By now, it's obvious that I've gone from interest to drooling fangirling over Attack on Titan, I've seen the anime, read the manga, finished the yonkoma, and now spend my time prowling the caverns of Tumblr under an assumed name looking at fan-art. I haven't gone down to the level of reading fan-fiction myself, but that could just be a matter of time.
So anyway, the manga.
Is a great deal more nuanced than the anime. Things that go by in a flash in an anime are explored- highlighted because of the static nature of the manga.For example, take this scene in the anime. It happens before the credits of the first episode, but it may be a foreshadowing of something that happens much later in the manga.
If you've begun with the anime, you would think of this as a standard Survey Corps mission, where the missionaries end up as corpses, but the scene gains weight if you've read the manga.
So, anyway. In the pilot, there's a scene where Eren's mother asks her husband to convince Eren not to join the survey corps. Dr Jaeger says "Carla, nothing can suppress a human's curiosity." In the manga, it's slightly different. Here, he says "When somebody's on a quest, there's no such thing as talking them down." Its a small change, with the added uncertainty of translation differences - but the keywords are "human curiosity" in the anime versus "quest" in the manga. The former implies a quirk of humanity, the latter is explicitly personal.
There's also a bit about the government, and how it forbids people from taking an interest in the outside world. Eren says that the King is chickening out, but Armin wonders if that's the real reason. This bit is not there in the anime. I'm not sure if this is foreshadowing, given that the king has not made an appearance after 51 issues of the manga, but we know that the king knows something that the people don't.
Then there's the specificity of the titan attack happening 107 years ago, versus the more generalized "over a century ago" in the anime. Again, may be nothing, but in both cases - a hundred years ago? Mankind retreated into the walls a hundred years ago? surely there are still stories that people alive at the time would have told their children - about the fight with the titans, about life outside the walls? Even if all books about the outside world were confiscated and destroyed, surely there would have been word of mouth information? Is this a plot hole or something else? Also, the anime explicitly says the survivors built the walls. Now to build 3 walls, the largest about 20% of the size of the great wall of China in a matter of a few years, with steam age technology, while under attack by titans all this time seems to be quite a deal (In comparison, Hadrian's wall - which is 117.5 km long, took six years to build, and it's even smaller than Wall Sina). And there has been peace for a hundred years. So the walls took anytime up to 7 years to build, quite a feat of engineering - which we know isn't as straight forward as it seems.
But one place where the anime SHINES is where the armoured titan makes his appearance. Compare this in the manga:
to THIS scene in the anime
A short note on ADOM If you've ever played ADOM, and progressed towards the end-game, you may have sometimes seen this message. "*THUMB*" When you enter a dungeon and see this message, its a signal for you to be afraid. Very afraid. If the message recurs with almost every turn, you are in deep, deep trouble. And if, by any chance, you see a dark green H, be prepared to run away or teleport, because the monster you are facing is one of the toughest in the game, a greater titan. Those bastards can SHRED you, however high level your character may be. And just listen to the video soundtrack at 2:14. *THUMB* indeed.
Eren, Mikasa and Armin are on a refugee boat, and Eren shouts a little more, Now, here's where the storied begin to diverge. The manga fast forwards to graduation day, and we are shown the top 10 soldiers of the 104th training corps. The anime cuts to a group of prosperous people discussing the refugee situation, a flashback of Grisha Jaeger - and Eren telling him he's been acting really weird since mom died - (when does Grisha get back AFTER Carla dies? Or am I missing something?) and THE KEY. Then Eren wakes up with the key around his neck and theyre waiting for food in the refugee camp inside Waru Rose.
//TBC
So anyway, the manga.
Is a great deal more nuanced than the anime. Things that go by in a flash in an anime are explored- highlighted because of the static nature of the manga.For example, take this scene in the anime. It happens before the credits of the first episode, but it may be a foreshadowing of something that happens much later in the manga.
If you've begun with the anime, you would think of this as a standard Survey Corps mission, where the missionaries end up as corpses, but the scene gains weight if you've read the manga.
So, anyway. In the pilot, there's a scene where Eren's mother asks her husband to convince Eren not to join the survey corps. Dr Jaeger says "Carla, nothing can suppress a human's curiosity." In the manga, it's slightly different. Here, he says "When somebody's on a quest, there's no such thing as talking them down." Its a small change, with the added uncertainty of translation differences - but the keywords are "human curiosity" in the anime versus "quest" in the manga. The former implies a quirk of humanity, the latter is explicitly personal.
There's also a bit about the government, and how it forbids people from taking an interest in the outside world. Eren says that the King is chickening out, but Armin wonders if that's the real reason. This bit is not there in the anime. I'm not sure if this is foreshadowing, given that the king has not made an appearance after 51 issues of the manga, but we know that the king knows something that the people don't.
Then there's the specificity of the titan attack happening 107 years ago, versus the more generalized "over a century ago" in the anime. Again, may be nothing, but in both cases - a hundred years ago? Mankind retreated into the walls a hundred years ago? surely there are still stories that people alive at the time would have told their children - about the fight with the titans, about life outside the walls? Even if all books about the outside world were confiscated and destroyed, surely there would have been word of mouth information? Is this a plot hole or something else? Also, the anime explicitly says the survivors built the walls. Now to build 3 walls, the largest about 20% of the size of the great wall of China in a matter of a few years, with steam age technology, while under attack by titans all this time seems to be quite a deal (In comparison, Hadrian's wall - which is 117.5 km long, took six years to build, and it's even smaller than Wall Sina). And there has been peace for a hundred years. So the walls took anytime up to 7 years to build, quite a feat of engineering - which we know isn't as straight forward as it seems.
But one place where the anime SHINES is where the armoured titan makes his appearance. Compare this in the manga:
Like a rock
to THIS scene in the anime
And he strikes, like Thunderball
A short note on ADOM If you've ever played ADOM, and progressed towards the end-game, you may have sometimes seen this message. "*THUMB*" When you enter a dungeon and see this message, its a signal for you to be afraid. Very afraid. If the message recurs with almost every turn, you are in deep, deep trouble. And if, by any chance, you see a dark green H, be prepared to run away or teleport, because the monster you are facing is one of the toughest in the game, a greater titan. Those bastards can SHRED you, however high level your character may be. And just listen to the video soundtrack at 2:14. *THUMB* indeed.
Eren, Mikasa and Armin are on a refugee boat, and Eren shouts a little more, Now, here's where the storied begin to diverge. The manga fast forwards to graduation day, and we are shown the top 10 soldiers of the 104th training corps. The anime cuts to a group of prosperous people discussing the refugee situation, a flashback of Grisha Jaeger - and Eren telling him he's been acting really weird since mom died - (when does Grisha get back AFTER Carla dies? Or am I missing something?) and THE KEY. Then Eren wakes up with the key around his neck and theyre waiting for food in the refugee camp inside Waru Rose.
//TBC
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