Attack On Titan: Part 1 [DVD]

With gorgeous, glossy animation and a full-blast Ominous Latin chanting soundtrack, Attack on Titan is a cruel tale of the humanity of the future trapped behind walls of their own making as monsters roam the barren earth outside, until one day when one of the monsters does the unthinkable and finds a way in. Cue chaos, panic, and unimaginable horror as the human race suddenly realises that they’ve turned themselves into a nice, convenient pen of cattle...or buffet, if you will. With the adults reduced to shrieking, squabbling cowards, one angry young man wants to fight back...but it’s going to be a hell of a fight.It’s been a long time since an anime genuinely scared me, but there’s something unsettlingly hypnotic about Attack on Titan that works on your senses and turns you into a nervous wreck. It taps into both the fear of fairytale monsters we were warned lurked at the top of beanstalks as children whist we were tucked up in bed at night, and on an even more primal scale, the unknown terrors that shifted in the shadows outside our ancestor's firelit camps back in the days of the caveman, always waiting, always watching. The titular Titans are a gruesome lot; there’s something surprisingly terrifying about giants rambling across the land, naked but without genitalia, their cannibals teeth stretched wide in empty grins, their eyes seeing only prey as it scuttles, shrieking and crying, away from their clutches. The Titans are nothing but overgrown humanoids, and yet they are one of Japanese animation’s most effectively disturbing antagonists ever written. One scene I could never bear in the classic Evangelion is when one Eva unit goes beserk and cannibalises another – there was something so terribly human about that machine gleefully chewing away at another that made it more grisly than even the many human deaths on that show. Attack on Titan is rather like that scene, except over and over and over again. Don’t eat lunch whilst watching. Just...don’t.That's not to say Attack on Titan is grisly from start to finish. In one scene the camera takes the time to lovingly linger on glimmering dust particles floating about Eren and his sister's heads in shafts of sunlight - it's such a tiny, inconsequential thing and yet it was astoundingly beautiful. These ridiculously gorgeous visuals, powerful music and nonstop action weave a visceral spell around your senses, leaving your mouth hanging open and your eyes wide, but it doesn’t help that that the absolutely pandemonium never seems to cease on this show. I think if you played an Attack on Titan drinking game where you took a shot every time a character cried, you’d be dead in five minutes. Everyone is always either crying, or screaming, or shouting, and whilst I understand that the threat of being eaten is likely to put one on edge, it would be nice to give the audience some reprieve once in a while, otherwise watching Eren Jaeger explode at full throttle every scene becomes exhausting. The kid is about as calm and rational as Harry Potter was in Order of the Phoenix, and thank God his foster sister is around to punch him when he starts hurting our eardrums. I couldn’t watch more than two episodes at once, and an entire box set marathon might kill me. If you’re the type to get emotionally invested in what you watch, then Attack on Titan will be taxing at best, and at worst will leave you curled up on the sofa in a catatonic ball of misery. The English dub cast do a blindingly good job with the material they’re given (which is often a tad too melodramatic for my tastes, but does work well in the context of the show) although I imagine they were all desperate for Strepsils and a nice lie down in a dark room after they left the booth. I do appreciate that this is a drama/action series set in a nihilistic, bloody, terrifying world – but if the audience was allowed to breathe every so often, we might appreciate the action-fuelled scenes all the more. That’s literally my only gripe with this show – that it’s too good too often!There’s a reason why you’ve probably heard of Attack on Titan, unless you’ve been living on the moon for the past year, and that’s simply because it’s as bloody good as everyone says it is. Rather like the phenomenon that is Game of Thrones, I believe Attack on Titan has the power to appeal to those outside of its target audience who appreciate a bloody good television show regardless of genre, and I hope it can draw many appreciative fans to the world of anime.I plan to follow Eren and friends beyond the wall and into the land of the Titans...and I am breathless to see what awaits them there.

A hundred years ago the Titans appeared, giant humanoids with an insatiable desire for humans. In a very short time the Titans drove humanity to the edge of extinction, corralled in a single city behind three sets of massive walls that are capable of keeping the Titans at bay. Everything changed however when two new types of Titan appeared, easily destroying the first wall and letting their fellows into humanities last refuge. Eren Jaeger, his adopted sister Mikasa Ackerman and their friend Armin Arlert are survivors of this attack and join the military hoping to get revenge for the fallen and destroy the Titans.'Attack on Titan' (or 'Shingeki no Kyojin' if you prefer) is a massively popular series, in both its anime and manga versions, and this volume includes the first thirteen episodes across two discs. The series has some very nice action, interesting characters and some quite gruesome moments throughout. The series definitely won't be to everyone's taste however as it can get quite gory and serious. There is some humour, mostly surrounding individual characters such as Sasha Blouse, and this humour does a good job of lighting the otherwise quite dark series. The plot of the series is interesting and entertaining with some very good plot twists as the story develops.While I am not a great fan of some aspects of the animation used in the series (mostly the thick black lines surrounding the characters at some points), it is generally very well animated with some truly spectacular scenes and dynamic fights, as well as a good mix of traditional and CGI animation.This volume includes both the English and Japanese dub and while I like the original Japanese better, the English version is still very well done with very little wrong with it in my opinion. There are a few differences between the dub and some translations I have seen but these are mostly just minor inconsequential things such as using Omni-directional Mobility Gear instead of 3D Manoeuvre Gear or using Scout Regiment instead of Survey Corps. All the voices used in the series are good with Josh Grelle as Armin, Ashly Burch as Sasha and R Bruce Elliott as Commander Dot Pixis being my favourites of the bunch. The only real voice that I wasn't much of a fan of was Bryce Papenbrook as Eren but I did get used to it eventually.This first volume of the anime unfortunately has little in the way of special features with only a couple of episode commentaries. The volume doesn't even have the usual clean opening and closing animations, which is a real shame as the opening for this half of the series is easily one of the best around.'Attack on Titan' is a very entertaining series with some brilliant moments throughout. This first volume is easily well worth a full five stars and I cannot wait for Part Two.

If you wanna know i the English dub is good, the answer is yes! Mikasa, Armin and Eren are all voiced very competently, to the point where I wonder which dub I would prefer if I heard this one first! Mikasa seems a little more sarcastic, but it's possible that just may not have come across when simply reading subtitles. Also, all the supporting cast sound WONDERFUL. Sasha, Connie, Jean, the entire gang!Anyway, this boxset contains the first 13 episodes of Attack on Titan. It is the first big story, so it's relatively self contained, with more to give if you want to watch the other series. Blu-Ray does this series a justice like no other. Seeing the gargantuan Titans in crystal clear definition re-applies just how huge and terrifying these monsters are, even to someone quite familiar with the brand!That's not all, however, this also includes a small book explaining some of the concepts of Attack on Titan and the characters we are introduced to in the first few episodes. A welcome addition to any fans collection.Also, there is commentary on a few episodes with the 3 main voice actors and the voice director. Listen to fun conversations between them, their experience with the show, the ways they researched into the show and good ol' fun banter! They say that Armin is voiced by a women in the Japanese dub! Learn something new everyday!Lastly, there is a clear space in this boxset for the second set of episodes. These details, I think, are under appreciated and I just want to point out I love it!If you want the genuine Attack on Titan experience, here it is. What is the series itself? Well, Walking Dead meets Highschool of the Dead with grappling hooks. Enjoy!