Review by Frank Plowright
Attack on Titan concerns the recently graduated military personnel drafted in for the seemingly impossible task of protecting their walled community from rampaging mindless giants of assorted sizes known as Titans. Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman were the two primary characters in the opening volume, which concluded with Eren coming to a surprisingly gruesome end. Even more surprisingly, Attack on Titan 2 closed with his return, after he’d seemingly managed to control the Titan who’d eaten him from within, causing it to attack other Titans.
Rather than picking up with that shocker, Hajime Isayama keeps the suspense going longer, and instead opens Attack on Titan 3 by spotlighting a new character, Captain Levi in charge of expedition surveys. He’s tasked with repairing the breach in the outermost of the three concentric walls that let the Titans in five years previously.
When Isayama returns to Eren it’s for some shocking and thrilling revelations, again requiring the use of a handy flashback. It seems there’s far more to Eren and to his father than has been assumed. It’s a fascinating disclosure with momentous possibilities, and with-holding it for so long is great piece of plotting.
On the whole, Isayama’s a better writer than artist. The Titans are individual and goofy, and the human cast have suitable emotional responses, but the art is functional in constantly moving the story forward rather than presenting images you’ll want to look at again. When it comes to an action scene Isayama’s preference is for successions of slightly blurred images with plenty of speed lines rather than panel to panel continuity showing how people move from one place to another, which can make them confusing.
By the end of the volume Armin has also undergone a form of transformation from the weak victim, and unusually Isayama has slowed the pace. There’s an invaluable task that the military now have the means to achieve, but plenty of people only see the possible risk involved, not the far greater reward. Plenty of persuasion is required, and once a decision has been made Isayama subverts it beautifully.
This is another fine action volume where much changes from start to finish, leaving a dilemma for Attack on Titan 4. The first three volumes are combined as the first Attack on Titan Omnibus.
