Attack on Titan, Giant, Whatever

I watched the first episode of Shingeki no Kyojin. It’s kind of unsettling. And it’s hard to describe why.

I think from a basic level, the show is gorgeously animated. The thick lines is kind of a style thing, and the exaggerated character animation makes me feel like this is a less gimmicky version of Jojo. Of course, this is all just when there isn’t some crazy action sequence going on, in which the show feels like a league beyond the average late-night TV offering. The OP is crazy.

The gore and violence is probably unsettling by default. I didn’t think too much of it because it’s much too cartoony to be taken seriously. I think that’s exactly it–the entire show has this level of theatrics to it that when combined with the deadly serious presentation, somehow it just doesn’t match. The Titans are ridiculously designed, and I mean it in the sense of their facial expressions and movements, not that they’re giant naked people (although that is an enabler). The action choreography, while very cool, is a few levels removed from “real” (in fact it just seems a little too standard “anime”).

I don’t know, it’s kind of like eating a bowl of pho and finding sun-dried tomatoes in it or something. It’s just weird, it doesn’t quite clash, but it doesn’t quite match either. It isn’t  like having cheese with your curry, but it might be like having cheese with your curry for the very first time.

The humanoid Titans in the barbarian kind of sense reminds me of D&D giants. I wonder if that’s where the inspiration is from? I rarely see a visual depiction of giants outside of video games in the savage, barbarian sense, so this is actually kind of cool. Sadly that passing novelty is not going to last beyond a couple episodes, I think.