Attack On Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin)

[sev]

i am pretty sure that sev and ink have read it , or maybe just jake. i may read it eventually if it turns out they're not doing another season for a while

spoiler defense activate

i think ink does read the manga, but i don't think she's caught up yet. she already spoiled everything for herself though dohoho

[rtil]

well, season 1 is over, and they leave us with this.
[spoilerimg]http://i.imgur.com/XT1wv59.jpg[/spoilerimg]

and let's not forget the miner story in the middle of the episode:
[spoiler]The year 784
One blistering hot night, a miner decided to dig under Wall Sina, to live within the inner ring. "Life in Wall Sina would be pretty nice" - that thought would come to him suddenly a few days ago, as he dug with his shove, deep in a coal mine. In a way, you could call it divine inspiration. And so, for the next few days, he wandered along the wall, finally settling upon a spot where the dense forest pressed against it. No one would chance upon him, and the overhead leaves would shelter him and his task for the prying eyes of the guards above. On the next night, he began. Using his trusty shovel, the miner began to dig. The work went smoothly, and before long, the pit was as deep as he was tall. When he could no longer fling the dirt outside it, he stuffed it into sacks, climbing the ladder to discard them. Completely dedicated to the task at hand, he only took a few short breaks to drink water and ease his weary muscles. After spending twenty years of his life digging without a day of rest, the miner knew he was an expert at it. And during that time, he'd learned to dig deeper, more quickly, and more efficiently than anyone else. Tunnels that would stump any other miner were no match for his shovel. But that day was different. He dug for hours, yet never seemed to get anywhere. As he dug, he probed to either side of the main pit with his shovel, but it was of no use. The wall's foundation seemed to go down forever, deep into the earth, blocking his path at every turn. Still, he persevered. Any thought of digging his way to an easy life inside Wall Sina had been long forgotten. He simply wanted to conquer the wall. "I'm willing to spend all these years I've spent digging that I will beat this wall", he said to himself, wiping the sweat from his brow. The hole was 4 or 5 times the miner's height when he struck hard rock. "Bedrock?" But it appeared to be the same material as the walls' foundation itself. The miner swung is shovel down hard on the rock. The shovel shattered, but the rock was unscathed. The miner sighed, and his sigh was deeper than any hole he'd dug in the previous 20 years.
Part Two
With a frown, his friend questioned, "The wall?". "It's weird, isn't it?", the miner said, lifting a drink to his lips. "Who knew the wall went so deep underground?". The pair sat across from one another at a table in the back of a tavern in the seedy part of town. Most days, the miner would go with his friend, his only friend, after work. That day, the day after he'd tried to dig under the wall, they'd gone there as usual, once the workday was done. And then, the miner told his friend the story, certain that his friend could keep a secret. "Maybe we're surrounded by walls not only above the ground, but below the ground, too", said the miner. "Tell me something...what, exactly, are the walls?" His friend cut him off with a cough, glancing around the tavern. The patrons were all busy drinking, hitting on the tavern maid, or yelling at one another. No one was watching them. But even so, the miner decided not to say another word about it. If anyone heard about it, the Military Police would be there in an instant. "Does it really matter?", his friend asked. "Just keep living here as you always have. You're poor, but you have a job every day, and enough money that you can drink, isn't that enough?" "Yeah," the miner replied. "Yeah it is. I'll go back to digging. In the end, I guess that's my lot in life." But the next day, the miner didn't show up for work. Nor the next...nor the day after that. His friend went to his house many times, but never saw any sign of him. The miner had no relatives, nor other close friends, so there was no one to ask where he might have gone. Unsure what to do, his friend went to the Garrison, and told them the whole story. The next day, the Military Police and the Garrison organized a large-scale search party. It was a little excessive for one poor miner, even if that miner was a criminal who'd tried to pass under the walls. His friend couldn't understand why they were so bent on finding him. But they never found a trace of the miner, nor the pit he'd dug. And one day, his friend also vanished, never to be seen again.[/spoiler]

so, i think it is safe to say a few things:
[spoiler]

• annie is not the enemy. there is something much larger at play. however, annie is willing to risk her life to protect the information she carries from the recon corps.
  
