Attack on Titan - Movie

I’ll be honest, when it comes to live action movies there exists a certain expectation from the fans of the anime they are based off of for the content to at least resemble the original stuff at the most basic level. For that reason I have to say that my recent experience watching the much anticipated Attack on Titan was then partially met. They had titans and 3D maneuver gear that allowed for some pretty epic scenes and delivered a platter of awesomely placed action cinematography that almost makes you forget there were just a few things off course about the whole thing.

The truth of it though, was had I gone into watching this not knowing the anime as I did, the movie would still have been pretty amazing, slightly confusing – yes, but still enjoyable. The overall story stayed the same as it followed the history of humanity being nearly wiped out by the flesh-eating titans, leaving a small percentage of humans to gather behind these walls in an attempt to survive against them.

Enter our brooding protagonist who, due to a significant loss, vows to kill the titans. In order to do so he joins the survey corps, a military-like group who train with the hopes of surviving against the threat that is the titans. The movie doesn’t do much to explain the different divisions so it’s a bit of a guess game as you watch on and try to figure out what’s going on, but as not much emphasis is put on them I guess the focus then shifts to the characters, which could have been better portrayed in my opinion.

What I did notice was that character development lacked a bit as the movie seemed to assume the audience already had an image of some characters while it focused on introducing its original characters and creating what I can only say was some very unnecessary scenarios. These scenarios actually had me staring dumbfounded at the screen and asking ‘W.T.F’ as I tried to accept that they actually happened.

In any case, the CGI was still pretty good in most of the scenes and the fighting was epic. Though the original story suffered some grating changes as it made it to the big screen, there were other scenes that made it in that could almost make up for the few blunders. The acting wasn’t perfect for everyone, but it was far better than expected.

Obviously I’ll watch the second movie, because what has been started must be finished. But I guess in the end, if I were to give it a rating it would probably be about four boxes of popcorn and maybe one large coke – if that means anything.

Assassin Classroom - Anime

Being random is okay. Japan has proven this, over and over again. As I watched this anime I was hit with many realizations of how random Japan can sometimes be and that’s okay.

Assassin classroom is one random anime that I’m glad I stumbled upon in the batch of happiness that I was given recently. It strays out the box of normal story telling as it follows a strange string of events that have you watch a bunch of supposedly below average students try to assassinate their teacher while still passing midterms. 

The catch of course becomes interesting as their teacher turns out to be a strange entity that has just recently destroyed a large portion of the moon and has promised to do the same to the earth in a year’s time.

So it becomes pretty obvious why the assassination needs to happen as governments and the like rush to find ways to stop the unknown entity from doing any more damage than it already has whereas the story seems to lie in the fact that our strange entity delays any immediate action as he becomes the teacher to the unsuspecting outcast students of Kunugigaoka Junior High School.

I like the seemingly randomness of the show as it slowly all comes together in the background. It has a unique plot and quite an interesting set of characters that each teaches some or other lesson. I especially love the ending song ‘Hello, shooting star’ by Moumoon. (translation: courtesy of Vanilla Milk)

P.S. I just discovered there’s a live action coming out! Definitely excited to see that!