Why Attack on Titan is different from most anime?

Shingeki no Kyojin, also known as Attack on Titan, was first released in 2013 and is an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Hajime Isayama. Since the anime release, it has taken the worldwide audience by storm. It has not just received immense popularity but is also one of the high-rated anime across platforms.

This read is about:

• Is Attack on Titan your must story?
• What makes Attack on Titan different from most anime?
• Why Attack on Titan is popularly high rated?

Average rating across platforms

 

Is Attack on Titan Your Must Story?

It’s a must-watch

• if you’re looking for grimdark fantasy (high violence fantasy).
• if you want to witness gritty action sequences.
• if you’re searching for something fresh and creative concept.
• if you want to meet some edgy characters.

What makes Attack on Titan different from most anime?

• Modern Fantasy

Attack on Titan is a modern fantasy. Modern fantasy is where we usually find a story based on a novel concept or a fresh idea, it tends to avoid classic archetypes. Characters in modern fantasy are more human and the working of the society or systems of the fictional world created will be somewhat similar and relatable to our world.
The word modern fantasy also signifies the currently trending fantasy, which caters to the tastes of the modern audience.
Coming back to anime, most fantasy anime deals with classical fantasy, which is character archetypes, age-old tropes, and derived concepts from most of the classical works.
Attack on Titan emerges out of the pack of fantasy anime with a fresh concept, creative premise, and more human-like characters turning into one of the best modern fantasy.

• Story-Driven

Anime in general predominantly leans toward character-driven rather than story-driven. For the most part, other characters revolve around the protagonist, and it’s focused on the thoughts, monologues, and actions of the main character, nothing wrong with it, even the Attack on Titan does it as well. But here, when the story calls for it, the protagonist takes a back seat, and the narration continues with other pertinent characters. It not just brings depth to the story but also the other relevant characters. Speaking of depth, which brings us to our next aspect.

• Story Depth

One of the best ways to bring depth to a story is by building the narration with a strong back story.
Attack on Titan does it wonderfully by presenting a well-thought-out back story to match the current events, delivering a satisfying payoff to all the anticipations and a fitting reveal to the mysteries.

• Nonlinear Narrative

Most action fantasy anime majorly follows a linear form of storytelling, where the story begins with an introduction, then a conflict, then the climax and resolution. Compared to the magnitude of the anime being made in this genre, only a few have nonlinear storytelling in its truest sense as these anime are made to be character-centric. And character-centric anime doesn’t need to have nonlinearity all the time. But narration in Attack on Titan jumps between timelines, giving it a nonlinear style.
It breaks the norms by providing nonlinearity and well-planned execution of plots to reveal mysteries to the audience at the right moments. Making it story-centric and characters complementing the story.

Why is Attack on Titan popularly high rated?

Why Attack on Titan is one of the high-rated anime? It’s rare to find such a fusion of soaring popularity and rating. Popularity is one thing and a good rating from an audience, especially the anime community, is another. All things aside, it’s essential to know the intentions first.

There can be three intentions for making an anime or any story:

Commercial, Commercial Artistic, and Artistic.

Any anime or any form of work can fall into any of these categories. Attack on Titan is an artistic piece of work. By artistic, it means a kind of passion project by nature, intended for a section of the audience in which the story sticks to its purpose and doesn’t appease the audience every time, and stays away from commercial archetypes to serve fans of a particular style. This avoids loads of common criticisms like plot holes, imitation, or predictability, which results in a solid high rating.