In Eren's frenzied lust for battle and blood, Mikasa also plays a central role along with Eren as well, being over protective of the only family she has left, as it's awfully cute how determined and voracious she is in protecting him, as she is given many opportunities to show off her character through a frenzy of blades and an acrobatic fury. We learn of how how much she loves him, without her actually saying so much herself - A great case of more Show Don't Tell.Forgive me if I made this out only to be a story that had a heavy focus on it's over arching plot, but Attack on Titan is also largely a character story - Being primarily driven by Eren, as well as childhood friends such as Mikasa & Armin, supported by other various characters they met within their Cadet years such as Reinner or Jean. Often times, such as in the midst of battle, conflict arises between characters about things such as morality and the dignity of being a soldier, or perhaps on issues on trust, making for a sufficient use of back dialogue and such.
Eren himself however is hot headed and maniacal in his lust for revenge, though is given a somewhat lack lustre reason for doing so, brutal as the reason may be, it took place within such a small timespan, we weren't given nearly enough time care as we were barely just getting used to the setting as is. I also dislike how some deus ex machina's are pulled out of his arse, though thinking about it, I guess it was one of the few ways the plot could have advanced onward, though never the less I found myself rolling my eyes in these particular situations. Being that Eren is somewhat of a predictable and cliché character archetype in a story that mainly revolves around him, but I'll bite.
In Attack on Titan you also have pretty good supporting cast with a decent amount of variety. A good mix of characters to push each other, intimidate each other, and to protect and love one another. Mikasa is definitely a favourite of mine, as she plays a major role in Eren's life. At first Mikasa is seemingly a relatively calm and collected character who appears to be relatively docile at the start. Though Eren who leads by example teaches her how to become daring and to fight for herself. The relationship between the two plays an incredibly important role in the story being being that it makes Eren more interesting as a character in a story the primarily revolves around him and his development. Armin is more of an introverted character as he's also physically small as well as frail. Though what he lacks in his general constitution, he makes up for his book smarts and problem solving abilities, playing a key role in solving important problems that arise and bailing out Eren in heated situations. Although I dislike how's he's too much of a simplistic character, and I also find it incredibly frustrating how much of a wimp he can be in particular scenes within Attack on Titan. I feel that more information and time should've given reflecting upon his time with his family and parents, as his initial fascination with what's outside of the walls is what makes him interesting as a character.
I also feel characters such as Levi as well as Erwin are some of my favourites, being that Erwin is the embodiment of manhood and the pride of humanity & Levi being that he gets his own stand alone Ova's to flesh out his backstory, which he makes for a stoic character, who also has some heart underneath as well. It's a damn shame we've yet to see any significant character story from Annie and Reinner though, being they are also some of the more interesting characters within Attack on Titan who undoubtedly play extremely important roles throughout the story. I want to see what's behind the indifferent and impersonal side of Annie, as we only get bits and pieces of what she is like on the inside, as I think her character is pretty Bad Ass - New standalone Ova's were announced a little while ago and are said to be individual Mikasa & Annie stand alone arcs/episodes. I trust these arcs/episodes will offer that extra amount of character story that I've been wanting from Attack on Titan.
I do feel that the first season is somewhat Eren-centric as the many other characters that are introduced don't quite have as much screen time in comparison. Some characters only become a relevant part of the story because sudden developments within the plot, rather than them being great standalone characters as is. Though I definitely do think more of this is yet to come, as I've mentioned above, Season 2 takes a bit more of a personal detour in detailing the past lives of other soon to be perennial characters such as Christa. We need more of this, being that Attack on Titan has a great foundation of characters that have yet to be fleshed out. I personally feel it necessary to keep building the lore in conjunction with more character story detailing perennial characters such as Annie & Reiner. I Trust this will inevitably come to fruition, though in my eyes the story so far could've been quite a bit stronger if such characters were more elaborated upon Prior to groundbreaking events that happen within Attack on Titan. In my opinion it's something of a bad practice to kill off potentially interesting characters without having an adequate amount of time to be able to build on their character so viewers will actually care when you kill them off in a such distasteful fashion.Tetsuro Araki on S2 - "There are some characters that haven't been developed much until now, like Ymir & Christa. We'lll be able to dig deeper into their characters."
