Attack on Titan, Season One: A fantastic first season that falters with its main character.

Recently, I got into watching Anime.
I have seen shows like Death Note and seen The Cowboy Bebop Movie and am planning to later watch the series.
One anime I constantly heard good things about was Attack on Titan, based off the manga of the same name.
After hearing so many good things, I had to check it out and wow, this anime is great.
It is intense, exhilarating, heartbreaking and just fun to watch.
Attack on Titan is set in a dystopian future, where large humanoid monsters called Titans have appeared and driven humanity to almost extinction, with their constant hunger for human flesh.
The remaining humans have taken refuge behind three large walls, which keep the Titans at bay.
However, when a Colossal Titan arrives and smashes the outer wall, it starts a chain of events that may lead to either humanity’s salvation or extinction.
The show’s story is thrilling and dark.
It is definitely the Game of Thrones of anime.
Characters constantly die, which is a shame because these characters are so fantastic, for the most part.
I became attached to so many of them.
There are the central characters like Armin, the lovable genius, Mikasa, who is incredibly awesome and Jean, who in my opinion had the best character arc of the entire first season.

Then there are the side characters who are just as amazing.
Sasha, Connie, Levi, Commander Erwin, I could go on naming these characters because they are all so amazing.
However, although these characters are amazing, it is with them the problems of the show lie.
One of the biggest problems with the characters is there is way too many of them.
There were quite a few times when a character died and it was a really emotional scene but I could not get into it because I could not remember who the character was.
This did not happen constantly and there were more times when I remembered who a character was when they died but this still happened too many times.
Another problem I have is that I did not like one of the characters.
Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem.
Attack on Titan has so many characters that it would be weird if I did not like at least one of them.
But it is a problem because the character I do not like is the main character, Eren.
Eren is an incredibly one dimensional character, which is unacceptable for the main character, especially when all the other characters are so well developed.
His entire character is based on his hatred for the Titans.
This should be Eren’s motivation not his entire character.
Almost every line of dialogue that came out of Eren’s mouth was either saying that he wants to kill all the Titans or berating people for not fighting them.
If you were to remove his hatred of Titans then Eren would have absolutely no character.
It makes him incredibly boring.
What makes it worse is that there were clearly times when they could have given him development but they passed over it.
Yes, Eren does get some development in the final five episodes but this is in the back half of the season.
Other characters have been given 20 episodes to develop before Eren so are a 100 times more interesting than him by that point.
I just wish that Armin or Mikasa had been the main character because they are much more interesting and relatable characters.

Then there is Eren’s voice.
I started off watching Attack on Titan with the English dub but I changed halfway through to Japanese.
I did this because I could not stand Eren’s voice.
It made him sound like a whiny brat and it really got on my nerves.
The rest of the English voice cast was good but Eren’s voice stuck out like a sore thumb.
This may be nitpicking but it was really off-putting for me.
But, even though I did have problems with the characters, it is still them that make the show work.
Apart from Eren and the characters I forgot about, the other characters were so fantastic that they drew you into the whole story.
It is through them that you really feel what is at stake, which is what makes the story grab you.
This is all helped by the shows fantastic animation, action and music.
The action scenes alone are so thrilling and paired up with the great characters, who are constantly in danger of death, it left me on the edge of my seat.

Attack on Titan is a really great anime.
Its first season had a very gripping story and characters.
Hopefully the problems I had with it will be fixed when I watch the second season.
If you are a fan of anime, I would highly recommend you watch this show.