I have no idea what Attack on Titan is, should I?
It’s a pretty big deal. The basic rundown is that humanity has retreated into a walled country because giant humanoids, called Titans, roam the lands eating people. The Titans are seemingly invulnerable, mindless, and always hungry. After a hundred years of this stalemate, the Titans suddenly bust through the wall.
It’s notable for the nightmarish imagery of giant, sexless, naked people devouring humans. Also, as Houngan pointed out, it’s guilty of some of the worst anime tropes, which I suppose is part of its appeal for many.
Houngan
3323
The problem with recommending it is that it’s pretty much awful for the first four episodes if you don’t like anime. The occasional horror bits were pretty effective, but they’re wrapped up in two hours of children yelling about things unnecessarily. I kinda fast-forwarded and cleaned the house while it went on in the background and didn’t miss anything. Episode 5 starts the story proper, i.e. humanity’s fight against the Titans, and the balance flips over to more action, less yelling about feelings. By the end I was pretty happy with the show but if you can’t stomach anime then the first four episodes will probably wipe you out.
My issue, as of about halfway, is that it’s terribly paced. The central premise is great, but they spend enormous amounts of time on glacial “character” scenes that recap the same ideas endlessly, entirely skip things that could be interesting to explore like almost the entire interim between the first wall breach and the coming of age of the protagonists, all of their training except for one entire episode worth of a single vignette at the beginning threatening to wash out the main character (but nope), etc but then spent like eight straight episodes on the same battle, much of which is just recapitulating things we already know from previous sequences in slightly different context.
It also seems like as violent and full of casual slaughter as it can be, it commits the immersion-breaking sin of plot armoring all of the actually important characters. But I can’t say for sure without finishing it. (It’s not like you can’t do an anime series where the protagonists -don’t- have plot armor. see, say, Blue Gender.)
Houngan
3325
Much better recap than mine, I agree in all respects. There’s a great compelling central idea, but the various anime pitfalls make it cumbersome. Like I mentioned before, I watched it skipping around and cleaning the house during the bad bits and it was tolerable, but it could have been ten times better.
It really makes me wonder if the original manga handles it better and it’s just badly adapted. But the place where I feel anime really shines over manga is in delivering fast-paced, kinetic action scenes and when Attack on Titan bothers to have action scenes, that’s exactly the sort they are, so I’m torn.
Assignment viewing!
A new month, and Netflix has some terrific films landing today…although a lot of them I already own. (Sunset Boulevard, Harold & Maude, two Leone spaghetti westerns).
One that’s of particular interest though is Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. For starters, the movie’s been out of print since forever. Only recently did it finally come back into distribution through DVD channels.
It is perhaps the greatest car chase scene movie of its time. There’s no single chase as memorable as The French Connection or Bullitt…but seriously, the whole damn movie is a car chase, and if they’re not as great as the two greatest car chase scenes ever, they come close.
You want to see this movie. An amazing car, goofy acting (courtesy of Susan George and Peter Fonda) and a finish that absolutely blew me away when I first saw it on TV when I was 11. Still resonates.
It’s like trial run for Smokey & The Bandit, only a little darker.
Car chase? SOLD. Thanks trigger!
Not just “car chase”. Like seriously, an entire movie that’s a car chase, in full on 1970’s no-CGI awesomeness. The cars are awesome American muscle cars as well.
Saw an interview with the late Hal Needham before he passed last year where he mentioned Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry as a movie that was influential on him and one he wishes he’d been part of.
I’ve seen Tarantino quoted calling it the greatest car chase movie of all time (well, before the Fast & Furious films, I guess.)
I need to check out Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, but have you seen the original Gone in 60 Seconds?
I saw that. I was so excited by the prospect, and in the end it turned out to be so disappointing.
I’m sticking with Gone in 60 seconds. DMCL features the annoying Peter Fonda, and its 70s storyline got in the way of the car on car action. Seriously, you can’t have a great car movie without any of the cars having a name.
Thanks for the recommendation above on Attack on Titan. I’m seriously hooked. I think my favorite part of the series is that it focuses on character’s fears so much. It’s also pretty stylish and has a couple of kick ass songs at the start and end, which always get me in the right mode to watch an episode, or to watch the next episode. Good stuff. I haven’t watched an anime since Samurai Shamplooie (sp?), and I hope this one doesn’t end disappointingly like that one did. (Before that I watched Neogenesis Evangeleon, which was also great until it ended horribly and made me hate animes for a long time). I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t watch much anime, but whenever I do, they always seem to end poorly.
Houngan
3334
The arc was well handled, but there’s only one season. They have plenty of time to mess it up but the 25 episodes fit together nicely. I would like to see it executed on a specific, progressing timetable with a hard stop like Avatar.
Hey, Tom. I just want to say, the name of the Padilha films you’re looking for on the movie podcast are Elite Squad and its sequel Elite Squad 2: Enemy within. At first glance, these may look like trashy brash and dumbly macho actioners, but I found them to be a lot more than that.
The premise in the first film of a pseudo-fascistic autonomous police hit squad tasked with clearing out all trace of crime in the “view from the Pope’s hotel window” is the hook to hang a structured exploration of Rio’s particularly brutal war on drugs, corruption in the police force, funding struggles, and how young people become part of the war on either side, often unwittingly, sometimes based on principle. It’s fairly unflinching at times.
hepcat
3336
+1 on at least Elite Squad 2. It’s quite good.
Finished Attack on Titan. Hot damn. That sure ended well, wrapping up and incorporating all the elements throughout the series into the last three episodes. Great stuff. My advice to anyone watching: always stand ready to pause the episode around the halfway point in every episode. They have a nice little information bulletin sort of thing that’s worth reading 80% of the time, and adds nicely to the universe. There’s two screens that always show up, sometimes dense with text that has to be paused to be read unless you’re a really impressive speed reader.
Any other anime on Netflix that’s worth watching?
Well. Yes and no. There’s quite a bit of good anime on Netflix, the question is whether they’ve bothered to make original language track + subs available, which for many years they did not but they seem to have gotten better about recently.
Ever since I saw Season 2 of Lilyhammer, I’ve always peeled my bananas the other way. I still can’t get over how much easier a banana is to peel from the other side. Why did I never think to even try that before?
Anyway, great season overall, but I was disappointed that the new Police inspector had such a small role after such a dramatic introduction. I missed the old Police inspector too. She was one of the highlights of Season 1.
Btw, after looking around, it looks like Hulu Plus is the better app for watching anime. They’ve got a much bigger selection than Netflix and maybe even Crunchyroll (whose sole purpose is to have anime streaming).
If you can stand ads, maybe.
