I totally agree with you, the Anime is lacking. I really, really enjoy the Manga. (The titans actually gave me an uneasy feeling then whereas they look silly in the animation) That being said I still don't understand the SNK hype as much as I did/do enjoy it. Also Jean the best character. BD
I'd rather not have them transform into Titans. One of the things I liked was about how gritty everything was and how "impossibly strong" their enemies were. I know that with them transforming, the situation doesn't do a 180º change, and it's still living hell, but aesthetically speaking, the idea of poor small humans fighting the huge titans was very enticing to me. But I continue to find the whole storyline interesting, and intriguing,
I have to agree with a lot of comments in this thread that my excitement for the show began to fade as soon as this aspect was introduced. There is just something primal and instinctive about the 'David vs Goliath' scenario that really calls to you. It was just so gritty to show humanity's struggles against these behemoth opponents, but it now feels, I don't want to say cliched, and yet, it's almost that feeling, the well-worn out 'in order beat a monster you have to become a monster'.
I don't know. I still love the show because of everything else that people in this thread have mentioned - the strong supporting cast (especially the female characters), the fact that I truly believed that the younger kids fighting made sense because of the ODMs, and the practical horrors of food, supplies and mental traumas experienced. But yeah, I can't deny that the excitement that I once felt has been sapped out of me slowly with each new episode after that defining story change.
all the titans were probably humans who were turned into titans and that their penchant for eating humans despite having no apparent reason for doing so was somehow related to that
. I was a bit off on some details but that was to be expected. To me, it wasn't really a disappointing turn of events.
I think my favorite parts of this series are how ruthlessly it deconstructs the heroic sacrifice trope, the way characters deal with the situation they're in and the variety of body types as well as some realistic hand-to-hand combat whenever it comes up. I also enjoy how the story keeps me guessing about so many things.
