Attack on Titan - Debasement Yourself and Face Bloodshed

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > VEGETA > Attack on Titan - Debasement Yourself and Face Bloodshed

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

IShallRiseAgain posted:

I'm thinking that the story is actually set in the future, and the giants were created by humanity. The reason the giants eat humans is because they need to in order to reproduce. The weak spot for every giant is actually what is left of the original human used to produce the giant. Eren's father was driven mad by this knowledge and that is why he kept it a secret and ran off to do something

Based on the latest chapter, it looks like Eren is sitting at the nape of the neck. If every titan has a human there, it would makes sense that killing the human stops the titan. As for how humans become titans, uh, I have no idea.

Also, wow, this manga is amazing. Really, really, just, quite fantastic.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 05:56

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 15:02

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

tsob posted:

The fact that Eren attacked and ignored the pleas of even Misaka when he went in weak and sickly makes this a good possibility really. Maybe there's some other faction of humans out there raising very weak humans and growing them in to Titans to keep control or something?

It's hard to tell whether he was being aggressive or just attacking the humans because there were no nearby titans. When he first spawned as a titan, he had an overwhelming desire to kill titans. Lacking any easy targets, maybe he reverts to a more standard titan mindset?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 06:20

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Misaka's vague resemblance to Alita combined with the fact that I recently reread Berserk means that I'm going to go reread BAA (again). Misaka actually acts kind of like a much more mature Alita.

I've actually been surprised by a lot of things while reading this. I hope it continues to do surprising things and not fall back onto boring patterns.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 07:48

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Sindai posted:

As cool as Mikasa is it is pretty funny that her superhuman skill is implied to come from being the last half-Japanese person on Earth.

It is? I thought she was just really strong. I know that they said she was Oriental (I think that's what they said?) but I didn't notice that being tied to the source of her strength.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 07:58

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

tsob posted:

I didn't think it was either. The source of her strength is implied to be the fact that she considers herself dead, and is living solely to protect Eren. She's not afraid to die at all, whereas everyone else is understandably loving terrified.

Also, I love the detail the mangaka puts in to eyes on some of the older characters. There's a lot of lines around their eyes which really adds to their age. One nice bit of detail in otherwise noticably sketchy art.

That ties into how dead her eyes look! This doesn't seem very spoilery; I cropped all of the significant text from Sledeau's link:

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 08:06

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Zorak posted:

I thought it was just because she was kind of badass? Not everything has to have a crazy explanation guys. Sometimes a girl is just a badass

Yeah, I thought she was just awesome. So...why exactly was the doctor visiting the family? I forgot.

For a newer manga like this, what are the rules for spoiler tags? Just do them for a while until the thread is reasonably long, then fall back to standard operating procedure?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 08:27

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Zorak posted:

Let's just keep it up until a few pages in since some people are just starting and trying to gauge impressions, I'm sure.

I figured he was just, you know... being a doctor. They already established in chapter 1 that his father is a famous doctor who does medical work for a lot of families and helps them. He was "taking the boat" since his medical treatment was actually used further into the city (aka the more ritzier parts I take it).

Also, I must say, the revelation from the commander about the truth of the attempt to "counterattack" the giants and the 50% loss was perhaps the most of all, even if it was realistic as hell.

I'm just all :tinfoil:

now because of whatever he was doing to Eren. He would have had much less control over doing experiments on other people as opposed to his child. Misaka was apparently at least fairly unique due to her heritage, and with his above average mobility and history of insidious experiments, I assumed he was doing something sinister. He probably was just been doing doctor things, though.

I really enjoy the world building both in and out of the actual story. If there's an important detail that wouldn't fit nicely in the story, it goes at the end of the chapter instead of getting shoehorned somewhere awkward.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 08:37

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Mo_Steel posted:

I'm kindof curious why his Giant doesn't regenerate but instead he does; we haven't seen him regenerate except for while he was in his Giant form though.

His titan was regenerating the first time he was in it. He blew his fingers off when he punched the head off of another titan and his digits grew back from little nubs.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2011 20:04

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Illuyankas posted:

I'm looking forward to finding out how the sixty metre tall titan can move so fast and so quietly, that it can appear and disappear next to a heavily guarded wall without anyone noticing.

I'm also interested in why it doesn't do anything more than kick through walls. It's acting more like it's testing the humans to see what they're really capable of. Or maybe seeing how well the titans can actually do?

# ¿ Jun 3, 2011 03:33

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

PaleIrishGuy posted:

Well, all titans appear with that steam. Remember that the titans do the same regenerating thing that Eren does, which is why they need to hit that weak point. I think someone even calls it Titan Steam at one point.

The titans are all really hot. It says it when it's talking about how they're big, weird, and lack reproductive organs. They also ignore everything that isn't a human. It looked like it was boiling rain, but I don't know if that was the intention.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2011 09:41

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Elias_Maluco posted:

Well, they do have grenades.

And when the giants are inside the cities or near the walls, it would be a heck of a lot smarter to just shoot then on the weak spot from above (shooters standing on tall buildings or at the top of the walls).

The "3D fighting" is a lot cooler though.

The grenades would need to be insanely powerful to actually kill the titans. The swords they use are pretty much coiled metal that blows through flesh (if I read it correctly). Assuming they're using fragmentation grenades, that's not going to even damage the titans.

It's also not very quick to aim a cannon. They also aren't very accurate.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2011 19:32

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Elias_Maluco posted:

Seems like they also got rifles.

And all that technology genious they spent making incredible grappling hook things could have been better used making better rifles, stronger/faster cannons, more powerful grenades, etc, way more pratical and believable weapons.

