Hacker Cinema
Attack on Titan
進撃の巨人
2013 · TV series · 4 seasons
AnimationScience FictionFantasyActionAdventure
100 years ago, the last remnants of humanity were forced to retreat behind the towering walls of a fortified city to escape the massive, man-eating Titans that roamed the land outside their fortress. Only the members of the Scouting Legion dared to stray beyond the safety of the walls – but even those brave warriors seldom returned alive. Those within the city clung to the illusion of a peaceful existence until the day that dream was shattered, and their slim chance at survival was reduced to one horrifying choice: kill – or be devoured!
7 positive5 negative2 mixed11 neutralfrom 25 commenters
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25 comments on Hacker News
As another person posted, I think your friends might be overselling. Most anime is utter dross, and sometimes very weird / weirdly sexualised (eg. clearly underage characters who the fanbases pretend are 1000 years old).
The most well-known are typically the (very few) ones worth watching, eg. Attack on Titan, Death Note.
If you've sort of heard of the name or seen references to it, it's likely to be one of the more popular ones and is maybe worth a look. Besides those, it's fighting through weeds to find anything that's really any good.
It comes down to identifying what I dislike about the anime I dislike.
I find I don't like "fanservice" (boob jokes etc.), or at least find it to be a signifier of poor quality. So I use animefeminist.com for recommendations, since it's pretty effective at filtering out (or at least warning of in advance) that kind of red flag, and also for their ranking of seasonal anime. (If you use this method, make sure to look for their "recommendation," "digest," and "three-episode check-in" articles specifically). This improves things from about 1% chance of enjoyment to probably 1-in-15 chance of enjoyment. On average, each season has an anime I find is not bad, but only every 2-3 years or so is there an anime I unabashedly love.
(Of course, there may be shows the site rules out which I really loved -- for instance, my all-time favourite anime is Attack on Titan, which is blacklisted on anifem because someone once wrote an article on polygon about how its overtly pro-jewish anti-fascist allegory is anti-semitic somehow. I think that's a load of bull, but probably not enough of a problem for me to stop using this method of finding anime.)
More season 4’s than attack on titan
> Attack on Titan
Ugh. Such an incredibly padded, dragged out story. :( :( :(
Maybe the first season was decent, but after the 3rd season it was mostly just boring to the point where skipping episodes didn't miss anything.
Never bothered to watch anything after about the 3rd season. It became far too tedious.
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Yeah, Frieren was good. It closely matches the manga version of the story, though the manga goes on quite lot further story wise.
Should be plenty more seasons of material ready for adaptation there. :)
>Only in edge cases where the dub is absolutely terrible
Most of them. As someone else said, the actual script can change. Attack on Titan had much more juvenile dialogue than the English translation of the Japanese.
But it sounds like a personal preference for you to watch in the language you can understand. I am fine watching foreign films upon occasion.
It's weird making a divide between western and asian here, especially on an article based on South Korea. Asia is very diverse, and there's massive differences in the content produced across different countries. South Korea is essentially on-par with the US in terms of production quality, whereas live-action Japanese shows are b-films at best.
Also, I don't know what shows you're watching, but it's hard to understand what you're describing. A lot of anime (including some of the most popular) are full of cynicism and irony. Evangelion, attack on titan, ghost in the shell, etc.
Korean shows especially tend to have this. Squid game being a prime example, but also most of the revenge shows (itaewon class, the glory, etc).
Also, overacting is purposeful in Japanese shows (annoyingly), but less so in serious Korean dramas. Rom-coms everywhere purposely have overacting, because it's funny.
Partially but as far as other people commented I rather think that each person experiences it differently. I took few heroic doses and the closes experience I had was a running conviction that floor was trying to eat me because I binge-watched attack on titan the week before. Still, it was not a hallucination per say.
> PsychoPass, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Attack on Titan.
I totally agree with everything on this list, except Akira and NGE. And I am saying that as someone for whom NGE is the all-time personal favorite piece of animated media (and I like Akira a lot too, just not as much).
