Hey, guys!
So, I'm finally my review of Attack on Titan Season 2.
I'm sorry it's so late, and there haven't been any videos coming out on this channel
lately.
Most of it was due to personal issues, but this particular one I've been waiting to make
because...I needed to wait until I was less salty about it.
I was quite, uh, salt-encrusted after watching...
I wanted to wait until the hype died down a little bit.
That's also why I'm using face cam.
So, last time I made a video saying anything negative, I got a copyright strike.
Just to be safe, that's why I'm using face cam.
All that being said, let's just get into the video, now.
There will be spoilers- extensive spoilers- of Attack on Titan season two.
I was actually really excited that they were making a season two of Attack on Titan.
If you watched my other Attack on Titan videos, you that I really enjoyed the first season.
While it did have some flaws, I think it was overall pretty well-done.
So, I was quite disappointed, and I find that pretty regrettable; I was actually really
hoping to have a positive experience with Attack on Titan Season 2, but...that just
didn't happen, so...Now, let me get into why.
Firstly, characters, the main characters being Reiner, Bertholdt, Ymir, and Historia...and
Connie and Sasha, a little bit more than they were in the previous season.
And I'm wondering why they were expecting anime-only watchers to be invested in them,
because they have barely any lines in the first season; you could have cut all of them
out of it and it wouldn't have made a difference, like, story-wise.
Well, at least, as far as we knew at the time of watching the first season.
I mean, obviously, they reveal that Reiner and Bertholdt are titans and were present
in the first season as titans, but we didn't know that until the second season.
So, as someone who watched the anime without reading the manga first, I didn't think they
were important at all, so when I saw the Season 2 promotional poster, you know, the one with
Eren very small in the middle and they have these giant heads of, like, Reiner, Bertholdt,
Ymir, and Historia on the sides, I just thought...'what'?
Most of the emotional punch in this season was supposed to come from the reveal that
Reiner and Bertholdt are titans.
However, they kind of made the same mistake that they made with Annie that I hoped they
would fix in this season, but they actually made it even worse, almost...
Well, the thing with Annie in the first season is that Eren's reaction to her betrayal seems
so over-the-top considering how well he actually seems to know Annie.
I just had to assume that it was because he felt he had a very strong relationship with
her, even though we didn't really get to see that much.
And the same thing goes for this season.
Reiner and Bertholdt, while [Eren] does say, 'oh, Reiner was like a big brother to me,
I looked up to him so much,' he says that, but they never show that.
In the first season, he had very minimal interactions with Reiner and Reiner himself had very few
lines.
Everything we know about Reiner is told to us.
Their instructor tells us, like, 'oh, he's very strong and loyal, and his comrades trust
him.'
We're told that.
Then we see him fooling around with Eren a little bit while training, you know.
But, like, that doesn't seem like such a brotherly bond, or like, such a strong bond.
So, since we don't really get to SEE for ourselves the relationship between Eren and Reiner and
Bertholdt, the emotional impact is much less than it would have been had we gotten some
of those scenes.
Towards the final episodes, they're talking about all the great memories they had with
Reiner and Bertholdt that we never saw, so that just doesn't have the same punch as just
showing it to us.
This is an instance that they should have shown rather than told.
And overall, compared to the first season, there's really not much character development
going on, 'cause we're kind of just getting to know this new cast.
So, it's more of character reveals than development, I would say.
However, because they're kind of just introducing us to these new characters– I mean, technically,
they were there before, but that same intimate connection that we feel with Eren, Mikasa,
and Armin, at the very beginning, is not there for these characters.
Yes, I understand they're supposed to be mysterious, but they should have tried to replicate Eren's
feeling that this totally came out of nowhere, these guys would never betray us, because
that was the whole emotional focus of the season.
It just doesn't really make any sense why they would use distance from the characters
to create mystery.
There are other ways to create mystery than to use distance.
So, basically, it took a lot longer for us to get to know these characters than it did
in the first season for us to get to know, uh...the main...are they even the main characters?
I'm not even sure, but...the...uh...main characters of season one, how about that?