I personally don't find the practice of introducing characters to conveniently kill them off to excel the plot or given scenario to be particularly amusing. It's predictable in a sense because perennial characters within Attack on Titan are clearly separated from those who aren't, being very easy to distinguish between the two. After the plethora of early deaths and slaughter it becomes increasingly clear. In that, the sense of loss is cheapened by early character deaths when we weren't even given a sufficient amount of time to be curios of or interested to care enough in the first place. Attack on Titan will never have a sense of urgency if there's no real sense of consequence & the fight with the Titan's will loose their significance if the story is to quick too escalate Humanities fighting capabilities against the Titan's.
"But she didn't even complete her training!!" - Mark Hamill
On several occasions, training scenes and other times from this time period are omitted for foreshadowing later on in the story, alluding to how such details are relevant to the current situation at hand. I personally don't mind omitting details within a story as well as the use of foreshadowing - As I'm fond of many stories that do so, though composition wise, these foreshadowed events are shoehorned within the current timeline (Sometimes right in the middle of an important event) so one can't possibly not know what's being implied &/or suggested.
I can't necessarily blame Chief director Tetsuro Araki or director Masashi Koizuka for this as I haven't read the source material so I Don't know if the anime is faithful to the Manga. If that's the case the person to blame here would be Hajime Isayama for composing the story in such a funky manner. However, the way events are temporally sequenced within the an anime could very well have been changed. I personally suggest having these foreshadowed events at more played down parts of the story, and perhaps at more random intervals instead of injecting an entire episode foreshadowing the past right in the middle of a current scene.
I take issue with this because the training Eren and others went through to face the Titans was a key opportunity to possibly display and properly introduce characters and their given back stories. Which sadly was somewhat of a hit and miss experience as many other characters were introduced though not yet elaborated upon, which I'm confident could've took place due to their being 25 episodes within the first season. In that sense, for a story that's geared towards linearity, as well as cause and affect, breaking continuity in some cases was done in an awkward fashion.Though I still do appreciate the extra detailing of the given time period when the 104th squadron were training as Cadets, I feel less of this shouldn't have been omitted at the time and more of it should have been included in chronology with when the training arc was still within the present timeline, because two episodes and an Ova just wasn't enough. If this period in their lives was elaborated on a little more, the contrast utilized between this time period and others would have been more powerful, being that with more time, patience and effort put into a more fond period in their lifetimes, would've made other conflicts within Attack on Titan far more significant and less cheapened by the retroactive continuity shoehorned into the middle of a given scene.
For example lets take Naruto & the Rasengan. The reason why his Triumph over Nagato of the Akutsuki in the leaf village was so significant is because the story was composed in such manner that was railing against Naruto, being that he was able to subvert expectations by completing shattering them - A narrative expectation that was carefully constructed and built upon for years, while a hopeless Naruto toiled tirelessly to master the incredibly difficult Rasengan and to master his fallen Master Jiraya's Sage Jutsu. It symbolizes his struggle of being powerless, to drawing upon a wellspring of his convictions to make his village acknowledge & accept him as the most important person in the Konoha village. Villagers whom they bullied and pitted against him his entire life. It's that slow progression, and tireless worth ethic to realize his dream to be acknowledged. His Rasengan is not only his inheritance from his late master whom was a father figure as well as the father whom he never knew, the Rasengan symbolizes his awesome power which he slaved over and went against the grain of consensus to obliterate people's expectations and force them to accept him. We witnessed his life story and struggle before our own eyes Before he triumphed. In this respect Attack on Titan doesn't have nearly enough time invested in building and forging Eren's sense of power and fortitude to make his breakthrough as significant, not enough time spent with other characters to represent how and why they're important as well.
