then they retconned that in Season 3 by making him a selfish gambler who only goes down because he gets backed into a corner and his best friend thinks he’s better off dead. What? No seriously, what? Great moment sure, but Erwin’s whole character is just a mess at this point, one good moment doesn’t salvage him.

This season left me unsatisfied. It would be...wrong to say I know what the soldiers feel like, laying down their lives then realizing it’s all for nothing, but the feeling I get realizing all the emotions and time invested to get to this point was for nothing isn’t fun either.

This review is a product of the perfect combination of mental illness, alcoholism and a head full of nothing but hatred towards humanity...Just kidding..My head is full of ouzo(if you don't know what that is...Well...Too bad).

Now..Shall we get on with Attack on Titan 3?

I suppose if you're here then that must mean that you've already watched everything before this , unless you're lost or something. If not just go back and watch the damn thing already. This season was, much like the 2 before it.....Quite different in everything..Season 1 was a great intro to this circle of hell when the wall of Maria fell and ... got introduced to these beau....No they weren't lookers now were they?In fact most titans looked fucking ridiculous..And that was a very big reason for me to not take this series as seriously as i should. I mean if your main attraction isn't threatening looking at all..It kinda spoils the fun, you know?

And then season 2 dropped and...I guess the deeper you go the worse it is?......Let's say it was a very different beast than it's 1st counterpart and in all honesty..Much worse in many ways. For one, it felt like a different anime altogether but with the same cast more or less. It's not like it picked right from where the 1st one ended. As for the rest there is already my review on the 2nd one here so go read it you filthy maggots.

What, too, was worse...The animation..And this new season is a mixed bag of Part 1 having impressive animation and Part 2 being the bastard love child that got abandoned at the church's footsteps with a note in its' flipper hands..The CG scenes are here as well and as harmful to your eyes as dropping a whole bottle of sulfuric acid directly into them. I don't know what possesed them to make the titans CG as well but god damn, talk about idiotic decisions.

A not at all idiotic decision was to shift some focus from the titans to the people themselves and the conflict between humans. To me this was a good thing for 2 reasons..I don't like Eren and the constant reveals of titans...It wears thin after a while when every single person turns out to be one..Back to the conflict, it was that of the lower class and the ruling class(scouts and military police)..Honestly this was way more interesting and action packed than any titan fight i've seen thus far..

The presentation of the first half was far from the offerings of Season 2. The animation, the settings...Man it was great. Don't worry there are fights between titans and massive ones at that and boy did they drag the hell outta them. And the worst BY FUCKING FAR.......The damn Beast titan playing baseball with boulders..Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Just why? I wonder if in future installments they'll have him spit at old ladies and robbing kids from their lunch money..

As for the second half...Well either the budget wasn't big enough or i guess another studio did the work cause they were bored or had other projects going on at the same time? Don't know and don't care..The fact of the matter is that the drop in quality is as vast as the centre of the earth.

Another big problem, which i mentioned earlier was the fact that in this season, much like the previous one, there is a feeling of disconnect from the previous ones. In season 2 there were little to no connections between them..And this is made worse when you go from Pt1 to Pt2..It's like the events of Pt1 didn't even matter. There is no sense of an overarching story as such. If you go back from this season to the 1st? It's like those events were from a galaxy far far away..Again why? Did you have anything better to do than connecting the damn dots together?

As for the characters...Eren is still an irritating twat when he shows on screen and Mikasa still is..There...In fact i'd say that apart from Erwin and Armin who were the stars of the show, the side characters played a much larger role this time round and i think it was for the best.

Now at this point it may look like i shit on this anime way too much but the thing is i still love it and i believe deep in my heart that this is a modern classic..Despite all its' faults i like it for what it is..Sure it has a wooden leg and a glass eye but it has inner beauty..And big perky tits! I'm also hopeful that the last season will somehow fix these problems and amaze us in ways we cannot possibly expect..But here's the thing...I'm not sure this is a likelihood and here's why...In this season they revealed everything there was about the titans and their history..Now the mystery is all but gone and i'm not sure what will be the endgame here..I have this sneaking suspicion that this was the peak Attack on Titan and from now on we are to be made witness to the bottleneck version of things..Still hopeful but...

Part 2 of season three is very good, but it's overrated because part one really is that bad, which makes it seem a lot better than it is by comparison. Yes, the battle that we get is pretty epic, including multiple major character deaths, but when you have your audience foaming at the mouth for any action whatsoever, since there's very little of it in the slow and boring first half of this season, imperfect becomes a lot more acceptable.

And, indeed, imperfect this is. I strongly dislike the decision to implement the Colossal Titan with CGI when it had been traditionally animated in both seasons ... prior to this. Also, puzzlingly, in SOME shots the Colossal Titan is full on CGI but in other shots it's traditionally animated. It sticks out like a sore thumb and not in a good way.

Also in the epic battle there are many missed opportunities to land the killing blow because the characters would rather talk instead. Many anime do this. It's certainly not an Attack on Titan exclusive problem. But, nevertheless, it's something that always bothers me and breaks immersion.

Throughout the entirety of the season, not just part two, I felt like the English language voice actors/writers went too far in trying to "Americanize" or "localize" the dialog, often throwing in random phrases like "big-ass titan" that felt really forced in and out of place. I'm a native English speaker and largely favor dubs over subs, but Attack on Titan is one of those anime where, without much argument, the original Japanese audio and writing are simply superior. This is a problem that has persisted throughout the entire series. Season two had English lines like "what's the end game here" that just don't fit. It's a clear attempt to appeal to a target audience- teenage males.

Also, while the epic battle is the clear highlight of this season, once it's over we're back to exactly what plagued the first half of season three- lots of talking, lots of exposition dump, information overload. It tells you A LOT of critical plot points and pieces of information all at once and it can be quite overwhelming to try to follow and sort through with the sheer volume it's shoving down your throat at one time. It wasn't quite as slow and boring as the first half of the season, possibly because there were fewer episodes of it, but the all talking no action final few episodes of this season were, once again, back to poorly paced mediocrity.

As a whole, I still like Attack on Titan a lot and I'm certainly looking forward to the fourth and final season and seeing how it all ends for these characters, but I'm also an objective, older viewer and not a fanboy and I can call it as I see it and not slap a 10 on this because I'm caught up in the hype the way so many of you seem to be. This season was still worse than season one without a doubt in my mind, but I prefer it over season two even if only by a little bit.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 7.75-8
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7.5
SEASON 3 OVERALL RATING (BOTH PARTS)- 7.5

When I first saw season one I was very hyped for this series and the potential it had. Unfortunately as time went on the story got a bit harder to understand and there was one too many plot twist being used just for the progression of the story. I also didn't enjoy on how some characters were progressing over the others while one character was progressing very well in my opinion the main character kept going down hill and was making no improvements and kept needing to have his friends save his sorry *** (self censored to keep review clean). If our protagonist was actually ... able to do something besides cry this would be a much better show.