The amazing concept blinds the readers with its poor writing decisions, unoriginality and cliches. This review is just a loose writing of my complaints for AOT



****SPOILERS AHEAD****



Let's start off with the characters. The characters are probably one of the biggest problems with the manga. They're bland, 2 dimensional, uninteresting. Giving your character a somewhat sad backstory isn't the same as giving your character are dept. Characters fall into basic archetypes and barely grow (except for Eren) I wouldn't even care if Mikasa or Armin, the 2 main characters died. That should say a lot. There are some interesting well written characters such as Zeke and Ymir, but I couldn't say the same for the rest.

The antagonist have so much plot armor for no reason except for Isayama needing them for the story a little longer. How do you screw up not killing a vulnerable, defenseless enemy 5 TIMES! "wE nEeD tO kEeP tHeM aLiVe bEcAuSe ThEy MigHt hAvE iMpOrtAnT iNfoRmaTiON" How about we quit trying gain information after the second time we miss the opportunity to kill the enemy in the same arc! It's infuriating. You can't screw up that many times, it's looses it's believability.

Now let's talk about the poor writing decisions. When Eren and Co. finally reached the basement and read the journals, I was so disappointed on how the information about the titans was revealed. The manga decided to drop an entire history lesson and backstory and moved on like it was nothing. It was so out of place and out of nowhere. There was absolutely no build up, the manga just said "yeah, here's the twist, where going to take the story in this direction now". They pulled all of that information out of thin air! I'm not sure if the writers know how to handle a lot of exposition. The only way they know how to do it is by explaining everything in one go, like a textbook. The "twist" felt like it was handed to me on a silver platter. The reveal was suppose to be big and make the reader's jaw drop, but for me having so much information revealed all in one go made it feel very anti-climatic. The unknown keeps me invested in a story. Honestly I don't care anymore, I read the manga to find out more, and since I know everything now, there's no point. The story is just morality garbage, no mystery, no nothing. it annoys me that they explained every single nook and cranny of the aot universe all at once.

Also what's the deal with the memories Eren received by touching Historia's hand? Why? WHY? Magic that's why. But why then? why not before?? Why those specific memories?? This is just lazy, you can't just throw in magic to explain stuff when you need them to. Adding magic to your story is extremely hard, you need to know how to regulate and establish its rules, you CAN NOT just use magic as an excuse for weird situations, it's bad writing. Isayama likes to add some weird magic abilities and little rules whenever he needs to and it's the most annoying thing. The magic is so loose and so flexible that at this point, anythings a possibility causing the aot universe lose it's ground.

The holocaust references were done pretty sloppily as well. Eldians are essentially suppose to be jewish people but of course they're not normal humans. They have a fundamental difference to the marleyans. Jewish people do not, have any fundamental difference, they're just as normal as everyone else. The Eldians also use to rule above the marleyans. Jews were never the oppressors. I'm not sure what Isayama is trying to say or do here, but he's probably not doing it right. edit: (okay so it turns out the guy is a whole Japanese imperialist, yikes)

The paradise arc was such disappointment. The manga chose to do the "THE GOOD GUYS WERE THE BAD GUYS ALL ALONG!!!" twist, or more specifically, "humans were the real villains", which is one of the most overused plot twist in any form of media. It's so overused that I guessed it would go down that road while watching the first season of attack on titan. The writers tried to do the philosophy of human cruelty but fall flat on their faces. It's so surface level and shallow. There's nothing deep about "humans bad". That's like saying "racism bad". It does absolutely nothing new on showing the cruelty of humans. To be honest, hunter x hunter did it better during the chimera ant arc. By showing the hypocrisy of humans, and putting them in the perspective of the animals and how we treat them. Reading that arc, you were able to realize how ridiculously terrible humans can be. It doesn't spell it out for you like attack on titan does.

I hear a lot of people claim how Eren is one of the best written MCs of all time. I have to laugh, does a character being an anti-hero make them a good MC? During the paradise arc, people love to exclaim how deep and morally gray Eren due to him originally being anti-titan but now anti-human. Eren's entire thing now is "humans bad". That's so incredibly boring and not whatsoever deep. A character being an anti-hero does not suddenly make them morally gray. Eren is just a black a white character. There are some conflicting feelings (which are honestly the bare minimum) about how individually humans aren't bad but that's about all the depth you're gonna get from Eren's philosophy. Nothing new, nothing special. (I'm also not a fan of the once naive main character suddenly becomes an edge trope)

Let's compare Eren's simplistic philosophy to another character's simplistic philosophy, Light Yagami. I enjoyed Light's character more due to the writers treating him as insane, the reader is suppose to think Light is basically crazy, his simplistic perspective is the entire point. On the other hand, the writers for AOT treat Eren's perspective as enlightened. Eren acts like he just solved the secrets of the universe by understanding humans can do bad things too, making him a whole lot less enjoyable of a character.

The art is.... not for everyone, Some of the character are drawn in awkward positions and facial expressions are limited.

There's some romance in them manga which is extremely forced and done poorly [especially that Armin and annie non-sense]. (I'm convinced shounen writers have forgoten how to write relationships)

Armin couldn't have developed romantic feelings for a girl who couldn't even move or speak, so the explanation is he received his feelings from bertholdt. That's the fakest thing I've ever heard, Armin's feelings don't even come from himself. Does that mean Eren could have been given romantic feelings for his mother????? I feel like Isayama wrote this in so he could have another hetero romantic subplot.

Also why does Eren's titan look different? Is there any reason or is it that Isayama wanted to make Eren a little scarier or something. This must be another situation of throwing random elements with no explanation, or if there is an explanation, it's magic.

Isayama definitely knew where he wanted to take the story, it's just his execution was poor. Season 4 is coming soon and I'm prepared for its mediocrity to shoot to the top of my anime list surpassing Fullmetal with a score of a 10 due to the fanboys thinking it's the best thing since sliced bread, blinded by flashy fight scenes.

Though it has problems, the manga is definitely entertaining, I recommend this to people who are new to manga/anime.