Akira and NGE are pretty much deconstructions of genres, and are really heavy on at least some basic level of previous exposure and understanding of the context. I am fairly certain that if you make someone without much previous exposure to the context watch Akira, you will get a very resounding "what the fuck did you just make me watch". Watched it in a movie theater myself around 5 years ago, and it was definitely a wild ride. With NGE, I rewatched it many times, partially because I almost always discovered something new on subsequent rewatches.
The rest of the ones you've mentioned are great for easing-in though, and are not shallow even in the slightest. I would also add Ghost in the Shell: Stand-alone Complex series to the list of recommendations.
There are quite a few recommendations for the classics, but if someone doesn't enjoy the slow burn of those deep books, maybe they should start with something lot more dopaminergic: animes and movies!
PsychoPass, Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Attack on Titan.
So, movies. I only saw The Shawshank Redemption a few years ago, and it's really really good. Classic. Human. Touching. I'm not even sure how to characterize it except yes, really go see it, it's really at the top of the power distribution of movies.
12 Angry Men. At this point it's the cliché of old but good movies. At this point it's a satire of a socially interesting movie due to its naivete, yet for someone who seems a bit close minded it might be just the right thing. (Or not? :D)
The Pianist. Again, simple. Brutal. Or the recent Joker.
. . .
But really when it comes to AI and fiction.
Blade Runner. If that's not fiction that's worth investing time into, then what is? Even typing this I've got the chills thinking about Roy Batty.
It should be noted that MyAnimeList--as many sites do--splits an anime up into its separate seasons, specials, and sometimes individual cours.
Which means, for example, Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin doesn't count as only one entry. It counts as at least 6 entries based on seasons/cours alone, and more if you count OVAs, specials, and recap movies.
MAL Search Result for Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin: https://myanimelist.net/anime.php?cat=anime&q=attack%20on%20titan&type=0&score=0&status=0&p=0&r=0&sm=0&sd=0&sy=0&em=0&ed=0&ey=0&c%5B%5D=a&c%5B%5D=b&c%5B%5D=c&c%5B%5D=f
This comment makes me think of a piece of relevant literature who’s television adaption is about to end called Shingeki no Kyojin or it’s English translation “Attack on Titan”. I wonder what the reaction of the upcoming episodes will be as the Russian Invasion continues.
I share the same experience of preferring subtitles over dubs, coming from an English country. This is most popular with Japanese media like anime (like movies like 'Your Name'/'Kimi no wa na' or Attack on Titan). It also fits for foreign language films (e.g. preferring the original German for The Lives of Others/Wings of Desire).
Crucially, outside of preference, subtitles are occasionally necessary for translating text on the screen (e.g. on building signs, newspaper front pages, posters, chalkboard writing), as information is conveyed solely through writing without spoken dialogue.
For example, consider the chalkboard scene in "Komi san can't communicate": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoH8I-NC5tM . It's key to the story that a character has trouble communicating verbally, so subtitles are essential to understand the written communication on the chalkboard. (You can then compare to a more extensively subtitled version that translates all the text on the board; good subtitles make a difference to storytelling: https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/qdjgba/the_blackboard_scene_komi_cant_communicate/).
I'd recommend trying to watch a bit more of Steins;Gate and Attack on Titan. They both get very rewarding as they go on. (For the latter, it's a bit more hit-and-miss, but the hits don't ever stop. Unlike the Game of Thrones kind, where there's a sheer drop-off starting Season 5 that only gets worse and never better.) And, as another commenter wrote, there's something much deeper and more nuanced about the main character's over-the-top personality in Steins;Gate than initially appears.
> It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.*
Planetes was recommended in the recent HN thread about space junk, and I ended up watching the whole series over the course of 4 days. It's similar to Evangelion, in that the first few episodes are goofy and awkward (except they're in their early 20s instead of teens). But by the end of the show I was blown away.
It's effectively an adult coming-of-age story, set against a sad, beautiful near-future world in which everyone is just trying to live their lives and get by. The space debris stuff is fun and maybe metaphorical, but from a plot perpsective it's almost parenthetical. I'm too young and immature to have words for the journey it took me on, but (much like Evangelion) it was exactly what I needed at the time in my life when I first saw it.