For example, I think the best example of this is Armin's introductory scene.
Within, like, two or three minutes, they basically tell us everything we need to know about Armin
up until episode five when his character development really kicks off.
We see just from the way he interacts with these bullies, we really see his personality.
We see he's very smart, he's brave, he's not afraid to be hurt for his heretic beliefs,
he's weak, and then we see from the way that he reacts to Eren and Mikasa rescuing him
that he resents his own weakness and wants to be strong, and his goal is to stand next
to Eren and Mikasa as equals.
There.
Everything we need to know- boom, two minutes, done.
Something like that would have been really helpful for this season just to help us get
to know the characters more instead of jumping right into it.
So, the other complaint I had about character was the balance of screen time that different
characters had.
One of the major things that kind of bothered me about this season was Sasha; there was
way too much Sasha.
The season was only half the size of the previous season, so why would you include, like, an
entire half-episode centered on a character who has changed nothing and didn't end up
changing anything in the entire season.
I understand including that if the season was longer, maybe, or if that actually came
into play before the end of the season, but it didn't.
It just seemed like wasting screen time on a character that doesn't really add anything
to the story right this second.
If the Sasha flashbacks are actually necessary to the plot later on, then put it later, not
right now.
Now, I don't think I would be as miffed about including so much Sasha if there was more
Connie, reason being that Connie ended up kind of being important towards the end of
the season when his family is transformed into titans and he's basically lost everything.
Wouldn't it have been way more emotionally impactful to include Connie's flashbacks?
That would have been a lot more heart-breaking later on, which was what they were trying
to do, 'cause we had that one scene where he looks at the picture frame and looks upset.
We would have understood that feeling more and sympathized with him more, and just felt
overall more emotional impact if we had seen flashbacks of Connie instead of Sasha.
Okay, so, a massive strong point of season one was using character to prop up theme.
Okay, I know a bunch of other anime reviewers say that that is absolutely not true, but
if you want to see my argument about that, then just watch any of my character analysis
videos on the Attack on Titan cast.
I don't know if you'll agree, but you'll see what I'm trying to say, there.
So, a major theme of season one was moral ambiguity, and whether the ends really justify
the means.
Like, is it okay to leave behind your humanity for the sake of "saving" it.
So that's why I think it was a major mistake to drop Jean so much.
He's one of the characters that provides that voice of dissent; he's the one who doesn't
think the ends justify the means.
If you watched my Jean video, then you know that I was arguing that he thinks that morality
is objective; just because you're working towards this greater goal doesn't mean that
doing this shady thing is right.
Having more of Jean in this season would have made a lot of sense to provide more thematic
richness, like, especially with the final implications towards the end that Eren is
finally just going to abandon his friendships, his old relationships, and just gonna kill
the titans, and Bertholdt's line that someone has to get their hands dirty, and then we
see Erwin at the end thinking, 'oh, we lost so much, but it was worth it because we found
out a little bit more about the titans.'
So having Jean there really would have added that voice of dissent that was kind of missing.
Okay, so now Eren's development over the course of the season...For being the main protagonist,
it-it was...not as much as I thought was going to happen.
So, one of the most interesting things about Eren from season one was the idea that as
I said in one of my Eren videos, he's abandoning his humanity to destroy what he hates.
That was a major theme in season one.
We saw that recur in Armin's character, Erwin, but now they're introducing this new power,
the Coordinate.
Um, honestly, I have no idea where they're going with this theme-wise, because the destruction
of the friendship between Eren and Reiner and Bertholdt is reinforcing those themes
from season one of sacrifice, abandonment of relationships, you know, morals, etc.
But, the Coordinate doesn't seem to cost Eren anything, so it's kind of interesting to see
this thematic shift and I'm wondering what they're going to do with it.
Is this marking the beginning of lame power-ups, or is this actually going to make this even
better?
I don't know, because the season ended pretty early.
Also with Eren, though, on another note, we do see a bit of a change from season one.
We're kind of seeing the degradation of his ideals.
Like, in season one, it's basically the same situation: they knew with certainty who the
titans were before they actually went to confront them about it, yet this time Eren is completely
ready to fight, so we do see a bit of character development there.
