Is anyone reading 進撃の巨人?

I did already mention a couple of times that I’m just not a fan of anime and manga (I really tried… ) except for Shirokuma Cafe. However, 進撃の巨人 (Attack on Titan) is always praised as being so good and “the GoT of anime”, so I’ve been watching it for a while and I find it bearable. After the latest episodes, things are really to become somewhat interesting and I feel like I might be interested enough to also read the manga which is great because I like having something that I want to read not just for the sake of practice.

I was surprised that this isn’t discussed here more – I thought Attack on Titan was supposed to be super popular and a big deal? But I have no idea what I’m talking about :wink:

:arrow_right: Is anyone else here reading this manga? What is your experience with it?

I’m currently at 第4話 and I hope my pace will pick up soon because at my current pace it would take me forever to finish it. I would not be opposed to buying the manga for my Kindle but there is no way to look up words easily as far as I know so instead I’m reading scans with the OCR manga reader for Android. It is better than nothing but still quite annoying… How are you guys reading your manga so that you can efficiently look up new words? How long does it take you to read one story (”episode"?) or an entire volume? Did you get faster after reading a couple of volumes?

I also sometimes find the jumps in the story a bit confusing. Initially, I thought that maybe the pages were sorted incorrectly but that just seems to be the way the story is told. I don’t know whether that is because I’m not used to reading manga (though I read a lot of comics as a child) or because this one is having some especially confusing jumps.

I also read that the first 40 stories are not especially great (?) and the art style gets better later on. If I started at a later point, it wouldn’t take me as long to get to the point where the manga reaches the part of the story that is not yet covered by the anime. On the other hand, if I’m going to read it, I might as well do it right. I’d love to get someone’s thoughts on that too.

(I’m in my mid thirties, posting about a comic series that features human eating giants that even my most nerdy colleagues find too creepy and that I’m actively trying to get into; I don’t know what is happening to me! send help!)

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Nope, because these types of manga seem to never end and I don’t want to read a series that’s too long. (It’s at 28 volumes as of writing this post.) I wish more series would end within around 10-15 volumes, because then I’d be more likely to read them. A couple other great examples are Chihayafuru (41 volumes) and Akatsuki no Yona (29 volumes). I’d love to read either of them, but I don’t want to spend that kind of time or money on one series.


I’m going to answer the other questions generally since I’m not reading this series.

I read physical manga (and books) and I just keep jisho.org up on my computer. Whether I still end up having to look up kanji by stroke/part much depends greatly on the series, ranging from almost never (放浪息子) to a couple times per chapter (ご注文はうさぎですか).

So this of course will depend on the series, but as far as 放浪息子 goes, I went from reading about 2 volumes a month to reading 4 volumes in the month of June (and probably 5 by the time the month is over). So generally, if you are reading the same series consistently it should get easier and you should be able to read it faster the further you get into it. If you’re not seeing any improvement after a few volumes, it might be above your current level.

Well, I’m very *ahem* anal when it comes to stuff like this, so you probably shouldn’t go by just me… But I would be very reluctant to start a series in the middle just because I’ve watched the anime. Having (partially) read a few series that I watched anime adaptions of first, I find it interesting comparing the two mediums and see what was changed or cut when it was adapted into an anime.

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Mostly answering about the series in general since I’m not reading it in Japanese.

I like the beginning a lot (which would be the first season, I didn’t watch season 2), then it starts focusing on stuff I didn’t really care about, but then it starts getting interesting again around chapter 90. That was around 2 years ago, and I haven’t caught up since then. (I hear since then it’s been pretty good.)

I recommend it in general if you like that sort of stuff (action, mystery, drama), but if you only want action, you’re probably going to be bored by a bunch of chapters. Overall, I really like the direction it took near the last chapters I read, so I’m basically just waiting to continue reading it when I find the time.

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I see, that makes sense. You seem to be in the good position to be interested in a lot of different Japanese content anyway so why get stuck for so long on just one series.