• annie's father had access to the same thing that erens' father had that turned him into a titan (this is mostly a guess, but i am assuming for now that annie's father gave her the ability to become a titan)
  
• the military police are involved in a cover-up operation regarding the walls
  
• the walls are not designed to protect people, but people are told that they are
  
• whoever built the walls had technology and resources that are not immediately available to its current inhabitants. they may have even been built by titans. and for some reason, there are titans inside the walls.
  
• the colossal titan and probably the armored titan are controlled by humans, and we have probably seen them already but didn't know.
  

[/spoiler]
there are other things that can be deduced from what we've been told so far, but that's all i can think of at the moment.

[Gilthwixt]

Episode 25 discussion:

[spoiler]So they ended the series in a way that neatly wraps things up. Up until Annie started climbing the wall, they didn't actually change all that much, just little things here and there. For one, Eren doesn't get a flaming rage-mode where he concaves half of annie's skull, nor does he catch her leg on the way up. After he catches her foot in his mouth and she bashes him off, she just jumps up the wall. He regenerates but not in time to catch her, so he picks up Mikasa and tosses her so that she catches up with Annie instead. This makes more sense because Mikasa wouldn't have been fast enough to get to the top of the wall from ground-level otherwise.

The Anime departs in a huge way at this point. I honestly don't know how they're going to resolve this in season 2 so I'm interested in what they have planned. For those of you that would rather wait, stop reading here. Edit: I actually paused it during the end credits right before they showed the image rtil posted above, so it looks like they showed us after all. It plays out differently in the manga however.

Eren does not lose his shit. He calmly helps with the extraction of Annie's crystal, does not pass out, is not cared for by Mikasa, and there is no dramatic hesitation to kill Annie. Instead, Mikasa is still hanging from the wall, when she looks to her left and freaks the fuck out over the Titan staring back at her. The priest from earlier who desperately warned everyone to stay away from the wall is present, and she begins interrogating him. It appears the leaders of Cult of the Wall, which has been briefly mentioned throughout the series, is entirely aware that the wall is filled with Titans. Even threatened with being thrown off of the wall, he refuses to divulge much more than that.

Anyone looking to follow along with the manga now that the anime is on hiatus can begin reading from Chapter 33 onwards.

rtil, regarding your theories:

• In the manga it's unclear but for the most part none of branches of military seem to be aware of the conspiracy with the wall except for maybe the utmost top, and even that in uncertain.  Only the Wall Cult and associated noble families seem to be apart of it.  This is important later because one of Eren's training mates is descended from one such family. That Miner Story changes things though.
• The identities of the armored and colossal titan are the most recent major plot point in the manga. Their reveal will feel quite sudden and unexpected, because the audience's attention was directed towards other, more pressing and unexpected mysteries, but upon further inspection of the chapters leading up to the reveal, there are several subtle details of foreshadowing.   

[/spoiler]

[rtil]

i kind of like the anime version of this episode better. it leaves a little more to the imagination. but it is interesting to know that information from the cult leader guy. i always thought they were a bunch of zealous morons who worshiped the walls for keeping them safe.

[cipher]

Overall I thought it was a nice way to wrap things up. I honestly expected more of a cliffhanger than the one they offered though, but maybe that's a good thing

[spoiler]also this scene with the church totally felt like something out of metalocalypse

[/spoiler]

[dilly]

that fucking image gives me the creeps. it's so unsettling

[rtil]

regarding the OVA "Ilse's Journal"
[spoiler]i can roughly establish when this took place, but one thing I don't understand is that Hanji was devastated regarding the two captive titans Annie had killed - were these four titans at the end of the OVA captured before or after this? i was under the impression they were the only two titans they had ever captured.

also talking titans omg[/spoiler]

[cipher]

[spoiler]In regards to when it took place, my guess was probably either before the series even began, or near the start to say the least. Keep in mind that after the first few episodes it jumps ahead a few years. Even if it did take place around then, by the time they capture the two titans in the 'main' show, it would have still been a while since they had gotten any.