Anyway, that�s a manga and soldiers jumping around with swords and grappling hooks are very cool, so why are we even discussing that

You really think a rifle will do the amount of damage they need to do? :psyduck:

Just accept that that is the route that it went. Maybe before the titans appeared, there was on really prosperous nation that was never attacked because it was so much involved in trade routes. They started making grappling harnesses in order to make iconic towers that dotted the pre-titan landscape. With the salvaged knowledge of those harnesses, the survivors were able to make the fighting gear. There, now there's a backstory.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 06:57

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Elias_Maluco posted:

What do you honestly think is more realistic: developing stronger rifles capable of punching trough the giants flesh, or developing incredible grappling hook things fueled by gas and hyper-strong blades and then fight the giants in a spider-man fashion?

Have you seen how much flesh they need to remove? They would need to develop very powerful grenade launchers instead of just rifles.

I guess making the better grenade launchers would make sense.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 00:14

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

It's possible that they stopped developing large weaponry because for a long, long time no titans came within the walls. They needed highly portable weapons because the only group that fought was the scouting legion that was not within the walls. As they would be fighting in relatively unknown territory, they needed a portable weapon with very high mobility.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 07:22

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

temple posted:

The 3D system makes sense for no other reason than it allows the defenders to scale their own walls. If you imagine the giants as walls, it allows them to melee attack something taller than themselves. The real thing that doesn't add up to me is why they have to cut the neck. If they blow the head off, it regenerates. Well aim lower. Seems obvious. Hopefully, the writer has more to explain.

The heads are small. Their torsos are enormous and bulky. And if you look at the earlier chapters, they use it to scale trees. The 3D system was designed for the people who were actually engaging in combat. It's been over one hundred years since they had to fight on their own turf. The 3D system is for mobility (humans can't outrun titans, but the 3D system helps a lot) and maneuverability (they can easily move vertically).

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 07:38

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Sindai posted:

In fact they even made a point about how they developed those big scattershot cannons that sometimes do enough damage to the neck to kill a titan when hitting them from the front, but not consistently enough to rely on them.

And there are a fuckton of titans. Once they can get at you they just keep coming.

Here it is:

Bonus:

Bisse posted:

Since that is their weak point for an unknown reason which is a mystery! Which is part of what makes this manga so great, the unknown, mysteries!

It's not really a mystery any more though since that is exactly where Eren was sitting when he was a Titan. So obviously there are people at that spot, or remnants of people at least...

Eren is almost certainly not a normal titan, but I agree that there are probably people there. How they end up might be different, though.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 07:42

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

temple posted:

Yeah. I figure if I was a giant and I knew I could regenerate, then I'd lower my chin. That way the force of the shot would be distributed along my skull and maybe spare my neck or take off the neck and head in one piece (allowing the lower body to be regenerated). Its like when a street fighter take a blow on the top of his head because of the thickness of the skull.

Which all of this is a totally unneccesary explanation. Yes, aiming is hard. So is using a propane grapple hook scalpel attack. Whatever, every manga needs a gimmick. If the people from AotG were Americans, they drat well better be able to shoot the neck of giants.

It's already been said in and out of the manga that cannons are really hard to aim. They are useful in ye olde combat where everyone stood in a line and ran forward. They were good on boats where the target was another (big) boat. When your target is a single enemy with a rather small weak point, they are pretty much useful. They are good for knocking over or otherwise temporarily disabling titans. The grapple-gear is also useful for mobility.

You seem to have missed this, so I'm going to be clear.

:siren:

For the last hundred years, no combat was done within the walls. They were going out to fight the titans in titan controlled land. :siren:

They need a way to get behind titans (i.e., mobility increasing equipment) and a way to escape from behind or near titans (i.e., mobility increasing equipment). Titans are fast and strong. The humans need to be able to get in, kill them, and get out.

Also titans are way too stupid to block anything. They walked into a wall of spikes and got stuck. These are not high level thinkers.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 08:04

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

dis astranagant posted:

Monthly? The guy translating it right now only does whole tanks, so more like yearly.

How long does it take for threads to be archived?

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 03:55

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Nilbop posted:

Zorak is watching over this with goodwill and grace so I wouldn't worry

Based on other infrequent manga, there would be intermittent posts of "there's no update, sorry, but [news]."

Actually, now I'm curious. The HxH thread appears to have died. How long until others follow suit?

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 04:04

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Nilbop posted:

It's been literally a year since that thing updated. If this ever falls that far behind people will just forget about it and it'll be a pleasant surprise when it reappears.

I will never forget. :911:

No matter how slow it is, at least there's progress. HxH...

# ¿ Jul 12, 2011 04:36

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Well, I spent a while reworking the translation. About half was retyped and the other half was ye olde fashioned moving the letters around.

Anyway, if it's bad I'll just take it down again. Here's a download link. I think it's worth reading? :ohdear:

# ¿ Jul 30, 2011 02:52

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Sticky Pockets posted:

Despite it's various shortcomings, I like this manga a considerable amount. Just powered through the whole thing in one sitting.

Also, it's not as rad as Feriowind's, but I drew Mikasa as one of my warmups today.

This is really good! I like it.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 03:02

Elysiume: Aug 13, 2009; Alone, she fights.

Feriowind posted:

The rest of volume 4 is out!!

http://www.mangareader.net/shingeki-no-kyojin/12

These seem like they should be before the chapters that just came out. Is this a flashback or something?

edit: Oh, looks like the first few chapters are.

Elysiume fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Aug 4, 2011

# ¿ Aug 4, 2011 02:40