Retrospective: Common Criticisms of Attack on Titan
I asked for it and got sent a pretty large variety of reasons why people seem to either dislike Attack on Titan and/or have dropped it.
I also looked up all of my interactions with fans who have dropped it I could find and I went digging through all of the different time periods as the story was progressing, from criticisms of the manga as far back as 2009-2010 to the present and on as many different social media platforms possible.
I tried to be as comprehensive as possible when it came to looking up what people thought.
Thus, I've decided to group the reasons why people seem to have dropped or dislike AoT by the anime seasons/arcs.
It is kind of a given, but this entire post will contain spoilers.
So, let's go back to 2013, then, shall we?
Season 1: Trost arc and Female Titan arc
1) The most common criticism without a doubt I came across for this section of the story is that the characters are underdeveloped.
The largest share of this criticism seems to be aimed at the main three characters, but the very specific targets, more than any other characters, seem to be Eren and Mikasa.
Plenty of people love them, but when looking at criticism of the story, their characters are some of the first ones mentioned in terms of what people don't like about it.
Eren and Mikasa seem to be commonly listed as one-dimensional, obsessive, boring, undeserving of being in the spotlight, stupid and/or annoying.
For Armin a common criticism at the time season 1 was airing seemed to be that he cries too much and is a coward, but he seems to have gotten hate to a lesser extent than Eren and Mikasa. Eren and Mikasa seem to get the loudest hate, at least.
All of the other characters with the exception of Sasha, Jean, Levi and maybe the occasional mention of Hange or Annie (depending on the corner of the internet, Levi and Hange can either do no wrong or are treated as shallow fanservice or annoying respectively and Annie is either fiercely hated for what she did to Levi squad or listed as one of the more interesting characters in the story) seem to be regarded as either forgettable, underutilized or unlikeable.
2) People also seem to list the characters being really stupid as criticism: not making the right decisions when they need to and being irrational in important situations.
There is a pretty loud portion of detractors specifically criticising the story for plot-induced stupidity – characters acting the way they do not because it makes sense, but because this is where the plot needs to go.
3) The third criticism I pretty universally came across for this section of the story is that it's too bleak, cruel and loud: a story which only cares about shocking twists and gore with no weight or meaning behind it at all.
The more favourable takes see the fun in the action spectacle, the less favourable takes just find everything about the story cynical and mean-spirited.
Thus, a section of viewers just find it to be unpleasant viewing.
4) Somewhat related to this, four specific points in the plot of the story emerge as the focus points for criticism in season 1 material:
Eren's death and revival is considered either poorly foreshadowed, too obvious or uninteresting: many people wanted Eren to permanently stay dead after his death. This is also the first point in the story where I see a bunch of people drop it.
The second half of the Trost arc (usually episodes 9-13) is considered to be poorly paced and frustrating. This is another point where I saw some people fall off.
Annie's identity is considered either too obvious or the build-up to its reveal is considered too long.
And the manga readers specifically seem to have a lot of issues with how the last two episodes were adapted.
5) Finally, a common criticism seems to be that the art of the manga in this section of the story in particular is horrible.
This is pretty self-explanatory. This seems to have been especially common among people who just picked up the manga after the first season ended and season 2 didn't seem to be coming any moment soon.
All of the criticisms here seem to show up pretty commonly within the entire run of the story, too.
Particularly, in any arc of the story from the very first to last, people have quit it because it became too depressing, dark or horrific and have criticised the story for making the characters act stupid.
In a general sense, though, the picture I got is that when season 1 first aired, it was either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever.
As time goes on, people seem to grow to consider it as a sort of fun action spectacle, a blast as you're watching it, but not something that truly leaves a lasting impression.
As of now, people seem to attribute more value to it because of all of the little hints planted for the upcoming twists.
Interestingly enough, prior to the release of the anime, the story seems to have been considered a hidden gem of sorts in the West, enjoyed by a small group of people.
The only real criticism I saw in terms of people following the manga from the very beginning is for the training arc placed between the Trost and Female Titan arcs, and overlapping with the anime, the slow finale of the Trost arc. People seemed to consider both of these sections a pace breaker.
Season 2: Utgard arc/Clash of the Titans arc
During the 4-year gap between season 1 and 2, dropping the story wasn't actually even an issue of quality for many.
Many actually just seemed to drop it because no new material was coming out: there was only so many times they could rewatch season 1.
A portion of the fans had no desire to read the manga, in part because of its art, in part of just not being a fan of manga in general.