But again, I'm much more worried about the Coordinate and how that's contributing to
the theme, or whether it's contributing to the theme.
Then the other thing is Armin, who barely did anything this season.
I mean, I'm okay with that; he's a side character and he was developed a lot in the first season,
but the thing with Armin is that he's the one who thinks the ends justify the means,
and we see that.
He's willing to resort to psychological attacks on Bertholdt to win, but then we get no closer
about that.
Even Eren has this face as Armin says this that looked disturbed, but we never hear what
happens, what becomes of that; there's no conclusion regarding that scene.
So, I'm guessing they'll fix that in Season 3, or Armin will just keep spiraling downwards
with no closure and eventually something big will happen with him, but...I don't know.
Okay, so, that's it on character for now.
Now, I'm going to talk about the overall atmosphere of the show.
Now, I'm not an expert on directing or anything like that by any stretch of the imagination,
but I have to say it just didn't really feel like the same show as season one.
One of the strong points of season one was its intensity.
That was one of the things that kept bringing me back despite poor pacing in season one
because it was just interesting to watch.
But this season just felt so strange.
The signature screaming from season one- that was, like, one of the things that Attack on
Titan was notorious for; characters would scream their heads off in season one but this
time it was just, I don't know, a little bit of screams.
I mean, of course there was Eren screaming, as usual, but it just didn't seem as intense.
Maybe it was also the music.
There were a few times when it was really conspicuously quiet and the pacing of the
dialogue was a little bit strange so that I actually noticed that there was no music;
usually I'm not the type of person who notices background music, but this time I actually
did notice several times.
Like, that short little conversation between Historia and Ymir after Ymir is ejected from
her titan, the reveal that Reiner has a split personality- that also was kind of interesting
because they were arguing, but there was no, like, music or anything.
And there were some, like, conspicuous gaps in the dialogue.
Okay, so now...I don't even know if this counts as atmosphere, but this just really irked
me about this season- is the flash-backing.
And I'm not talking about the long-term flashbacks, like Sasha's flashbacks; I'm talking about
the flash-backing to stuff that we literally just saw.
Okay, in that episode where Mikasa gets crushed by a titan a little bit, and then, like, a
few seconds later after she takes a tumble on the ground with Eren, she's like, in pain
and then they show us the exact shot they used of her getting squeezed by the titan
even though we just saw that.
Like, that was not even more than five minutes ago; we just saw that.
It's like, you think I forgot what just happened?
They were clearly just trying to fill up the episode because even if we didn't remember
that she got squished by a titan, if she took a tumble all over the ground and is in pain,
that would make perfect sense.
So that was completely unnecessary in every regard.
The other thing that I found kind of funny, even, is that they flash-backed to Carla and
her death even though that's, like, the most iconic scene in Attack on Titan.
Like, even people who haven't watched Attack on Titan see that, and they know it's Attack
on Titan.
Why are you flash-backing to that?
And it's even written into the dialogue when Eren's crying, so we know he's thinking about
that; you don't need to show us that that's the same titan!
We remember that titan; that was one of our first experiences with a titan 'cause it was
in episode one, they had that giant shot of it.
They were, again, trying to fill the episode and also underestimating the emotional weight
of their own show, which is actually really sad.
Misuse of flashbacks was a huge problem in this.
Like, they flash-backed to things we didn't need flashbacks for and then they didn't flash
back to things we should have gotten flashbacks for.
And the writing was just so...clunky, especially towards the end.
My least favorite scene in the entire show is when the Armored Titan is running, right?
And he has his hands around his neck like this to protect Bertholdt and then for some
reason, all the cadets decide to just gather on his arms, right?
And they're just talking to Bertholdt and Reiner.
First of all, Reiner doesn't immediately do this...and just, like, flick them all off,
okay?
And secondly...what even was that?
That was just a bunch of, like, random info-dump fan service, okay?
They're like, 'oh, Bert, we had such a close relationship with you because you sleep weird!'
What?!