My impression is that the series will end in the next 1-2 years or something like that, so a foreseeable future. So there is time to enjoy waiting for new volumes and discussing theories but it will eventually be over. And it seems to have a story that was well thought out for the entire timespan before starting to write the series. Those are both things I enjoy :slight_smile:

(Although I could do with even less action than it already has, @Kazzeon :wink: ).

I see. I spend so much time in front of my computer already so I find it more relaxing if I can get away from it for Japanese related stuff as much as possible. I love my remote job but sometimes it is good to have a life too and as long as I sit in front of my PC, it feels a bit like work.
I’ll just have to finish WaniKani faster so that I have to look up fewer kanji then. :slight_smile:

That sounds promising. I feel like my speed already increased a little bit but I’m not sure if it was just wishful thinking or being fed up with looking up a lot of words. But I can already see that I’m picking up vocabulary that is used repeatedly so that gives me hope.

:wink:
I’m usually the same. I think I just read that a lot of other people were doing this, so I considered it but I probably couldn’t live with it. I’m very much a “well, I enjoyed LOTR, I might as well read the The Silmarillion while I’m at it” kind of person so I think I’ll enjoy it much more if I just keep going from the beginning. You talked me out of that stupid idea. More time to get used to everything until I reach the chapters that contain new content.

I also lost interest in season 2, I can’t really remember why anymore but season 3 part 2 has been really interesting.

Well, it will take me quite some time to get there but I’m looking forward to it.

Thank you both for your input! Let’s see how this goes… :slight_smile:

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I’m fully caught up on the manga (in English) and wow there has never been a better glow up than AoT. Up until chapter 80ish the series was good, solidly above average but nothing too great but once the current arc and the one before it hits it takes on a whole other level of just really good story telling. It really has developed this certain maturity that really makes me anticipate the start of every month because of it (before I was just like “oh yeah I guess the new chapter of AoT is out”).

Also, the series is on its final arc and will likely wrap up within the next 10 to 15 or so chapters so it will finish!

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That’s not for nothing though. Part of my speed improvement has certainly been from learning when it’s okay to gloss over things. Sometimes I’ll read several pages of a manga (sentences with novels) before deciding whether or not it’s worth going back to see what I missed. Sometimes it’s not worth going back if you understood the bulk of what happened and if you’re excited to keep reading.

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It… it is? I’ve only just finished volume 23, to be fair, but I was getting the distinct impression they were just starting on a much grander story arc, like the point in the Bleach manga where Ichigo stops fighting dime-a-dozen Hollows and discovers the existence of the entire Soul Society. Only much later in the series, of course.

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I watched the anime (haven’t seen the last four or five episodes that ran recently yet, though) and I’m quite fond of it, even though usually action/fantasy is not my cup of tea. :blush:

I had a look at the first few chapters of the manga too, and was surprised to see that the anime adaption seems to adhere pretty closely to the original, so I decided not to continue reading. Do the anime and manga diverge at some point, though, storywise?

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Well, as a total expert on the topic… I think there are some differences like story parts that are missing (or maybe they will be told at a later point for narrative reasons?). And based on what I read, the characters are a bit more nuanced in the manga.

I did however not do a lot of reading on this topic yet since I’m worried about spoilers. This is another reason for wanting to read the manga: I want to read all the fan wikis and crazy theories :smiley: without having to worry about spoilers. There must be discussions about this somewhere in Japanese, it would be great to get into reading those.

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Haha, between us experts then… :laughing:

I think some parts of the manga that did not make it into the main anime were instead released as OVA, later. This, for example:

I might be wrong though, and those weren’t in the original manga either.

When I said “…adhere pretty closely to the original…”, I meant right down to the panels. Having seen the anime first, I recognized several shots immediately. As if they took the manga as the storyboard for the anime.

