Anime Discussion Thread - Page 3434

Then we learn that Eren is a titan. I could buy that. He's the mc so he gets a free pass. And then we learn that there's a hell of a lot more people that are titans. This is where I thought the story started getting really iffy. Plot twists are fine, but they better have a purpose, and they better be used sparingly. Otherwise, things feel really cheap. Hence the Lost comparison. Simply introducing plot twists for the sake of shock value is a terrible way to weave a narrative.

There also comes a point when killing everyone loses its impact. Sure, one of the draws of the manga is that humanity's fucked and all that, but having the recon teams get slaughtered every time they venture out is (ironically) detrimental to the atmosphere. It gets tiresome.

I personally suspect that the mangaka accidentally hit it big and didn't give sufficient thought as to how the story would unfold. So pretty much par for the course as far as popular manga go.

I would've preferred that Eren stayed as a human or a titan if no one else was and since he seemed like he got ahead of himself and always got into trouble so that he's at least useful. Having him as a titan did introduce the idea that maybe the other titans are actually humans in the same position which I thought was good and brought on questions like, is there a way to help them if that's the case and how did they enter that state?

Too many different people being titans does make it a bit tiresome like Spazer mentioned but from my perspective, it also made me wonder just what the actual story is about. Originally, it seemed like it was humans against titans then once Eren became a titan, it made me question just what titans are. After discovering that there are more human titans, I started to wonder why other humans who have the same titan 'ability' as Eren fighting against humans? Are they humans themselves or are they titans that have found some way to make themselves 'transform' to humans at will? What is this city where they are from all about? It made me wonder if maybe these human titans are some rebel forcing opposing the government and what their side of the story is. One theory I heard was that they are biological weapons being developed against the oppressive government.

Having the titans actually make up the walls was definitely a bizzare moment in the manga and something that I didn't see coming especially with the religious group being behind it (apparently) and that there's some hidden secret or so. While I agree with some of your points, I guess I see a lot of interesting questions and still some potential despite some of the flaws in SnK. Wonder what new information I missed out on in the previous 4-5 chapters. Maybe they finally made it to the titan city or w/e its called lol.

As for constantly killing the party when they ventured out, well, it was kinda known that if you joined them, there is a higher chance of death than survival but they needed people to join to get more information about the titans and know what they are dealing with. If the government is indeed oppressive and know what the titans are, you end up in a situation where the truth is hidden away from the people which adds another layer to the story imo. I can't say it got tiresome killing people though since most of the killing seemed to happen early on and once Eren's friends joined the party, I don't recall them dying even when they stumbled onto Annie in her titan form.

Having eren as a titan works because it provides impetus for change. It also raises some questions. Compare that to the introduction of the other titans. What do they add to the story? Sure, they make things more complex, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Same with the government stuff. It's not even well executed politics or anything, and can basically be summed up as "the government is shady and must be evil". There was already an insurmountable foe - the titans. Adding even more antagonists is kinda pointless in that sense, and doubly so if the execution sucks.

Also, as more plot twists get introduced, that means more pages and time have to be dedicated to explaining said developments, which usually means that the pacing suffers. Having "a lot of interesting questions" doesn't mean a thing if they're never addressed, or poorly explained. If 20th century boys couldn't do it, I have no faith that snk can.


That's just in-story justification. I'm saying that the emotional impact isn't there after the first few times. The first time people got massacred and the main characters reacted to it, I bought into it. The problem is, every time they try to show that a titan is dangerous, some mooks die and people are horrified. But I've already been shown that before. Why should I care about these throwaway characters? Repeating the same shocking scene reduces the overall impact of said scene.

well, there were several theories on that, one that the titans are actually working with the government so it ends up being a single antagonist. Yes, execution is important but to be fair, the government thing was something that was discussed among manga readers and it was never really shown that the government is shady and evil. It was mostly that religious organization was shady due to its past and I think but not 100% sure that they have some link or special status or something with the government which leads to that conclusion.

well, of course but it's my hope that some or most of my questions will be answered as the manga progresses. Won't know until it ends though and if I get my main ones which are most important answered, I'm satisfied. I'm not familiar with the 20th century boys so I can't comment on the analogy.

hmm fair enough, why should I or you care about them? I really don't care lol. They had their impact when the manga first started and most of Eren's group(actually all as I recall) got eaten alive. From that point, it was made clear that the titans were a brutal race that just wanted to kill as many humans as possible so further casualties didn't have as much or an impact. I don't see it as being that big of a deal if they had some throwaway characters tbh. Naruto and other mangas/animes always had them to some degree. I mean it's only natural that some will die when they engage titans so I think showing it is better than not doing so to add some realism to it? I don't recall as much from the manga since it's been a while but was there a specific part that shows too much death that reduced overall impact?

I hope I haven't seen them :3

I think making things more complex is not necessarily a bad thing if things eventually get worked out. I do not know how the manga deals with it seeing as I have not read it (and not sure if I ever will), or if it deals with it at all, but with the anime it felt like they were setting up a next season. Which is okay really.

It is not even that the emotional impact is not there any more, it also gets tiresome to watch the other characters go through the same PTSD every time someone dies. Eren goes almost through the same thought-process almost every time someone dies that he knows. And that is just Eren, the other characters do the same.
That. And the fact I tended to like the characters that got killed off a lot more than the MCs. It was pretty obvious that the moment a character gets screen time they would soon be killed off.

Overall, I enjoyed SnK though. It has its flaws, it has many flaws. But the animation is cool, the soundtrack is amazing and I think the story so far was pretty solid. I got some hopes that they can make the second season interesting enough and hopefully close off some storylines instead just opening more and more. (Although, I probably will be disappointed with that... )