First of all, they never showed us that in season one, they never showed us that in season
two, and they didn't even do a random flashback to a still that they could have just drawn
up real quick.
That shows nothing about their relationship.
Like, I can make fun of someone's sleeping positions if I'm not friends with them.
And using that to predict the weather shows nothing about their relationship either.
It just shows they were really, really bored, okay?
And that felt so out of place; don't say something silly like that in the middle of a scene that's
supposed to be so intense like that.
That actually made me laugh!
That's not supposed to be funny, like, right there!
Why?!
Why are you putting a joke right there?
Ugh.
But it wasn't even a joke; they played it like it was serious.
If you're going to flashback to the most iconic scene in the entire show and show us how Mikasa
got injured twice in the same episode less than, like, ten minutes apart, then at least
give us some stills while they're talking of flashbacks of them bonding together.
You know, sitting around a table.
And Connie was like, 'we used to say that we'd grow old together and get drinks together
when this war was over!'
Okay, show them talking about that, show them having fun.
The relationship between Reiner and Bertholdt and the other cadets was really forced.
Okay, so, most of my complaints are centered around the end- towards the end of the series
just because, like, they could have fixed a lot of the flaws that were there in the
beginning, but they didn't, so...Let me talk about the disaster that was the last episode,
now.
They were clearly trying to fill up the episode.
For the pace that the show likes, they didn't have enough content to fill up a twenty-minute
episode, apparently.
So, they decided to include lots of random things and repetitive things.
Like, there are so many shots of Hannes just flitting around doing literally nothing.
Like, it just looks like he's dilly-dallying and hesitating to take that first swing at
the Smiling Titan even though before that he was like, 'don't worry, kids!
I got this!' and he, like, runs in.
Yeah, and they just tried to draw everything out really long.
I actually read, um, Chapter 50 of the manga, which is the same content as the final episode
of the season.
And there's a single panel of Armin protecting Jean and I just felt like that was a lot of,
uh, Jearmin fan service right there because they just drew that out way longer than they
needed to.
I thought it would just be, like, him lifting his sword up, maybe, you know, holding it,
maybe shaking a little, but no, he's uh...he's doing that like, airport worker motion and
uh, screaming repetitively in a monotone voice.
But really, it was like, borderline silly.
Like, I actually laughed when that popped on screen, which is bad because I'm not supposed
to laugh at that moment.
Then the other thing is in the manga, they actually tried to make you think Erwin actually
died for a second.
Here they obviously showed you that Erwin was not dead pretty quickly.
So I would have liked it if they played it off like Erwin was dead for just a little
bit longer.
'Cause I know if I didn't know he was still alive before watching that because I had read
the manga chapter, then I would have been like, 'what?!
How'd he survive that?' you know what I mean?
Okay, I don't know, but it just felt so fan-service-y with Historia doing that cutesy little flip.
I know some people were saying it looked really, like, cool, but honestly it looked like she
was doing a magical girl transformation which did not feel right in this show, especially
considering how seriously they take the other characters.
It just didn't feel like they were taking Historia seriously as a fighter, which I found
really annoying, because one of things I liked about the first season is that the female
characters aren't treated as, like, a lot weaker than the male characters.
I mean, you could argue, but it's harder to argue than most other action shows that I've
seen, so this season just seemed to be way more fan-service-y.
And then there was the EreMika fan service.
I mean, I actually do ship EreMika, but was that even necessary?
Even as an EreMika shipper, I felt like that was really forced and kind of random and didn't
really add anything to the story.
But, since I do like EreMika if you have an argument telling me why that was actually
really good for the show as a whole, then please tell me in the comments because I'd
like to believe it was useful in some way.
It did kind of break the atmosphere of Eren's screaming; I mean, I know that it maybe was
supposed to, but if you just go watch that scene again but keep your eye on the Smiling
Titan this time, it's a little bit funny, like, I don't know...There are a lot of unintentional
funny things in this season, I feel like.
And the very end of the episode just reinforced the thematic inconsistency and also just...broke
the atmosphere again because it was so cheesy!
Like, I could just smell the cheese, and don't get me wrong; I like cheese, but not when
my shows are cheesy.
