I put a warning in the title, but perhaps it's best to repeat myself once more to be safe: This month's chapter came loaded with plot that readers/watchers of the series have been waiting to learn for years. As such, there's no real way to discuss it without enclosing everything you say in spoiler tags, as such, it's easier to just put this disclaimer up and then post freely. Spoilers below, best to avoid if you are an anime watcher or just not caught up and want to wait til later.
*ahem* now, then:
http://mangastream.com/r/attack_on_titan/086/3727/1
I'm not very good at being the OP for threads, but reading this chapter made me really wanna talk about it with someone, and I'm just not active in any other forums these days, so I figured I'd put this here.
The nature and origin of the titans is one of the biggest and most compelling mysteries behind the series, which is a good thing for gripping a reader, but a good mystery can also be a drawback. Sometimes when you create a mystery that's extremely engaging and hard to decipher, you accidentally create a situation where any solution you finally decide to give to it will ultimately feel like an anticlimax.
In this month's chapter, the contents of the basement are explored in greater detail, and questions that have hung over the series for years now have answers... and the end result has me feeling... a little mixed.
On the positive side, I do like that, while the outside world is advancing in technology rapidly, Isayama didn't pull a full "The Village" and have the island where the walls were built be a fragment of ancient people in a modern setting. Doing so would have created far more questions than it resolved, including the old, big, "How did Titans ever take down a human race that had A-bombs and advanced militaries?"
The 1910's-20's feel of the outside world seems like a perfect mesh for the setting, and the situation we see for the kids who became titan shifters on the island was suitably bleak. I can now see why they would be willing to commit mass-murder against complete strangers, if unhappily. I also really like that this chapter firmly places the setting of the series in a fantasy world. I was somewhat dreading that the twist would be that it was a post-apocalypse version of the real world, a twist so cliche it would have been the antithesis of a twist.
The other thing I really liked was that there were little details in the characters introduced this month that made neat little easter eggs for people who have followed the series since the beginning. Many of the conspirators who were betrayed by Zeke, and summarily sentenced to wander the island as mindless monsters, can be identified as various abnormal titans that Eren and company fought against in the early arcs of the series. Grisha's first wife, in particular, is almost certainly the grinning titan who ultimately devoured Eren's mom.
That said, and on the subject of Zeke... uggh... I really wish they didn't play the "long lost half brother" card... It wasn't really necessary. Having Grisha push for Zeke to be volunteered to become a shifter, and Zeke eventually betraying him, would have been enough on its own to fuel the conflict between the two. Adding the blood relation just felt cheap.
The rest of my feelings I've suspended until we see the second half of this story, which will hopefully be next month, but I feel like I need just a bit more information to overcome my dread that the answer to the mystery won't live up to the hype of the mystery itself.
Anyone else read/follow the series? What are your thoughts on the various twists we got this month?
*ahem* now, then:
http://mangastream.com/r/attack_on_titan/086/3727/1
I'm not very good at being the OP for threads, but reading this chapter made me really wanna talk about it with someone, and I'm just not active in any other forums these days, so I figured I'd put this here.
The nature and origin of the titans is one of the biggest and most compelling mysteries behind the series, which is a good thing for gripping a reader, but a good mystery can also be a drawback. Sometimes when you create a mystery that's extremely engaging and hard to decipher, you accidentally create a situation where any solution you finally decide to give to it will ultimately feel like an anticlimax.
In this month's chapter, the contents of the basement are explored in greater detail, and questions that have hung over the series for years now have answers... and the end result has me feeling... a little mixed.
On the positive side, I do like that, while the outside world is advancing in technology rapidly, Isayama didn't pull a full "The Village" and have the island where the walls were built be a fragment of ancient people in a modern setting. Doing so would have created far more questions than it resolved, including the old, big, "How did Titans ever take down a human race that had A-bombs and advanced militaries?"
The 1910's-20's feel of the outside world seems like a perfect mesh for the setting, and the situation we see for the kids who became titan shifters on the island was suitably bleak. I can now see why they would be willing to commit mass-murder against complete strangers, if unhappily. I also really like that this chapter firmly places the setting of the series in a fantasy world. I was somewhat dreading that the twist would be that it was a post-apocalypse version of the real world, a twist so cliche it would have been the antithesis of a twist.
The other thing I really liked was that there were little details in the characters introduced this month that made neat little easter eggs for people who have followed the series since the beginning. Many of the conspirators who were betrayed by Zeke, and summarily sentenced to wander the island as mindless monsters, can be identified as various abnormal titans that Eren and company fought against in the early arcs of the series. Grisha's first wife, in particular, is almost certainly the grinning titan who ultimately devoured Eren's mom.
That said, and on the subject of Zeke... uggh... I really wish they didn't play the "long lost half brother" card... It wasn't really necessary. Having Grisha push for Zeke to be volunteered to become a shifter, and Zeke eventually betraying him, would have been enough on its own to fuel the conflict between the two. Adding the blood relation just felt cheap.
The rest of my feelings I've suspended until we see the second half of this story, which will hopefully be next month, but I feel like I need just a bit more information to overcome my dread that the answer to the mystery won't live up to the hype of the mystery itself.
Anyone else read/follow the series? What are your thoughts on the various twists we got this month?
