Attack on Titan Review

The construction is the achievement. Isayama plants the basement, the wall composition, the shape of the first titan attack and a dozen throwaway lines in the opening volumes, and the answers when they come are the ones the setup implied rather than replacements for it, which is why rereading the early chapters is a different experience from reading them. The world building goes further than the genre needed, into a colonial history, a diaspora, a press, an arms race and a set of grievances that all read as recognisable rather than allegorical.

Isayama's art is the weak leg. His anatomy is awkward, his action is often hard to parse, and the aerial manoeuvring that the adaptation made spectacular is frequently a muddle on the page, though his grotesques are genuinely disturbing and the layouts improve steadily. The final arc asks readers to accept a lead they have followed for thirty volumes committing something unforgivable, and the last chapter divides its readership to this day. Even those who reject the ending rarely dispute that the book earned the right to attempt it.