I feel like it should have ended on a darker note, kind of like the first season.
That was one of the things that was attractive about the first season.
So, yeah, I get that Eren's Coordinate was supposed to be an optimistic discovery, but
it just seemed kinda weird that they would just embrace it, especially after they were
so careful about his titan powers in the first season.
For him to have this mysterious power to control titans- doesn't that have even worse political
implications than him being a titan in the first season?
So why are they all so chill about using it?
So now, how this contributed to thematic inconsistency- I talked a little bit about it earlier, but
now I'm going to talk about it more.
This new attitude towards the Coordinate diminishes the idea that he's sacrificing in order to
change something, as Armin said in the first season.
That was, like, the whole point of season one, basically, that if you want to achieve
something great, you have to give up something that's really important to you.
So it becomes a war of what's more important.
But now, with his Coordinate, no one's really taking that attitude.
Now, Eren is fighting against people who've abandoned their humanity, but not as someone
who's lost his humanity.
He doesn't even need to be a titan to use his Coordinate; now he can just control titans,
and they didn't really highlight that element of sacrifice as much with Eren, which is kind
of important since he's the protagonist...at least, I think he's the protagonist, so...having
him drive home the theme is actually...it's not 'actually,' it's really important, right?
Especially since he was the more major deliverer of that theme in the first season.
So, that is about it for the bad things I had to say.
Now I'm going to talk about some things that were okay, actually.
Or, maybe I shouldn't say "okay," but kind of got me thinking a little, you know...So
firstly, the world-building and foreshadowing.
The world-building was a major issue I had with the first season- um, the world not being
fleshed out enough, particularly in regards to classism.
They act like it's so important in season one but they never actually show you that;
they say there's censorship, they say there's a great discrepancy between the outer walls
and the inner wall, but it doesn't really affect the main cast.
And the same with Wallists; they don't really have an impact on the main cast other than
being politically there.
So, they did start to touch a little bit on Wallism, but they did kind of drop it towards
the end; they weren't really talking about walls anymore...But, on another note, some
of the foreshadowing, um, is starting to come into place.
If you watched the OVA with the talking titan, we find out the identity of that talking titan
in Ymir's flashback; we actually see her in the background with the short, blond hair
and the giant blue eyes, so that was kind of cool.
We see that the reason the Armored Titan never showed up in Trost is because of Reiner's
split personality.
And we see the actual cause of Marco's death.
Okay, so, I was complaining earlier that the theme of moral ambiguity didn't really come
back because of the lack of dissent among the cast, but you could argue...I could argue,
to myself...that the moral ambiguity piece is returning but just in a different form
where it's more like, 'are Reiner and Bertholdt wrong?'
If they're all fighting for what they believe is the greater good, then are they wrong?
Reiner and Bertholdt present the idea of doing something because you believe in it or doing
it because you were forced to do it and you don't really understand why you're doing it.
But one thing I am wondering about, if you guys have any ideas, is why did they put this
idea of doing something believe in it or doing something because you were told to but don't
understand why in parallel with Ymir and her little selfishness theme.
On the one hand, you have Ymir and Historia who decide, 'you know what?
We're gonna live just for ourselves,' and then we have Reiner and Bert, who are giving
their lives for someone else's goal.
So, the idea of, like, the ends justify the means is still present to a degree, I suppose.
Huh...I'm kind of just, like, thinking about this right now, um...this isn't really in
my script, but this idea of moral ambiguity layered on top of the selfish lifestyle kind
of brings into question who's actually living the right way, here?
Is there a right way?
Do the ends justify the means, but does it depend on what the ends are?
But, I just don't want to devote any of my brain power to thinking about this season
anymore...I mean, I'll probably make another Attack on Titan video once I catch up with
the manga, if I ever catch up.
(sigh) So many chapters...Nope, ExtraCred is giving me an evil look; okay, I gotta catch
up.
If you guys have any thoughts that you want to let me know about, feel free to do that
in the comments.
So, that's about all I have to say for now, um.
Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed that somehow, and goodbye!
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