Why Attack on Titan makes no sense, but we still love it.

Before I begin, I want to say that I’m not trying to bash this anime in any way, shape, or form. This show remains to be one of my all time favorites. The action, drama, and overall story line kept me at the edge of my seat the entire time I watched. BUT, there are some flaws I’d like to point out. Let’s begin.

First and foremost, the wall. For those of you who don’t know, AoT is set in a society overran by giant humanoid creatures (Titans) that feed on humans, and humanity had to build three very, very, VERY large walls to contain the titans to the outside. It is said that the outermost wall has a radius of 480 kilometers. With some basic math we can determine that the area inside the wall is just over 720,000 kilometers….which makes it bigger than Afghanistan. On a side note, the Great Wall of China is 21,000 kilometers long, but only about 8 meters tall at it’s highest point. This wall took over 2000 years to build. For perspective, they supposedly built a 150 foot tall wall around the entire country of Afghanistan in less than 100 years. Not to mention the fact that giants are trying to eat them the entire time. And that fact that that’s only the outer wall, there were two others. Seems a little wack to me.

Another thing, apparently the horses in this society can run up to 80 miles per hour. Eighty. Miles. Per hour. The fastest horses ever only ran just over 40. Imagine seeing a full sized horse running at cheetah-like speeds. That’s honestly more terrifying to me than actual cheetahs. This isn’t really a major issue, but I still wanted to point that out.

Don’t get me started on the hip-mounted 3-D space maneuvering Spiderman belt things. Grappling hooks propelled by pressurized gas that have no targeting systems that allow the user to maneuver through trees and buildings at high speeds. Sometimes even changing directions mid-air somehow. If any common sense was applied, everyone would be dead with broken spines using these damn things. They wouldn’t even have to worry about Titans. (If you can look past the illogical bullcrap these devices ensue, it can still be said that they are SUPER badass.)

Finally, the thing that has bugged me the most, the unanswered plot questions. At the very beginning of the show, the main character’s father goes off somewhere. You get to the end of the season and you never find out where he went, and he never came back. Before he left he handed Erin (the main character) a key to the basement of their home that was destroyed in a titan attack. Throughout the entire season we are reminded of the key’s presence and importance but they never actually made it to the basement to find out the importance of it. I remember watching the final scenes and being mad as hell when I realized they never got to the basement.

All in all, I still loved every minute of this visually outstanding show. The animation style and story-line (even with its flaws) are why it’s still one of my all-time favorites. I hope I didn’t spoil too much for you all if you haven’t watched AoT yet. (If you haven’t, do so. Now.)

I’d like to give credit to MK at GroundZeroOnline for the idea behind this article, he made a video regarding this subject and I took some of the things he covered to write this article. For more in-depth reasons why AoT is a little wacky, check out MK’s video here:

That’s it! Come back daily for fresh new content and be sure to check out Weekly Waves Vol. 6 on Spotify and Apple Music!

 

*Originally posted on November 22, 2017*