2023 EDIT: Part of my (latest) 2023 clear-up, of books (and franchises) I no longer like, or am no longer interested in, or remember well as standing out, or find as special anymore, or I otherwise will not miss.
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
I really enjoyed the anime adaptation - I dare anyone to try to forget that first opening theme song - so I thought, "Hey, why not? I'll read the first manga volume sooner or later, even though I don't read much manga anymore."
'Attack on Titan' by Hajime Isayama - from the start, this volume is like the first five episodes of the anime, only more simplistic, and with more foreshadowing.
A great, action-packed and horrifying concept is brought to life by a dystopic setting; and a sense of being trapped by it. There is the foreboding feeling of eventually being hunted and eaten by predators higher up on the food chain of the earth. The feeling like being in a pen, or a birdcage, as the spirited main character Eren Yeager remarks.
Sooner or later, the cage - the hundred-year-old wall humanity desperately built around itself to protect and preserve its race to the end of days - is going to be knocked down, destroyed. Humans are cattle; and will once again fall prey to the enormous, terrifying and mysterious Titans.
The art of this first volume is really good in some places - capturing the characters' fierce emotions by their facial expressions and positions on panels both subtly and passionately. The various designs of the Titans are fantastic - that they look like humans, but don't express any emotion or thought, and are driven only by primal instinct, reflects our own worst fears of ourselves. 'Attack on Titan' literally manifests this fear on a massive scale.
Although in other places the art does look a little amateurish and confusing, more specifically in the fight sequences, and telling apart the characters (some of whom aren't even named here).But it's feasible for its genre and story, and easy on the eyes.
In the anime, Eren's foster sister Mikasa Ackerman is my favourite character. In the manga I wasn't to be disappointed in her portrayal.
I love that she is a subversion of the Emotionless Girl cliché in anime. Mikasa has emotions; she just doesn't express them that often. She cares deeply for others; just not overtly. From her dialogue it is clear she loves Eren and wants to protect him at all costs, and in the context of the story and in view of her tragic past, this is noble rather than silly or foolish for a female character. Mikasa is Eren's knight in shining armour, not the other way round as was once the case when they first met. He inadvertently taught her to always be the predator instead of the prey, and she is forever working to repay her debt to him.
In the manga, you can tell from Mikasa's eyes and facial expressions when danger is afoot that yes, she is scared, terrified even, and momentarily frozen in panic. But she is repressing her screams and outbursts because she knows that will not help her or anyone else in the situation at hand. Mikasa Ackerman may seem mysterious, cold and scary at first, but it is an effort for her to be so. For example, a couple of panels show her clutching her head after seeing her foster mother get eaten by a Titan; perhaps she is suffering desperately from the pressure of trying not to cry like Eren. Mikasa is a fighter; practical through and through. The top of her class and worthy of joining the Survey Corps, who specialise in killing Titans. She is even adorable in her aloofness.
A wonderful, fully human and competent female character in shonen manga, Mikasa is spectacular. Thus ends my gushing about her.
'Attack on Titan, Vol. 1' is dramatic and cool: developing on a colossal scale, resulting in a cliff-hanger that actually works in the long run. It introduces creative ideas, and there is a relative sense of belonging to it and its characters which had helped to give birth to fandoms for franchises such as 'Harry Potter' and 'The Hunger Games'. The narrative is simplistic and rushed for a beginning of an epic series, but the diverse characters are memorable and you want to see more of them.
But mostly I'm here for Mikasa.
Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die jäger!
Final Score: 3.5/5
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