Survive through the "ninja" episode (you'll know which one I mean when you see it), and you will be rewarded.
Edit: apparently the anime and manga diverge significantly because the show was finished first. I intend to read the latter after I've had a chance to cool off from the former!
> Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly
It picks up and starts to tie together. I almost didn't watch the second season, but a friend convinced me to and I don't regret it at all. Apparently the show and manga track closely together in plot, so you don't need to read if you've already watched, or vice versa (unless you want to read the last 20-ish chapters if you don't want to wait for the last season of the show to come out).
Don't expect profundity like Evangelion, although the plot is clearly inspired by Evangelion in some ways. But do expect high drama, long threads of intrigue, and whopper plot twists. It's one of the most exciting TV shows I've ever seen.
> I was too old for Dragonball
Too old to take it seriously, maybe! But it's still good fun, just like Space Ghost and Looney Tunes. If I ever have kids, I plan to watch it with them (although IIRC there were some racist and sexist moments that would best be elided).
> Western-focused, Japanese-animated options
I also have to recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender! Its target audience and Western origin belies its depth.
A month or so ago I finally watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion series after hearing about it for more than 20 years. After slogging through a few episodes of predictable awkard-teenagers-pilot-giant-robots-to-save-the-world it finally reveals itself as a stunning exploration into the minds of troubled youth who are, effectively, subjected to a barrage of traumatic crises. It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.
I'll have to watch Lain now, thanks to your comment.
I enjoy the usual suspects: Akira, Ghost in the Shell (including Standalone Complex), and Cowboy Bebop immensely. I like Robotech, though much of it is nostalgia. But I've found straying from the essentials to be challenging for my very Western tastes.
I tried to watch Stein's Gate and thought it was very clever, but the awkward romance and over-the-top characteristics of the main character were a bit too much. Knights of Sidonia and Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly. I was too old for Dragonball. There's a lot of Western-focused, Japanese-animated options out there, but they almost universally lack the depth of their anime counterparts.
I'd love some recommendations if you have any, whether they be newer stuff or classics that I've overlooked.
There was a small boom this past decade that seems to be over atm. Nothing groundbreaking, but some decent entertainment (and also some I would never, ever recommend, either due to quality or objectionable content). Off the top of my head: several Gundam entries - including AGE, IBO, Reconguista, Unicorn, Thunderbolt, the OO movie, and the Build Fighters and Build Divers series - Rideback, Star Driver, Valvrave, Suisei no Gargantia, Majestic Prince, Cross Ange, Buddy Complex, Aldnoah.Zero, Darling in the Franxx, Heroman, SSSS Gridman, the Evangelion Rebuild series, several mecha musume series, Macross Delta, Muv-Luv Alternative, several Code Geass sequels... I'm sure there are more. One might even consider Attack On Titan a sort of mecha series (it certainly has more in common with Gundam than, say, Godzilla). I think it's only been in the past year that we haven't seen multiple concurrent releases.
(I want to reiterate that these are not in any way recommendations or endorsements. I watched and enjoyed many of these shows, but also dropped or never began several because of the questionable nature of one or more of their aspects.)
Edit: Bubuki Buranki. Everyone always forgets Bubuki Buranki.
For a counter example of why American-based anime studios aren't popping up, an ostensibly American production, The Simpsons, has had Korean studios in the credits for the major parts of animation from the very first episode, same with Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you watch The Simpsons on DVD, in one of the season one specials Groenig talks about getting the animatics from Korea and having to go back and forth with the Korean studio until they captured the look that was desired. The producers will outsource to get the cheapest production. IIRC American animation in all media was dwindling at this point because studios didn't want to pay Americans to do the animation. The current Japanese studio doing Attack on Titan is outsourcing components to Vietnamese and Chinese studios probably for the same sort of reason.
