Attack on Titan managed to capture the interest of a wide range of anime viewers when it started airing in April of 2013. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that it was slated to receive a second season, which was delayed because of developments in the manga that served as its source material. Now, the second season of Attack on Titan is set in air in January of 2017, preceded by an official trailer featuring new scenes from the upcoming season that are sure to whet the appetite of interested individuals.
To celebrate the imminent start of the second season of Attack on Titan, here are our top five moments from the first season in no particular order:
The Fall of Shiganshina
The first episode of an anime series is one of the most important episodes because it is what will convince a viewer to continue watching. In this regard, the Fall of Shiganshina was an excellent introduction to Attack on Titan because it provided more than enough excitement to satisfy even the most jaded of viewers. However, it should be noted that the attack of the Armored Titan and the Colossal Titan served other useful purposes from an out-of-series perspective as well. For example, while the scenes before the attack laid out the stakes, which provided viewers with something to care about, the attack provided the protagonists with a classic but nonetheless understandable motivation, which provided the plot with the metaphorical kick that it needed to get started. Furthermore, it is important to note that the Fall of Shiganshina provided viewers with a sense of what they could expect from Attack on Titan, which is to say, huge, pseudo-human monstrosities that behave like nothing so much as super-sized zombies complete with the occasional super-zombie that makes such regular appearances in video games.
The Second Appearance of the Colossal Titan
While the Fall of Shiganshina laid out the premises of the series, it is not until the second appearance of the Colossal Titan following the graduation of the protagonists that we begin to see that there is something more to the titular titans than mindless hunger, thus leading us into the main narrative of the series. In brief, while the Colossal Titan’s second appearance served as a reminder that the threat of the titans is still out there, it is more interesting in that it behaved with a clear intelligence that is missing in its lesser counterparts. After all, we see it choose its targets with care, which suggests that it understands what it sees. Furthermore, we see it vanish in the same strange way that it appeared in the moment when Eren was in position to threaten the back of its neck, which suggests that it possessed a sense of self-preservation that is also missing in its lesser counterparts. Finally, the timing of the attack seemed too coincidental to be natural, which is something that became clearer and clearer as the series continued to progress. Combined, these characteristics made it clear that there was something strange about the Colossal Titan, thus providing the series with a much-needed sense of sinister mystery.
The First Appearance of the Rogue Titan
A lot of people had mixed reactions to Eren’s survival. In part, this is because some viewers were less interested in him than in the other characters. However, it is important to note that some people thought that his survival was a sort of betrayal of the basic premise of the series, which was that no one was safe from the threat of the titans. Whatever the case, Eren’s reemergence as the Rogue Titan was interesting because it picked up the plot threads laid out by the second appearance of the Colossal Titan before presenting them for the perusal of the viewers. After all, if Eren could transform into the Rogue Titan, what did that say about the Armored Titan and the Colossal Titan, which showed a level of cognition that was a clear cut above that of their lesser counterparts, so much so that they seemed nothing short of human? For that matter, what did that say about the state of mind of the standard titan, assuming that such a thing actually exists, considering Eren’s trance-like state when he was brought out of the Rogue Titan?
The First Appearance of the Female Titan
For a lot of viewers, the scariest of the titan shifters was neither the Armored Titan with its hardened carapace nor the Colossal Titan with its unmatched size but the Female Titan, which showed incredible skill in a single encounter with the Scout Regiment. In main, this is because the Female Titan demonstrated not just an intelligence that made her a dangerous opponent for some of the most skilled fighters in the series but also a casual disregard for her enemies, as shown by a rather infamous incident when she managed to catch one of the soldiers by his straps. As a result, the entire sequence is one of the most memorable in the entire series, both because of how her wide range of capabilities enabled her to tear through named characters and because of how her lack of invulnerability made it clear how much of her performance could be attributed to pure skill rather than the needs of the plot.
The Colossal Titans in the Wall
One of the most curious moments in Attack on Titan is when the final fight with Annie revealed that the wall concealed not one but multiple Colossal Titans with the strong implication that the entire structure was filled with such entities, which were responsible for creating it in the first place. On the one hand, this is terrifying because of what could happen to the civilians should sunlight be permitted to fall on what must be a countless number of man-eating monstrosities with few that can match them in the series. On the other hand, this is intriguing because it raises the question of how the Colossal Titans were corralled into their current state, which is one of the plot threads that will be picked up in the second season of Attack on Titan.
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