(Kodansha Comics 2012)
Story & Art by Hajime Isayama
Storyline Ongoing
Summary: In an alternate telling of the history of the world, mankind has been pushed back behind walls where for the last 100 years they’ve been protected from monsters known as Titans. One day these Titans appeared again and brought one of those walls crashing down – the result almost sent humanity into extinction. This is the story of the last remnants of mankind.
[SPOILER WARNING!!]
Review: Chapter 70, overall, wasn’t a bad chapter. Much like the 7th chapter of Naruto Gaiden it was pretty solid, it’s biggest downfall is simply that it’s tied to a events and working off of events that I just didn’t find that great.
The newest arc has began, and this one is just to catch you up on how the world has began to change since Historia has retaken her throne, and the Scouting Legion overthrew the corrupt military. Several months have past and things seem to be dying down quite a bit.
The new regime is seemingly making the world a better place, Historia has opened an orphanage for all the orphans in the cities and taken to overseeing their care personally, Eren is montage training with making hardened shell; this is to be used in finally closing the hole the Armored Titan made at the beginning of the series, so that the Scouting Legion can make it to Eren’s old basement and get to the final, final answers to all of this.
This chapter really seems like a change though for the series, everything is going too well for our main characters, meaning more crud is definitely about to hit the fan. Especially with the Beast Titan keeping very close watch on them. But this marks the turn; it seems to me, toward the ending of the series. I’d say we got a few years left of Attack on Titan as a manga, and this seems to be heralding that.
I do like the new direction; I’m interested to see where things go from here. I foresee a lot of death in near future, but what I’m mostly excited for is getting back to the human on titan action, instead of human on human. I just didn’t find the human infighting to be that interesting, and the “answers” we got from it were convoluted and just… eh.
I do continue to enjoy Isayama’s art style. Out of all the manga artists that are out there, and are “mainstream,” his just seems so unpolished and indie and I really dig that. It’s unique and there’s definitely nothing else out there right now that look like it.
Yeah, I enjoyed this chapter, and I’m looking forward to what comes next. Apparently the series is taking a break in July (we’ll see) and will return in August. If that is the case, now that I’m caught up with Before the Fall as much as I can be, I’m going to once again attempt to re-read and review for you the Birth of Levi side-story. We’ll see how it goes!
Final Score: 3 Oncoming Storms out of 5
Derrick is a born and raised otaku with a love for comics, anime, manga and movies. The full list is pretty long, but that’s just the basics. Stories set in space are his bread and butter.
You can find more of his writing at IndieComix.net
@KazekunForever