Japanese Title: Shingeki no Kyojin Season 2
Related: Attack on Titan Season 1
Watched in: Japanese & English
Length: 12 episodes
Positives:
- New Titan type.
- Some solid art and audio.
Negatives:
- Too much CG.
- Atrocious twists.
- No tension.
- Characters are still flat.
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Get your hype pants on; we are here for season 2 of Attack on Titan! Feeling all nice and comfortable? Right, now take them off and prepare for boredom as you sink further and further into the couch, until all we can see of you is two dead eyes staring at the screen. Attack on Titan Season 2 is bad.
The first problem should become obvious after you finish episode one. Where are the main characters? Where’s the main story? Instead, we follow the B team as they search for a breach in the wall that let a dozens of Titans inside. The purpose of this point of view is to give us the backstories for a few characters, which is fine in concept, but it takes near half the season and isn’t engaging.
Not that the main characters are of any interest either. Eren is still your ever-angry teen, Mikasa still has no personality to speak of (the last episode gives a glimmer – yay…), and Armin is still useless. I have yet to comprehend how Armin is supposed to fill the role of the ‘smart’ character. If he is smart, it’s because everyone else is an idiot. In a fight against the Armoured Titan, do you attack the armour or go for the exposed muscles? Go for the armour of course! Just keep slashing at that impenetrable plate until every blade breaks. You’ll get through it eventually, I’m sure. And then – I kid you not – one character has this incredible epiphany, recalling full plate knights with no armour on the back of joints to allow movement and how the Titan must have the same weakness. Did you not see the exposed muscle everywhere until now? You. Idiots.
If this series doesn’t end with humanity wiped out, I will feel cheated.
Now I must talk about the twists. The midpoint twist is one of anime’s worst. It’s the sort of twist that was thought of at the last moment, the writer running to print room to stop the presses for his last second addition. Or he planned the twist but executed it this poorly. I’m not sure which reality is worse. The story tries to explain it by flashing back to the moments of foreshadowing, yet ignores all the aspects that break the twist. And the end twist, what else can it be but a deus ex machina to crown the cake in a red bollock trying to pass for a cherry?
Oh man, don’t forget the unbelievable overuse of the flashforward narrative structure. Almost every episode starts with the characters in a dire situation before it flashes back to the present for us to wonder how they get to that situation. I hate to break it to you, writer, but this is Attack on Titan – everyone is in a dire situation at all times. It isn’t shocking to show these scenes to us. More than that, it is lazy. Lazy, the perfect word to summarise the writing this season.
The laziness should have been obvious from season 1, seen no more clearly than in the author’s misunderstanding of how big an area a 480 km radius covers. This lack of basic research comes to a head in season 2 with the main goal of finding the hole in the wall. The scouts on horseback cover a vast distance in a day or two that should take weeks. The world of Attack on Titan feels the size of a city, not the size of the large country it purports to be.
Alright, the story is garbage. What of the action, the real reason everyone attends class?
A few scenes are exciting with that same quality animation, the most interesting of which introduces the new yeti-looking Titan with intelligence above the rest. However, the action Attack on Titan is known for – Spidermaning with swords versus giants – is scarcer this time around. I don’t know if it was time or budget, but action scenes seem designed to require as little of the webslinging as possible. On the other hand, I have praised many action series that didn’t have half the spectacle of Attack on Titan. But those series used the action to develop characters, since they knew that they couldn’t rely on flashiness to engage the audience.
Attack on Titan does not do this with its characters, main or otherwise. Action development is a pacifist having to make the decision to kill someone to save another he cares about. In Attack on Titan, we know how everyone will act and how they will fight, so there’s no excitement. Mute the action and you miss nothing.
All these problems combined manage to kill Attack on Titan’s other strength – atmosphere. The increasing plot armour for important characters coupled with having a Titan on the heroes’ side means the tension is low. Yep, humanity is on the brink of extinction and the tension is still low. Just great. That oppressive feeling, the sense of impending doom, the idea that it could all end today is gone.
Art – High
Season 2 has few of the amazing action sequences from before, with more static shots and ‘left to right’ animations taking their place. There is CG everywhere now. CG horses running across CG ground, the Colossal Titan in full CG, and more CG horses stand out like ink blots on paper. The art is still good overall, but doesn’t have the impressiveness of season 1.
Sound – Medium
Take all the music of Attack on Titan and lower the hype. You now have this soundtrack. The script hasn’t much to say.
Story – Low
Scouts investigate a breach in the wall that allowed a swarm of Titans inside human territory. An overuse of the flashforward story structure, flat characters, and twists conjured out of thin air saps all engagement for the story.
Overall Quality – Low
Recommendation: For diehard Attack on Titan fans only. If you are a fan, you’ve already seen season 2, so my recommendation doesn’t matter. But for those unsure after the first season, this isn’t worth your time. Attack on Titan Season 2 has almost none of the qualities that made the first engaging.
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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)
Positive: None
Negative:
Nefarious Reviews 
This review gives me strength.
