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so I wasted spent half an hour making this...

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Why I Despise AoT’s Main Characters

At time of writing, the long-awaited second season of Attack on Titan, or as it’s called by some of its fans Shingeki no Kyojin is close on the horizon. The stunning and all too brief trailer left me nostalgic for when I first watched the series in 2013 from under my blanket at 11pm, blinking away a haze of Monster energy drink and tears. This nostalgia led me to rewatch the anime’s first season and official spin-offs created by the same studio. My elation at reliving the thrill of the series, however, was stunted by my sudden realization that I couldn’t stand any  the leading characters.

Now allow me to elaborate, I obviously don’t dislike the show as a whole. The aesthetics of the show are consistent and interesting, from the environments to the military uniforms consisting of an unbuttoned crop top jacket, a copious amount of belts, and a miniskirt. Attack on Titan is effective in conveying just how threatening the Titans are by the manner in which they move, look, and sound. While a little in-your-face at times, the symbolism is quite enjoyable as well. The last and most important hurdle, of course, is characterization, and oh boy does Attack on Titan fall short on this one.

Before I tear into this show’s writing with the self-righteous vigor of a fat World-of-Warcraft player tearing into his bag of Cheetos, I must state the difference between personality traits and qualities with regards to character. For those of you who failed 7th grade Language Arts, ability, ailment, appearance, alignment, and affinity (what the character likes or dislikes), etc. are all qualities, whereas things like kindness, courage, impulsivity, and discretion, etc. are personality traits. For example, The main character’s adoptive sister Mikasa has interesting qualities, but they are diminished by her utterly boring personality. Mikasa will repeatedly exhibit how she is effortlessly and inexplicably much more physically capable than anyone else, and that could get someone interested in her character, but once you dive beneath the surface, you find that the only only unique personality traits she displays are apathy and introversion. The main characters and many side characters in the series have the same problem, and never evolve past being archetypes. It is entertaining to see their conflicts and interactions in the same way it is entertaining to watch the emotions from Inside Out interact, but you wouldn’t actually want to talk to them in person because they are so predictable. This is why so many cringeworthy “Ask <character’s name here>” pages have popped up, every action that the characters take is predictable to the point where even internet fangirls are able to create dialogue that feels convincingly like it is coming from the actual character. However, the be-all-end-all judge of character is the question, “Do you want the show spend more time on them?”, and the answer with all three of Attack on Titan’s lead characters is no, not really.

And in answer to my question, the creators of the series decided to make a side story centered around Levi, the Lance Corporal of the Survey Corps, an elite branch of the military tasked with reconnaissance, intel-gathering, and R&D to some extent. I didn’t feel that Levi was in dire need of a backstory reveal, considering that it was obvious from the outset that he was a jaded war-veteran with a dark past and OCD. Now in that description the only personality trait I listed was “jaded”, and a jaded character isn’t interesting. Whenever he looks over a threat with a nonplussed, bored expression, I think to myself, “If he doesn’t view the threat as viable, then why should I?”, and I ponder if my time would be better spent impressing women or pumping iron, or whatever you non-weeaboos do all day. But I’m getting off track here. If you are seriously interested in a man who constantly stares at people with a mix of disappointment and anger, then you clearly don’t have an Asian Father. The writers working Attack on Titan then totally blew me out of the water when they released a  spin-off that revealed, to everyone’s surprise, that he was in fact a jaded war-veteran with a dark past and OCD after all. The spin-off did end up showing off some very interesting characters, namely Isabel and Farlan, Levi’s friends. Now naturally, this being a prequel, the fate of these two characters was predetermined because neither of them are seen or even mentioned in the main plot. With the loss of these 2 characters,  the show lost it’s ability to shock me, because it seems like the writers don’t know of any way to have characters be separated from each other painfully and permanently in any way other than death by Titan. An example of this would have been if Farlan was thrown in jail when people found out their plan to assassinate Erwin Smith, a captain in the Survey Corps, but Levi and Isabel weren’t found out. This could fit into the main storyline, and carry potential for future plots like if Levi had to do some high-ranking policeman’s dirty work to get Farlan out of jail. Honestly, I would take either character over Mikasa any day, but enough with ineffectual death, onto the main point, Character. Farlan, while kind and caring towards the unfortunate street urchins he lives amongst, still bears the demeanor of a thug. Isabel is loyal, eager to impress, humorous, playful, genuine, outspoken, and rude, despite her peppy, girly nature, she is not above assassinating a captain of the Survey Corps to be able to rise up out of the life of a dirt poor city dweller. Every character had a motive that made sense, with every character you could point at them and go, “I don’t exactly agree with your choices, but I see where you’re coming from.”. The writers did an excellent job of making the audience bond with characters who were only given about half an hour of total screen time.

The manner in which the lead characters’ comrades are characterized is lazy as well. Connie Springer, a recruit who attends boot camp with the main characters is referred to as stupid, and refers to himself as stupid, but never actually does anything to demonstrate this. In fact, the way he acts in combat and when trying to get sensitive information from a shell-shocked comrade, is quite quick witted and astute.

Footnote: Thanks for reading, I know this is kinda weird for a first post, but it would be awesome to get some feedback from you!