I’d like to start by saying that before this, I had never watched an anime a day in my life. Anime has always been one of those things that took me an embarrassingly long time to get into. Maybe it was because, as a kid, my TV diet consisted mostly of Nickelodeon, and the one time I stumbled upon “Dragon Ball Z Kai” streaming, I was immediately put off. The characters would talk with barely any mouth movement, the animation style felt stiff, and—this might sound weird—but it genuinely made me nauseous. Is that a thing? Do people experience motion sickness from animation? No idea. But I took it as a sign and never looked back.
Fast forward to now, I can’t escape “Attack on Titan.” People have been raving about it for years— high school friends, online forums and random TikToks that made their way onto my feed. If you consume media the way I do (obsessively, without control), you’ve probably run into it too. I don’t know what exactly made me decide to finally give it a shot a month ago. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the sick character edits. Or maybe it was really just FOMO. Either way, I braced myself, swallowed my weird aversion to anime and hit play.
And four days later, I emerged, not just as a casual viewer, but as someone who had just been emotionally wrecked, mentally broken and left with far too many philosophical questions about the nature of humanity.
Day 1: Oh, this is just a cool action anime.
I thought I was in for a straightforward humans-vs-monsters war story. Humanity hides behind massive walls to avoid being eaten by Titans. The Survey Corps fights back. Eren Yeager, our protagonist, swears revenge. Simple. Then, the Titans broke through Wall Maria. Then, Eren’s mom was eaten alive. Then, the Survey Corps—humanity’s last hope—was massacred like insects.
The animation was breathtaking, and the action sequences mesmerizing, but none of that prepared me for the sheer brutality of the story. By episode five, Eren was “dead,” and I realized this wasn’t about survival. This was about suffering.
Day 2: Trust no one. Hope is a scam.
At some point, I stopped getting attached to characters—not because they weren’t compelling, but because I knew the show would rip them away. (RIP Hange. I’m still not okay.) But beyond the death toll, “Attack on Titan” started revealing its real theme: there is no absolute good or evil. The Titans weren’t the only enemy—humans were just as monstrous. The government silenced its own people. The Military Police were corrupt. And worst of all, Reiner and Bertholdt—characters I trusted—were traitors. And yet, I couldn’t fully hate them. The show made me understand them and made me hurt for them. They weren’t villains; they were victims of a war they didn’t ask for, forced to do terrible things just to survive.
Day 3: The basement was NOT the relief I thought it would be.
From the start, the basement was teased as the answer. I expected clarity. Instead, it shattered everything. The Titans weren’t mindless creatures—they were people. The walls weren’t built to keep Titans out— they were built to keep people in. The real enemy wasn’t the monsters outside, but an entire nation across the sea. Suddenly, Eren’s rage wasn’t heroic— it was terrifying. He wasn’t fighting for freedom anymore; he was walking the same path as his enemies. What started as a story about survival had transformed into a generational war with no clear villain, no clear hero— just history crushing everyone beneath it.
Day 4: I don’t even know who to root for anymore.
By the final season, everything was upside down. Eren, once the idealistic protagonist, had become something unrecognizable. Was he fighting for freedom or mass destruction? Was he wrong, or just another pawn in a never-ending cycle? And that’s what makes “Attack on Titan” brilliant: there are no easy answers. Zeke’s euthanasia plan, Marley’s oppression of Eldians, Eren’s decision to destroy the world— none of it was purely right or wrong. Every character was a hero in their own mind and a monster in someone else’s. When the credits rolled, I didn’t feel relief. I felt hollow. There were no simple resolutions, no satisfying victories— just a chilling reminder that history always repeats itself.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. But maybe not in four days.