In Chihayafuru we see Chihaya's humble beginnings mastering the mechanics of Karuta, we experience her loosing, and we see other characters such as Taichi struggle to breakthrough class A, in that it's not only his desire to become a good player, but to become a person who doesn't give up. In Chihayafuru the subject matter of Karuta is incredibly fleshed out and well versed in it's respective Ogura 100 poets. Mechanics such as them having them master the skill of memorization, hearing ability as well as physical athleticism, stamina and speed. Attack on Titan doesn't have that. Hajime Isayama failed to detail the specific skills and struggles a soldier has to continuously go through to survive and thrive against the Titans. Attack on Titan's lack the attention to detail regarding technique and strategy one has to master and struggle with before being able to be competent enough to combat the Titans. Hajime Isayama could have given characters more individuality by giving them more unique methods of battle, strategy and skill.
These skills and weapons are an embodiment of a characters identity, power and life struggle like how the Rasengan is a unique signature for Naruto or the Bankai for Ichigo of Bleach. In the end Hajime somewhat fails to set apart characters in a unique fashion, and as a result I'm more or less indifferent to most of them due to it, especially since Attack on Titan comes from a Battle Manga, a heavily action oriented story telling experience. In Chihayafuru, Chihaya's signature trait is her speed and hearing ability, Wakayamiya Shinobu's signature is her deadly efficient speed and accuracy, Master Suo's signature is his unmatched hearing ability, Taichi's defining trait is his scary memorization ability and discipline. What iconography does Attack on Titan really have that sets characters apart from one another in terms of their skill and fighting ability or perhaps even visually? Not Much asides from some characters (Whom I Will not Name) ability to transform. You can consider Annie's hand to hand combat as well as Levi's reverse grip blade storm, as well as other characters ability to transform unique traits, but it's not nearly technical or detailed enough for this story to have interesting combat mechanics that'll be able to demand someones attention.Eren and the rest of the 104th Squadron are way too quick too complete their military preparation and training as this 3-5 year timespan is so distastefully glazed over, when it was a crucial time period to properly introduce and elaborate on characters both old and new. To compensate, Hajime Isayama introduces characters only to expediently kill them off to somehow make the struggle between Humans and Titan's more significant. When he doesn't realize if you never kill off any perennial characters within the story or properly piece them together, we won't care anyways.
As a byproduct There's never any real sense of consequence as we never are given significant reason as to why characters struggle, and why these struggles are significant due to the lack of innovation and storytelling regarding fighting mechanics, the forgettable time that they did spent training as cadets, and the little screen time spent on every other character asides from Eren or Mikasa for the first 25 episode instalment. The Attack on Titan directing staff, possibly as well as original manga creator Hajime Isayama fail to realize if you don't give us a sufficient amount of time to dedicate to character story to emotionally imprint on the several characters introduced, the act of killing them off becomes meaningless due to their little intrinsic value as characters in the first place. Because of this, what are supposed to be definitive resolving moments within the story fall short of events that could've been spectacular.
Thankfully this isn't always the case, as in place of that are other important relationship developments between characters make these particular scenes noteworthy and sometimes climatic. I've been heavily critical in this segment regarding Attack on Titan's cast, though there's no mistaking that there's still other phenomenal moments and characters within Attack on Titan despite these issues. Such as how awesome characters such as Mikasa or Levi are, & I especially like characters such as Sasha Blouse and Erwin Smith - Of course Eren's character/story isn't too bad either. These are smaller to moderate issues that can easily be fixed with some more standalone character arcs, with the patience and care regarding how to implement and include more of these character defining moments.
Attack on Titan is Almost there in terms of having great characters, though I'm faithful that with the upcoming Ova's bundled with the 24th to 26th volumes of the Manga as well as the third season, hopefully more love and attention will be given to some neglected characters aforementioned above.