There also seemed to be a portion of people who thought that the story didn't hold up all that well under scrutiny, but the consensus I get is more along the lines of people falling off from the series and forgetting it, rather than straight-up growing to hate it.
There also seems to have been a group of viewers that disliked it because it was so popular; some just hated it because the fans were horrible in their eyes – this comes back later on, around S3 part 2 and seems to be a complaint currently as S4 part 1 has ended.
Most of the discussion during this 4 years, though, was either about when season 2 was coming or about the manga content.
This is where things get fun because the initial reception of arcs between the manga and anime readers/watchers seems to differ greatly at points. Most criticisms do show up for both, but there is some distinct differences in reception and the scale of reception.
1) In terms of arc-specific stuff, a massive point of criticism for the manga readers in this arc, to the point of dropping the story, was the Reiner and Bertholdt reveal.
Some people found it to be too vaguely foreshadowed, nonsensical, too casual and criticisms about how half of the 104th were Titans seemed to pop up a bunch.
In comparison, the anime crowd seemed to almost universally love it. There were detractors, but I much more frequently see the reveal and fight after it listed as the highlight of the season.
As the story went on, the manga crowd clearly seems to have warmed up to it, but, as said, some of the initial reaction seemed to be straight-up scathing.
Similar criticism seems to have been levied towards chapter 50, too.
People seemed to dislike that Eren was seemingly becoming more and more special with no rhyme or reason and called the moment where he controlled the Titans and promised to wrap the scarf around Mikasa cliché and out of nowhere.
So, plotting was the issue for a portion of people who followed the manga in this section.
2) Manga readers also seemed to be frustrated with the withholding of information and pacing.
An interesting point was actually chapter 46. It seems to have been heavily criticised as pointless by manga readers when it first came out, but the episode covering the same material seems to have been recieved pretty okay in comparison.
3) This criticism took an interesting form for anime viewers, as a portion of viewers seemed to be let down by getting so little for such a long (4-year long) wait. People wanted more.
4) Some of the anime crowd seemed to specifically dislike the lack of action in this season.
But at the same time, it was a quiet kind of season in terms of criticism outside of this – I didn't see much strong dislike for any specific content by itself, just that there was so little action. In fact, people seemed to really like the focus switching to the other characters.
5) I saw some hate for Reiner and Bertholdt, but it was comparatively pretty mild, to the point where I wasn't sure whether to mention it or not; I saw comparatively little hate for the characters specifically when I looked up what manga readers were saying.
There is hate for the Titan trio for sure when they are the main antagonists, but Annie seems to get the brunt of it related to season 1 and killing the scouts and Levi squad, but none of it seems to really actually dominate the discussion.
Other than that, I think some of the frustration with flashback material in the latter half of the season is most I could find in terms of some sort of general consensus for criticism for this season.
In a general sense, more than anything, it now just seemed to be treated as just another seasonal anime. The hype sort of cooled down and with it so did the more hyperbolic opinions.
So, initially when it came out in the manga, this arc seems to have been viewed as a massive roller coaster of reveals where people were divided on the quality of some of the big twists and when it first came out in the anime it seems to have been considered a satisfactory yet still not quite sufficient slice of story in terms of answers.
Presently it seems to be treated as kind of a transitional season/portion of the story with the biggest talking point being the big Titan reveals and fights and focus switching to other characters.
Season 3 part 1: Uprising arc (or Royal Government arc)
1) Above everything, this arc was pretty universally disliked because of the pacing when it first happened in the manga.
A lot of people found it boring because it seemed to cover so little ground every chapter: the answers were being danced around more than they've already had before.
2) There was frustration that Titans were no longer important to the plot and because the Titan mystery was one of the main interests for many who followed the story, a portion of people just sort of fell off.
3) A section of manga readers found the plot elements to be forced too: suddenly the Titans could alter memories and there was some wierd royal family conspiracy/cult thing going on?
Historia's decision in the cave and Eren finding the Titan serum on the ground in particular seem to be listed as rushed, forced or nonsensical.
4) Historia got a bunch of pushback as a character in general – she was listed as annoying, stupid or just terribly written. For a little bit some people really hated her character for siding with Rod and opposing the Survey Corps.
5) A portion of readers also seemed to take issue with the themes of the arc because to them they felt pretty preachy and generic. The "humans are the real monsters" theme had been done many times before and some didn't see anything interesting or new in it.
5) On the flip side, season 3 part 1 seemed to be fairly positively recieved by anyone but the manga fans, who had issues with some moments being omitted or condensed, such as some of the moments with Reeves, Levi and Historia.
