It’s not often I find myself hooked to animes or TV shows. The TV shows I usually watch are friends, the big bang theory, Brooklyn 99 - and the likes. The reason being, they’re incredibly easy to pick up and drop any time since there’s no commitment needed.

Personally, I find shows that require commitment rather intimidating to watch, on the off-chance I actually get addicted to them and spend all my free time binging them.

Then I started watching AoT and made an exception. Here’s why -

3 aspects of AoT that I shall passionately cover -

• Plot
• Music
• Art

Plot

If you aren’t familiar with the premise of AoT, here it is - humanity is on the verge of extinction from being preyed on by giant (3-15m tall) mindless, man-eating titans, and have surrounded themselves with 3 tall walls as protection. After close to 100 years of caged peace, a colossal titan appears out of thin air, towers over the outermost wall, breaks the gates of the outermost wall, then vanishes. Consequently, our main protagonist loses his mother to a titan and vows to exterminate the titans, as one-third of humanity was onboarded within the second wall that day.

All this happens in the first episode.

What hooked me was all the unanswered questions I had -

• Where did the colossal titan come from?
• Why stop at the outermost gate?
• Did it then act with ulterior motives? Was it sentient?
• Why wait 100 years and then attack? Why not before?
• Does this mean humanity dies in episode 2?

So I found myself watching more of the show.

Season 1 built the world, told me what questions I should really be asking, introduced me to the main characters, killed off some main characters and set the stage for the possibilities that could unfold.

Season 2 developed the characters. At this point I realized that almost every character had a significant role to play in deciding the outcome of events - and even if they didn’t, they were realistic enough to mimic that of an actual soldier who was just following orders. Personalities were built, backstories were explored. I started to know the motives, ambitions and fears of most characters, and I actually started to care about them. And of course, this season too killed off many characters I was starting to like.

This season also featured the reveal of the antagonists spectacularly and the subsequent battle between the soldiers and titans was a key plot point in raising more questions and mysteries.

Season 3 was the star attraction that the previous two seasons raised the curtains for. The two arcs in S3 cover the backstory of the titans, how humanity ended up in the situation its in, and also revealed who the real antagonists are. (What, you thought you met them in S2? Turns out they were just pawns on a larger chessboard.)

Frankly, there was a certain episode in season 3 that convinced me to write this article. The long-awaited battle between the soldiers and some specific, sentient, pesky titans.

As the scene played out, it soon became clear that things were hopeless for the soldiers. They were outclassed, outnumbered and just small and weak.

I kept waiting for some deus ex machina moment. Some moment where the protagonist would ‘discover a new power’, or a certain opponent would have a mental breakdown due to their deteriorating mental health, or the heroes would win with the ‘power of friendship’, or some other unprecedented unexplainable phenomenon to occur like in most other shows when the heroes need to win in a bleak, desperate situation.

But that moment never came. The soldiers developed a plan using information I already had, but didn’t leverage - and it was a good plan too. Sure, there were heavy sacrifices involved, but this is war and no real war was won with the power of friendship.

Writing believable battle strategies in a fictitious story must be difficult but the strategy the soldiers used was believable, executable, and resulted in merciless death of multiple fan-favorite characters. And yet, it seemed fair because it aligned with the general theme of the anime - the world is cruel.

No other show has yet made me feel patriotic for an army that isn’t real.

The commander screaming his war cry; the unsuspecting enemy walking into a trap; the soldiers charging to their deaths voluntarily yet petrified; the mix of rage, anguish, frustration, denial and grief; and the satisfaction of a plan working and the panic when it stops working;

The plot is wild.

Music

The music in this show is really, really good.

It’s catered to my writing, walking, sketching, coding and singing needs.

To start you off, here’s a song that’ll make you go “May they rest in peace” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jqSy8E9JLQ

Here’s one that’ll make you go “There is hope” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFoc5XKkIIw

And here’s a “sh*t’s gonna hit the roof” kinda song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcwdjuQ3UR4

Their OST is wide and varied and definitely worth checking out.

Art

I’ll just let some direct stills from the anime do the talking for this section.

Few shows have the quality that comes with having top-tier art/animation, fantastic music and just unpredictable and gripping plots. To me, AoT is one of them.

I can’t wait for season 4.