How Anime Went Right: 4 Reasons to Watch Attack on Titan(Part 1)

Warning: Spoilers abound for MANY details of the series

Anime has often had a sketchy relationship with its American fans.  Despite Anime such as Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon Indigo League, Digimon, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, among many others being a key part of nostalgia; in today's society you are just as likely to find just as much detractors than fans of anime.  A key reason for this is that newer anime has been criticized for either overusing traits that made the anime of our youth great in an attempt to "cash-in" without doing anything new, along with an over-saturation of tropes that while popular in Japan Westerners either care little about or even blame for the preceived declining quality of anime(ie: Moe). There were also external factors for this preceived decline such as the lack of professional anime critics, a preceived bias to the Otaku community, the use of internet streaming and piracy allowing for anime of less quality to be circulated online, thereby putting the perception of anime into more scrutiny.

This has led to people claiming that anime is dead, or at the very least, it would not return to the prominence it had achieved in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Yet however, there has been momentum that could possibly restore the image of anime or gain it a new audience outside of Japan.  One of the major aspects of this change is the return of Toonami to Cartoon Network, an anime and action block whose efforts lead to the last anime boom.  Another significant shift towards a possible return to form for Anime outside of Japan is the introduction of new Anime that is seen as not recycling tropes that made the anime of old great or using tropes that are preceived to be contributing to the declining quality of anime.  And among them, is the anime Attack on Titan.

For those who don't know, Attack on Titan is essentially Neon Genesis Evangelion, but without the mecha.  The plot revolves around the  the last remnants of humanity living for a hundred years inside a fortified city designed to protect them from a powerful race of man-eating giants known as Titans.  The city is protected by three layers of walls these being Wall Maria, Wall Sina, and Wall Rose. The two races have locked one another into a stalemate: the Titans cannot breach the walls of the city, and humanity cannot make war with the Titans without risking extinction.    

That is until the reappearence of the Titans in year 845; when a colossal destroyed the the perimeter wall of the village of Zhiganshina, and allowed lesser Titans to invade from Wall Maria.  Three children escaped from the ensuing massacre: Eren Yeager, an aggressive adolescent boy who lost his mother in the; Mikasa Ackerman, his quiet adoptive sister; and Armin Arlert, Eren's bookish best friend. Years later, the trio decide to join the Survey Corps, a military branch dedicated to making excursions into the outside world to fight the Titans and research ways to defeat them once and for all — and Eren, with vengeful and murderous intent in his heart, vows to kill every last Titan on Earth.  Little do they know however, exactly the full consequences of the Human-Titan war and just what sort of problem they have got themselves in....

Attack on Titan‘s success has grown exponentially in the latest months that it’s become the most sold manga in the first half of 2014. This is the first time that a manga actually unseats One Piece in years with more than 8 million copies sold.  And the franchise’s popularity doesn’t only come from Japan either, it is a worldwide phenomena with fans from all over the world.  But what makes it so awesome?  And what problems does it have?  Part 1 of my review of Attack on Titan gives 4 reasons why it is so awesome and one of the better anime.  But at the same time the manga has a large hidden problem within it's themes that, if not addressed properly, or at least the implications of such could be twisted and interpreted in ways that might be not what the author wants, could make Attack on Titan an example of how Anime could go wrong, which I will cover hopefully in Part 2 of this review.   

My thoughts on Racebending in Popular Culture

Why Star Wars "Saga Fans" should not celebrate the end of the Legends Era Expanded Universe