6) Of course, a portion of anime viewers had similar issues with the story, but rather than pacing or even any of the larger plot stuff, the biggest complaint I saw thrown around was that it was no longer about fighting Titans.
7) The other flaw I saw consistently listed by the anime fans for this portion of the story was actually that some of it felt rushed: particularly Eren's breakdown in season 3 episode 7.
Otherwise, in terms of criticism of the anime, the "mild" vibes that started with the Clash of the Titans arc continue here: people don't seem to strongly hate or love anything about it. It's a universal "good" or "okay".
So, initially, manga readers were really critical of basically everything in this arc: the pacing, many of the plot points, Historia's character, the themes explored here.
As time went on the opinions on it seem to have softened a little bit, but actually not by that much. Many still seem to at least consider it to be the slowest arc of the story.
As for the anime version of it, people seem to put it together with the Clash of the Titans arc as a transitional sort of portion of the story.
I didn't see any particularly strong dislike for it, while the stuff people seemed to like was once again the exploration and development of characters that weren't part of the main three.
This arc is unique in a sense because Isayama himself seems to agree with some of the criticisms for it: he mentioned in an interview he wasn't as satisfied with how this portion of the story turned out, as other portions, either.
Season 3 part 2: Return to Shiganshina arc
1) I will start with the anime here because the overwhelming consensus for it seems to be that it can do no wrong.
At the very least, the voices which express negativity for it seem incredibly rare.
2) There seems to be one fairly common point of contention, though: the allegorical elements of the story. People love the story in general, but the basement reveal and revealed Marleyan/Eldian conflict pretty often gets criticised for a potentially flawed and/or careless execution for what it is trying to convey.
This is where the claims of the story being anti-semitic, fascist and pro-military (among other stuff) began. People find the historical parallels clumsy, uncomfortable or straight-up insulting and disgusting.
3) On the manga side of things, though, plot was the main issue. Everything up to the serum decision in chapter 83-84 seems to have been pretty well recieved, but stuff afterwards seem to be more iffy.
There is some complaining about how Reiner seems to keep surviving and his ability to transfer his consciousness into his spine, but other than that it seems to have been recieved well.
But just like some of the key moments in other arcs, Levi's decision of saving Armin over Erwin lead to people dropping the series. This moment also brought a lot of hate towards Eren, Mikasa and Armin: they were often blamed for Erwin's death when the chapters first came out.
Equally, the basement reveal that humanity was alive outside of the walls all along seems to have been initially criticised for either being underwhelming, being a generic twist which has been done before or ruining the setting of the story (comparisons to the movie The Village were made equal parts negatively and positively).
The actual fallout from these twists seems to have been recieved fairly positively, though.
4) Here's also where a new consistent complaint emerges with especially among the manga fans: confusion.
Unlike the episodes, the basement chapters actually initially didn't attract that much complaining in the allegory department.
The overwhelming feeling actually seems to have been confusion (or on the positive side of things: intrigue and delight because answers finally happened).
People were confused because too much information was thrown at them at once and they didn't see any connection or consistency in those chapters with what came before in the story. To a portion of readers, it all felt out of nowhere.
While there was similar confusion among the anime fans, it dissapated much quicker and despite having much less time to stew on the story, people seemed to put together what was going on much quicker.
The biggest contrast in terms of the reception of the story was the serum decision. The entire episode seemed to be recieved extremely well in comparison to the chapters: praised for its direction and ability to make an episode of just talking intense. As much as I could find, there wasn't a massive storm of death threats and people dropping the series after the episode aired as there was when these chapters first happened.
In fact, in the time between season 3 and 4, I saw a bunch of people come back and newcomers jump on the story because they heard good things about season 3 part 2. I couldn't find too many reactions like this for season 2 and season 3 part 1.
In a general sense, outside of a few specific plot points being contentious and some confusion, for manga readers this arc seems to have been generally recieved pretty positively.
For anime viewers it's the best thing since sliced bread.
And I think the opinion on them has remained similar since for both groups: there is still contention over who should've been saved in the serum argument and whether it makes sense to this day.
Season 4 part 1: Marley arc
1) For the manga readers, confusion continues to be actually the most prominent theme here. From when we're thrown into the battle on the Marley side to when the Paradis crew arrives in Liberio to the aftermath on Paradis, people are confused about everything: when the story is happening, where the story is happening, why the story is happening.
Once again, the confusion is considerably smaller for the anime viewers, but absolutely basically every detail seems to be listed as confusing by someone.
2) A portion of the readers and viewers alike really hates Gabi. They hate her for killing fan favourite Sasha and they think she is single-minded, annoying and just a horrible character.