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Couldn’t agree more when you mentioned the characters are still flat. There’s simply no substance to the attack on titan characters. That problem is OK with a season 1 release since it’s new and there isn’t enough time to build up the characters. But there’s no excuse with character build up in season 2. Mikasa feels completely flat, she is too over powered and smells her scarf like she’s sniffing cocaine. Armin feels like he’s just there to make Eren look tough. And the only thing Eren says is must kill all titans like a robot.
Such a long wait for season 2, it was not worth the wait. What do you guys think?
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Attack on Titan is a victim of its own success. It has no reason to improve when it can guarantee a massive viewership regardless of quality.
“smells her scarf like she’s sniffing cocaine” – made me laugh. Brilliant!
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Couldn’t agree more. Just binged the season over the past two days and the final few episodes were a giant cringefest. The twists were introduced in an incredibly clumsy way. And while I understand the creators’ intention to keep a sense of mystery, the complete lack of explanation of the reasons behind the characters’ action in the last few episodes bordered on obnoxious. Not to mention the flat characters and the cliched dialogue. Such a disappointment. Like you mention, a huge part of what made the first season was great was that sense of dread and impending doom. The titans were truly frightening and it actually felt like you were witnessing a desperate struggle for the survival of the human race. Now it just feels like I’m watching a generic cliched action show made for kids.
Also, the opening sequence alludes to even more ridiculousness to follow. Are there seriously going to be dinosaur/hippo/flying whale titans? Is this seriously the same show that I fell in love with years ago?
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You nailed it.
As for the dinosaur/hippo/flying whale titans, they already have a yeti/monkey titan, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a T-rex next season.
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I felt the same way while watching this. Cringed the entire time. The entire focus of the season was the lame ass over dramatic idiotic characters. The Titans and original story we all fell in love with is now a setting for this terrible drama. What was with all of those rhetorical questions throughout the season? It wasted time. We’re already thinking that. I guess they thought their audiences lacked intelligence.
After finishing the season I took to the internet to see if everyone agreed this season was a mistake. I’m glad to see people aren’t praising it as fanboys. Hold them accountable and cross your fingers for season 3. … I fear we will see another last Jedi.
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I haven’t read the manga, so I wonder if the direction of the story was always intended to be this way. In which case, we can blame the original author. I’m not excited whatsoever for season 3.
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Even three years later and you are still a retard
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This review and the thread is so right. The dinosaur/whale/ hippo comment was spot on.
Fortunately I only just saw the first season on Netflix a week ago (binged) and then watched the abysmal second season on the internet.
I kept going because I thought I must get better but by the end I was so irritated by the constant internal self-chastising monologing, the ridiculous plot twists just thrown in there at random moments (why did 4 Titan spies have to spend 3 years in the army? Does that make any sense?), oh high Eren, btw I’m the massive steam Titan and this here is the armoured one, don’t tell. And would yrim and Christa just have that lesbian fumble already! The main plot seemed to creak along like a car being yanked out of a river while the side shows, well overused ‘12 hours earlier’ effect and frankly paint dry boring character back stories were being flung up everywhere and anywhere.
Unless they have got rid of their wheel of fortune storyboard tactic and anguished monologue buffet I don’t think I’ll bother looking up the next season.
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I would wager that the Titan spies weren’t thought of at the start of the story. The author probably had the idea after completing season 1 of the manga.
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Completely agree with you about this. I loved the first season, second season was mediocre. However the third season is amazing and the best one so I hope you review that one soon.
There was one thing I really hated about this season. NO LEVI. Where the hell is he in this season?! Okay he did appear but only as a cameo. Other than that, he served no purpose whatsoever. That was just unacceptable and I could go into a full blown rant on how dare they take out one of the most important characters but it’ll take all day.
The main thing is that a lot of these episodes felt like fillers and had no connection with the actual story. There is no driving force. I will say the animation is better in this one but the soundtrack is worse. The opening to the first season was far better and iconic.
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I have just finished season 3, so a review will be up soon! The filler issue will be discussed.
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What did you think of season 3? Also I know Levi’s fanbase can be annoying, and I admit I just got annoyed in my previous comment ( that was hypocritical of me, sorry) but it’s not just because I feel he’s there for the sake of it, but I feel that he’s a major factor of the show and has a lot of potential but unfortunately, season 2 just didn’t give any of that credit. But apart from Levi’s absence, there were a lot of problems with the second season.
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Season 3 review is up. Levi is still the best character (though the competition doesn’t offer much).
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Why do so many people hate the second season? I agree it was lackluster and a lot of the story was mish-mashed and the characters didn’t get the development they should have got (thank god for season 3) but it’s not as bad as you think it is. If it wasn’t for the build up in season 2 then season 3 wouldn’t have been as climatic. Most people complain that some supporting characters did not get the limelight they truly deserved.
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I didn’t hate this season, I just didn’t like it that much. It’s OK, nothing more nothing less. It doesn’t have “Low” quality, it has “Medium” quality. this is the worst season in the show
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