NOTE: For the purposes of this article, I will assume to bring balance to the force is to destroy the Sith.  This is the assumption if one takes an extreme purist interpretation of the films and TCW as the only source of canon and focuses on the battle between good and evil presented, the Light Side versus the Dark.  Personally through this is not my opinion, as my personal worldview is that I think the Jedi Order has misinterpreted the prophecy and in order to truly balance the force, we need the destruction of both a increasingly dogmatic, stagnant and hypocritical Jedi order AND the Sith Order so something new can spring up.
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Secondly, before we begin, I would like to make it clear that the goal of this post is not to argue that the post-ROTJ SWEU is inherently "good".  I myself have seen a decrease in that aspect of the EU after the earlier writers left, along with legitimate problems with how some storylines are presented, and I feel the Legacy storyline in the novels was poorly executed despite its premise and buildup; not to mention I feel that the Vong were given too easy victories and too much plot armor so the authors of the NJO can push through the unification storyline ASAP.  I do agree with the assertion that darker storylines in the post-ROTJ EU is problematic in regards to the "uplifting" ending of Episode VI, however this in my mind is less because the stories are dark and more because the EU always focuses on the next big storyline-there is little room for smaller-scale storylines starting with New Jedi Order.  In my mind, had there been smaller-scale threats/filling in between the big ones that are resolved by minor characters, which are set at least a decade or two between each other instead of jumping from one dark storyline to another, people will complain less about the darker stories and try to appreciate the EU more.  Nevertheless, as I add here, this does not mean that all the themes of the EU should be discarded or that it "violated" the storyline to constantly create conflict, nor should it be used to indict the better storylines of the EU as part of the problem. 
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Ant-Man Storyline Review/Analysis

 Warning: Review is spoileriffic

Why we shouldn't bank on Nostaligia to "save" Star Wars

“And I think if anyone can pull [Star Wars] out of the mire, it’s J.J. He’ll bring the fun back. Lucas seemed to misread what made the first ones great, and concentrate on things that people didn’t really care about, or wilfully ignore the things that people cared about. Whereas J.J. will embrace them all. “We’re going to see the Millennium Falcon again. We’re going to see those characters again. All the things that we loved about the first three, we will see again."
-Simon Pegg

 
A common theme with the hype for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, at least in the minds of some trilogy fans such as Simon Pegg(evident in the quote above), is that nostalgia would be enough to "save" Star Wars as a franchise and restore it's greatness after the perceived disappointment of George Lucas' Prequel Trilogy.  On the other side of the spectrum however, are the Saga fans, or those who view all six Star Wars movies as equally good, or at the very least hold no ill will towards the Prequels.  Part of the reasoning driving the latter group is the the belief that the Originals were poorly received by mainstream critics when they came out and only build up the praise because of nostalgia from the generation that grew up with them; a fact the Saga fans hope to repeat with the Prequels.  And that regardless of the Prequels faults, they at least tried to expand into new territory instead of rehashing and appealing to nostalgia.

Yet JJ Abrams, when producing Star Wars Episode VII has implied a return to nostalgia over breaking new ground despite the wishes of the Saga fans.  This raises the question of whether nostalgia is "enough" to restore Star Wars to it's former glory, a question that trilogy fans have .  Yet when looking at how this appeal to nostalgia is applied in various  long-running series, it seems that evidence has demonstrated that this has often not been the case, but have often resulted in terrible choices resulting in the destruction of plot points and character development.

The fate of Jon Snow--my assessment

WARNING: Spoilers below so if you don't like spoilers don't read until you get to the finale!

Greetings

Greetings and let me introduce myself.  I am a political science student currently in my last year in university.  The subject of this blog however, dosen't have the most to do with university, but rather an analysis or reflection on works of fiction that I enjoy and the mentality of various fanbases I've come across.  In particular, how fiction influences discourse and how it's message may be relevant in the real world today and if fanbases choose to ignore or heed these messages.  I write these for myself and no one else, through updates might be sparse.

And as you can already see by the address of the blog, I am a huge Star Wars and Game of Thrones fan.  So for the latter, expect spoilers, analysis of fantheories and speculation, in any entry related to Game of Thrones up to the latest episode.  As for the former however, let's be clear that this blog does not take sides in the debate over the merits of the Prequel trilogy but serves as a way to analyze how the two trilogies bridge into each other and the Clone Wars(2003 and 2008) and the old Expanded Universe, while acknowledging their flaws at the same time.  So if you hate the Expanded Universe and cheered for it's downfall...or just want to strap me onto a chair while shoving RedLetterMedia reviews down my throat against my will for not doing enough to focus on the wrongs of the Prequels or try to justify some of the rather...less reasonable flaws...the Prequels have within the narrative because I don't generate enough "love" to these movies; than pull any of that shit at your own fucking risk.