She's listed as a forced parallel to Eren and poorly developed, without anything to contribute to the story. There is a lot of different colourful language used to describe her character.
3) Thus, one of the contentious twists in this portion of the story is Gabi killing Sasha.
The other is Historia being pregnant.
The latter is criticised for ruining one of the best characters of the series by basically erasing her relevance and personality and the former is criticised for having a fan favourite character be killed by a new character in a forced/telegraphed way and all of the elements listed above.
Particularly the twist with Historia lead to quite a bit of disappointment from a portion of readers and viewers alike.
Both twists mostly made people sour on the story rather than actively drop it when they first happened, but sort of as a chain reaction lead to some dropping the story later on.
4) Looking back at the reception of this arc in the manga, there was also criticism of the focus shifting to Marley for characters people didn't care about in general, not just Gabi.
None of the new characters were interesting to many at first.
5) Stemming from the above point, people seemed to take an issue with how long the setup took to get to the action because they didn't care about the new cast and the themes of seeing the other side in a war as human felt pretty heavy-handed and preachy for some, similar to the Uprising arc's themes.
6) When it comes to anime-specific dislikes, a portion of people really seem to hate the CG usage and animation style of season 4 in general. This complaint seems to show up moreso from people following the manga, but there are people only following the anime who feel this way, too.
A very specific and loud criticism I see around related to animation and art is Mikasa's new design. Some find it to be too masculine.
7) Once again, like with season 3 part 2 a portion of people also seems to take issue with the allegorical elements of the story and once again, this mostly seems to be among anime viewers, though it definitely becomes more prominent for manga readers as questions are answered.
In comparison, though, the anime once again seems to be pretty universally loved. I saw some deviating opinions here and there, but in a general sense people really seem to like this story itself despite the criticisms they might list.
It's rather fresh in anime viewers' minds as it just finished a week or so ago as of the publishing of this post, so there isn't much evolution in opinion to have happened, but manga readers definitely seem to have warmed up to this arc quite a bit in hindsight.
Season 4 part 2(?): Final arc
Well, here we part ways with the anime-onlies. If any of you are reading this and don't want spoilers, stop reading here.
This arc seems to be pretty universally liked up to specifically chapter 123. The Paths chapters seem to be considered by many to be the best material in the series.
Afterwards things get complicated.
1) A big overall complaint I see floating around for this section of the story is that everything after 123 feels rushed and is not given enough time to breathe.
This mostly seems to include:
-The plot thread related to Connie's mom.
-Annie's more detailed backstory and character arc.
-The alliance's confrontation with the other Jeagerists besides Eren.
-Zeke's realisation and decision to give himself up.
2) Especially the very final chapters, starting from about 133, the story in general seems to have twists and plotting people once again label as too vaguely foreshadowed or nonsensical:
-Annie randomly meeting up with everyone else.
-The alliance getting away only thanks to Hange's sacrifice.
-Eren and Ymir being able to bring back past Titans and using them as weapons and the old shifters briefly coming back the same way Ymir did.
-Falco turning into a flying Titan and having Zeke's abilities, also him being able to control the Titan so easily and saving everyone.
-Levi being in action at all.
-Pretty much everything the alliance does is listed as plot convenience by a portion of fans, but down to the basics, the biggest complaint is that they survive so long against the special Titans.
-Eren sparing the alliance and letting them fight.
-Eren coming back as a Colossal Titan.
-The giant Titan spine parasite having spinal fluid/gas in it.
-Mikasa knowing where Eren is and her dream with him.
-The Rumbling's movement being really plot convenient.
3) Another common thread I see is Eren's motivations being really confusing for a portion of fans.
A portion of people seems to still be confused about what Eren wants out of all of this and frustrated that the story isn't clear enough about it.
4) People also take issue with Historia still not being addressed.
Her pregnancy mystery was set up back in chapter 107 and hasn't still been fully resolved by the final chapter 32 chapters later and this very much frustrates people.
The general impression I have from looking at the reaction for this arc is that there are two big camps: people who side with Eren and people who side with those opposing Eren and depending on what happens, one or the other side criticises the story for it.
Outside of this divide it's a mess of reception ranging from absolute undying love to extremely strong hate.
There is also a focus on really loving some specific moments and plot points.
People seem to consistently love how the horror of the Rumbling is depicted.
People seem to really love chapter 131 in general.
There is a lot of love for Mikasa kicking ass in 135 and the girls kicking ass in chapter 136. Same goes for specifically Armin's conversation with Zeke (again, by itself, not anything around it). People list Hange's sacrifice as rushed, but there is a lot of love for the specific moment where she flies in to fight the Colossals.