I think it depends on the show in anime. SPOILERS FOLLOW. Erased is not a parallel world, but someone trying to change their past. Madoka finds Homura repeatedly doing whatever is possible to save Madoka. Steins:Gate is timelines and parallel worlds (think of how many times Okabe again and again tries to save Mayuri). Girl who Leapt Through Time is the Groundhog Day story, same day over and again; bit like Tatami Galaxy. No idea where something like Haruhi Suzumiya might fall where time is played with in many different ways.
Meanwhile Evangelion (the later films) and Attack on Titan both seem to be veering towards some kind of inability to stop the same grand narrative cycle repeating again and again...
Not a film, but would recommend Attack on Titan
Long ago, when "Attack on Titan" was _the_ anime series everyone was excited about, Netflix had the last two episodes out of order. It was pretty bad. Episode 25 is supposed to end with a big twist that Episode 26 begins to explore as it closes out the season.
I was so confused while watching. Eventually I figured out it was the wrong episode, but the twist was completely spoiled. The thing that made me really disappointed, though, was discovering a Reddit thread from several months earlier about the problem.
It left a terrible impression. They just didn't seem to care.
Best episode still holds Attack on titan though. [0] https://www.imdb.com/search/title?title_type=tv_episode&num_votes=1000,&sort=user_rating,desc .
Also imdb doesn't really hold reliable statistics as top rated shows are often review bombed
Iunno, I'm pretty sure most people know what Pokémon is and a large portion of those know it had a TV show. Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Cardcaptor Sakura all seem to be pretty well known among the younger generations and by extension the older generations who raise and take care of them.
And anime/manga is becoming more and more mainstream. Sure it's not like you'll walk in on your boss catching up on the latest episode of Attack on Titan but it's getting there.
I liked Terra e (2007, not the 1980 film which isn't very good). It bears some similarities to Psycho-Pass, although it probably doesn't meet the "mature" marker with its super powers.
I struggle to recommend more because mature anime is almost nonexistent these days. I can count on one hand the number of shows that might fit the bill in the past 5 years (Aoi Bungaku, Jormungand, Attack on Titan and Night Raid perhaps, and they're not all good).
If you just want something entertaining without the same old cliches in most anime, then Gintama will have you in stitches.
As a category, anime has some unique characteristics you don't (generally) find in other TV or film categories:
1) Strong user/viewer affinity for the category. Generally speaking, you don't find that your typical Grey's Anatomy viewer is a "medical drama fan," who seeks out other medical dramas at every opportunity. Likewise, a rabid Family Guy viewer is probably not an "animated comedy fan," barring a very tiny and borderline-insignificant segment who is. They might be fair-weather fans, but their consumption of those categories is ad-hoc and show-dependent. Anime fans may come to the category seeking a particular show -- Cowboy Bebop, Attack on Titan, or what have you -- but many of them stick around for anime as a category. Someone who likes Law & Order isn't going to seek out other legal procedurals, but someone who likes a mecha show is going to look for more mecha shows.
2) Anime is underrepresented on TV/movie services like Netflix, or in other "mainstream" TV/movie sites and aggregators. (That said, there are anime-specialist players in these markets, such as Crunchyroll and Anime Network.)
3) High fan engagement online, more so than with many other categories of film or TV. Thus, a more addressable user base.
Of course, these factors can also work against you. As another commenter has pointed out, the characteristics that make anime unlike other genres also makes bridging the gap between anime and other genres very challenging. Anime companies are usually in the business of addressing the TAM in the anime category; they seldom find success using anime as a beachhead to attack TV or movies in general. Not saying it can't happen, or that it's never happened. But it's difficult.
> Since entertainment is fungible, the competition for for 12 Years a Slave isn't just Dallas Buyers Club, it's also 2048, reddit, Attack on Titan, the Olympics, and whatever piques my interest during a Steam Sale. That sounds like the increase in supply for entertainment is far outstripping the increase in demand.
That's only because the home video market allowed people the luxury to legally watch any existing movie anytime they want, once they have purchased it, without the possibility of the studio revoking permission.
Don't worry - studios are already trying to think of ways to "fix" that (stream-only content that is never released in DVD format is one example)