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True, I got the same feeling from it. The fact that the art style of the manga sometimes looks more like a rough sketch to me, gives it even more of a storybook feeling.

Apparently, the art style improves over time?


Hajime Isayama was born in 1986 and started the series in his early twenties so we can see him improving over time as he gains more experience.

I did totally not just learn all of this on google in the last 5 minutes.

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Wow, the difference is incredible - especially those two panels you posted first! :astonished:

I never read that far, but maybe I should give it another shot. :thinking:

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I do however feel like those panels were selected because the difference was especially drastic. I had a quick look at a recent volume (with my eyes half closed, always worried about spoilers… ) and not everything looks as nice as in that comparison shot. But I think one would get used to that over time.


I did btw switch to reading on my laptop, using https://www.kanjitomo.net

I would prefer not having to use my laptop for this but it is just easier to look things up that way compared to the Android OCR reader.

Well considering the fact that Eren only has like a year or so left to live (more or less, I can’t remember the exact number), it can’t, by necessity, go on for too much longer. I’m fairly certain that the manga will end with (spoilers for volume 27ish I think) Eren dying one way or the other, maybe in a Code Geass style ending. Actually, the current plot development REALLY mirrors Code Geass, and the whole emperor Lelouch arc was like the last 5 or so episodes which parallels revolutionist Eren as of now, but that’s just speculation from me.

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Just gonna speak to this bit cos I don’t think (?) anyone else has addressed it. I’ve only watched the anime, but this was actually precisely why I dropped it after not too many episodes. I find it very hard to get into series with multiple massive time skips. It throws me off, and makes it harder for me to start empathising with and investing in the characters, as the plot is obviously king. I also found it frankly confusing in this series.

So no, I don’t think it’s particularly standard to have these kinds of time skips, though it’s certainly not some crazy peculiarity of this series. I think it’s unusual in having quite a few all in succession.

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I see. I didn’t notice it too much in the anime to be honest, I probably just assumed that they would lead me to wherever they wanted to go. But with the manga it was so confusing, I thought I had opened an incorrect page and was suddenly missing a chapter or two.
By now I know that no, it is not me, it is just random flashback/forward time again. :woman_shrugging:

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Wow, that look confusing. I’m sure it’s a powerful tool, but I couldn’t deal with reading on my laptop I think. :disappointed_relieved:

I usually read paperback and have my iPad open with jisho.org or some other dictionary, or on some manga app with the dictionary on split-screen.

Hmm, I can’t remember noticing those much in the anime, is it really that bad? :thinking:

I’m not a fan either, it is just not as relaxing and I spend so much time on my laptop already. But it is soo convenient. I thought I would give myself time for the first couple of volumes to look up as much as I want before I start reading faster and that can be done so much faster this way.

The app looks very confusing but you just point your mouse over the characters and I would say 90% of the time it immediately shows the answer in the text field on the bottom. You just have to ignore everything else that goes on in the rest of the app. I guess someone just felt like it is not a proper Java application if you don’t make it ugly and confusing :wink: :angel: (but I’m glad that I have it, no matter how clumsy it is)

I wish I had an app like that for iOS! But I couldn’t find any nice alternatives yet. I’ve talked to a couple of people who have good OCR apps already and I hope I can convince one of them to make an OCR manga reader… :smiley: :crossed_fingers:

What?I thought the consensus was that it is a train wreck? I only watched the first season and thought it was quite bad. Does it get better?

First season is rated 8.5 on MyAnimeList, which is pretty high all things considered. So your opinion is definitely the minority one. And apparently the third season part 2 is currently the 2nd highest rated anime of all time with a 9.18 rating, though it is still airing so the rating is bound to drop a little.

Oh and just to give my personal opinion on the matter, I don’t think season 3 part 2 is the 2nd best anime of all time (especially considering I think the next 2 coming arcs absolutely blows the arc covered in season 3 part 2 out of the water), but it is pretty damn good.

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