In any case, what I get out of the reactions is the arc being divisive rather than straight-up hated: in a way, we're right back to season 1 territory of hyperboles.
It'll be interesting to see how the reaction changes by the time the final portion of the story is adapted into the anime.
The response to the final chapter as of me writing this post is even more of a mess than anything for the arc as a whole.
Every single line of dialog seems to be divisive.
But there is one clear divide I've noticed: those who liked Eren as a stoic schemer hate what was done to him and those who didn't understand and were confused about why he ended up this way seem to be pretty fine with where he ended up.
As with the entire arc, it'll be interesting to see how opinions change by the time this portion of the story is animated.
So, my aim with this post was to compile general criticisms levied at the series at different points of time and presently, to sort of have a vantage point on how it is viewed now that the original story has ended.
As such, I don't have the anime impressions for the very final arc of the story.
I will probably make an addendum to this post once the story is done in the anime and then this post will forever just lay here unless Tumblr is wiped off the face of the internet.
My plan was to sort of check up on it a year, 5 years or 10 years later or the like just to see how the reception of the story changes as time goes on.
Will it be an enduring series or will it be forgotten?
That said, what's up with the difference in reception between the manga readers and anime viewers?
Turns out almost every single big turning point in the series has had a good amount of detractors especially when it first happens in the manga.
While season 3 part 2 and season 4 part 1 barely seem to be doing anything wrong in the eyes of the anime viewers.
I think the answer is actually pretty obvious: the manga readers get a much smaller slice of the story and much more time to stew on that smaller slice of story.
Because they get a much smaller slice of the story per month, people get to analyse it down to the tiniest of details, of course, but any holes they might notice might stay holes for a much longer period of time than is the case with the anime.
A few episodes cover months of material in the span of weeks.
Thus making it so the context and more detailed explanations for twists get given out much quicker in the anime. There is much less time to dissect everything, but also less actual reason for complaining because answers arrive much faster.
Many of the anime viewers are also manga readers, so rewatching the story also allows people to really take in the details and notice hints they might have missed the first time (twists might also get additional foreshadowing in the anime). People generally really get the time to stew on the story by the time it's adapted into the anime, too.
Basically, the anime reactions might also be the way they are because a portion of the people watching the anime have already dissected the story and now get a new perspective on it.
Consuming the story in chunks every month also sort of forces a "in the moment" mindset on to the readers: people tend to just focus on one chapter at a time and context from previous chapters is left to the wayside because the previous chapter(s) happened (a) month(s) ago.
Additionally, I actually think the quality of the art and scanlations might play a role here, too.
I think for some people, what's going on is confusing because many characters look the same or the art is too rough to understand what is happening and especially early on, there were only fan scanlations to go off of, which added to the confusion: fan translations tend to be a mess.
There are issues with the official translations, but most of the false information seems to come from fan scans.
The anime version in general also seems to be the more popular version of the story, at least in the West. More viewers also equals more eyes looking at the story, which again might help people notice details they hadn't before and start seeing the story in a more positive (or negative) light as a result.
So, I think the format also plays a role in the reception of the story: it'll be interesting to see how people who start the story when it's done and don't have to wait for it at all will feel about it.
All of this said, this was an interesting undertaking for me.
It's the emerging patterns that were of interest to me the most.
Criticism for this series always loops back to the same places regardless of context.
I think this entire thing gives a pretty clear perspective about what kind of storytelling people might want out of stories to consider them good: from plotting, themes and worldbuilding to characterization.
I'd need to do this with other series to truly see trends, but this confirms a couple of hypotheses for me I have about people's storytelling preferences in western fandom circles:
- People don't really seem to like very emotional and loud characters, specifically.
- There seems to be a strong desire for everything to be logical, smart and right.
- There is a disproportionate leaning towards disliking female characters.
- Plotting seems to be the most important element in a story people seem to care about next to worldbuilding.
At some point in time I might try to do this with other series, but my attempt to get a broader perspective on what people dislike about the story here was equal parts fun and unpleasant because that's just how the internet works: some people just say some pretty horrible things over it to each other.
I've gotten my share of different perspectives on the story and found some pretty interesting discussion surrounding it, but this is only my interpretation of the information I personally found going back to older discussion and have gathered over the years.
It would be interesting to see what you guys have seen as common criticism for the series and what conclusions you might reach based on the information I put down here: any feedback or questions about this post are welcome.
And as said above, it'll be interesting to see how the story will be recieved from here on out.
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