You know what, I was planning on only watching the Shingeki no Kyojin anime. I hadn't read the manga, but I had heard really good things about it. Still, it struck me as the kind of show that I would rather see animated, for whatever reason, so I patiently waited for the anime to come out.
Then I watched the first episode and loved it. And I remember Dice saying you had to read the manga. So my curiosity got the better of me and I took a look at the manga...next thing I know it's 4am and I just plowed through 10 volumes. Woops. Seriously addictive series. Things are nowhere near as simple as they first appear...
PS: What's with the "Attack on Titan" name? I was always a little confused about that. I would think "Attack of the Titans" makes way more sense as a translation of "Shingeki no Kyojin"...but I realize now that "Attack on Titan" is what the author put in English on the actual manga. Is this just an Engrishism or is there some deeper meaning there...
Daaamn right son.
I hate to act like this, but the material is really different from any manga I've ever read, and like I said earlier -- it doesn't really feel like one either.
I'm enjoying the anime just fine, obviously still too soon to really judge, but I do thing the
gruesome-factor (that looks like it may be "PG-13'd" or translated into a hot-blooded-action-anime) helps to really give the weight of the series: The struggle that humans are really using every last trick in the book
just to survive, and the absolute terror these people live in (and displayed so casually in the manga of people in the streets getting gnawed on or showing a person with a missing head or a limb in a Titan's mouths). It's clear the people in the comic are pretty fucked up and generally scared to even fight at all -- I mean, who wouldn't be??
Manga Spoilz:
And a big round of applause to the few "wham episodes" too: Annie's identity was a strange and scary reveal (esp. when the "titan smile" came kicking in), the "stuff inside the wall" is just all sorts of degrees of fucked up and weird, and I *loved* how they just stuck in the true identities of Bert and Reiner for the bottom of the page. Which reminds me: the books *deserve* a second read, hints about their identity are literally everywhere.
But none of that was more weird and eerie than the hairy-ape titan... the fuck is that thing??? For any Chronicles of Narnia savants, it sort of reminded me of Shift... 11 books in already though. No idea where the fuck it can go.
Oh damn...
Noboru Yamaguchi (author of Zero no Tsukaima) died on the 4th and it was announced publicly yesterday.
The guy had been battling a cancer for some years and, after delaying it for a while, made the last season & last volumes of ZnT when he felt a bit better.
I can only imagine the dedication he had toward his serie.
I didn't like the series, to be honest, but I hate hearing when someone passes away even if I'm just familiar with their work. Amazing he went through it all though. So god bless, and may he rest in peace. I was pretty sad to hear when Nujabes had died; I thought he was a great talent.