There's probably a specific time listed somewhere though.
[/spoiler]

[Gilthwixt]

regarding the OVA "Ilse's Journal"
[spoiler]i can roughly establish when this took place, but one thing I don't understand is that Hanji was devastated regarding the two captive titans Annie had killed - were these four titans at the end of the OVA captured before or after this? i was under the impression they were the only two titans they had ever captured.

also talking titans omg[/spoiler]

[spoiler]In regards to when it took place, my guess was probably either before the series even began, or near the start to say the least. Keep in mind that after the first few episodes it jumps ahead a few years. Even if it did take place around then, by the time they capture the two titans in the 'main' show, it would have still been a while since they had gotten any.

There's probably a specific time listed somewhere though.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I second this, I'm thinking it took place just before the series started, before the fall of the first wall, when the recon corps would still be making expeditions out there. That would give a 5 year gap to the present day.

On the other hand, they really added a lot of filler to make this a full 20 minute OVA, and a lot of these scenes don't exist in the original manga chapter. The fact that there are four titans instead of two might just be an adaptational inconsistency, and in actuality the method Hanji contributed as mentioned in the episode directly leads to the capture of Seanny and Bean. Here's the original chapter for comparison: http://www.mangahere.com/manga/shingeki_no_kyojin/c018.5/

Notedly, there's nothing about the titan enshrining Ilse. Also, she doesn't keep writing in the journal when her head is between the titan's teeth, which was decidedly creepy as fuck.

But hey, if this took place before the series starts, I wonder why that Titan knew Ymir's name ? (of course I know, it's in the manga)[/spoiler]

[rtil]

i know ymir is in the anime but i don't really remember anything about her. she must be a [spoiler]person who can turn into a titan[/spoiler]

also, i read somewhere this OVA takes place between episodes 3 and 4.

[rtil]

a 2nd OVA is coming out in the spring, as well as the reveal of the english dub

[rtil]

first english dub video preview
Attack on Titan - Hit It From Every Angle (Dub) on Vimeo

[rtil]

the 2nd OVA i'm assuming is some kind of non-canon spin-off or filler... it was a cook-off between Jean and Sasha, judged by Pixis. it was .. kind of funny, i guess. but i was expecting more about the first one from Ilse's recon corps squad.

[rtil]

Attack on Titan - Saturday Nights on Toonami

[rtil]

2nd season confirmed for pre-production by a production lead at I.G.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/08/03-1/animagic-2014-tag-2-attack-on-titan-qa-panel

[SrsSam77]

Ohhhh boy. I can already hear the ledditors and narutards, ima go shore up with graven images of the waifu in hopes to weather the-
wait
s2
last ep of last season left of at wall titans
hanjo was in manga after wall titans
first 2 eps of s2 having hanjo confirmed

[Kött]

2nd season confirmed for pre-production by a production lead at I.G.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/08/03-1/animagic-2014-tag-2-attack-on-titan-qa-panel

Interesting... that announcement was made in Germany on a convention that I nearly visited.
The whole show is enjoying a huge hype in this country atm.

[ZennyPLUS]

2nd season confirmed for pre-production by a production lead at I.G.
http://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2014/08/03-1/animagic-2014-tag-2-attack-on-titan-qa-panel

Interesting... that announcement was made in Germany on a convention that I nearly visited.
The whole show is enjoying a huge hype in this country atm.

I get a very german vibe from this anime in particular. I wonder if it's just some character names or something.

[SrsSam77]

zenny it's supposed to be based off of german society, I mean, just look at the names. Jaeger, Kirschtein, Weiss, Erwin, it goes on.

[cipher]

進撃の巨人「悔いなき選択」予告編　【新作オリジナルアニメーションDVD付き限定版コミックス 予約受付中！】

looks pretty siiiiick

also s2 has now indeed started production