Attack on Titan Season 2 (2017)

What if the comrade you ate with and trained beside was, all along, the Titan that breached the wall? That is the unbearable premise Season 2 shoves in the viewer’s face. In Season 1 the Titans were a faceless catastrophe pressing in from beyond the wall, but this season exposes the fact that the catastrophe had been sitting in the nearest seat the whole time. A story that had been a simple tale of survival slips into a deeper question — who can you trust? — and within a short runtime the centre of gravity of the entire series shifts decisively. The density of that turn alone is enough to make ★4.5 feel modest.

What it’s about — Titans Wearing the Faces of Comrades

Season 2 opens with the appearance of a new Titan at Utgard Castle, then quickly plunges into the secret of the Titans’ true nature. The Survey Corps comes face to face with the suddenly emerging Beast Titan, and at the same time the presence of Titans hidden within the walls is revealed, shaking the very premise of safety that humanity had believed in. The heart of this season is the moment the identities of the Armored and Colossal Titans are uncovered — and the fact that they belonged to figures who had sat closest to Eren instantly complicates the moral question the series poses. To hate an enemy you first have to know who that enemy is, but Season 2 shows how easily hatred collapses when the enemy wears a comrade’s face.

Direction — A Bare-Handed Brawl Between Titans Trampling the Forest

Traces of a changed production environment compared to Season 1 are visible, but WIT Studio’s animation still holds to a high standard. The clash between Eren and the Armored Titan in the Forest of Giant Trees is the highlight of the season. Unlike the earlier battles that leaned on the vertical maneuvering gear, this bare-handed brawl between Titans brings the heft and impact of a combat sport to the screen. The sight of two colossal bodies trampling the forest as they collide conveys scale, speed and desperation all at once.

Director Tetsuro Araki cleverly controls the pace at which information is released this season. Rather than detonating the core secret of the Titans’ identity all at once, he leaks clues bit by bit, letting the viewer doubt and guess. As a result the shock of the truth lands all the harder when it finally breaks. The music is decisive in setting the mood, too; the choral piece inserted into the climactic battle lifts both the tragedy and the grandeur at the same stroke.

Acting and characters — A Traitor Crumbling Under Guilt

Yuki Kaji’s Eren deepens into a character no longer explained by anger alone. The confusion and helplessness he feels before the betrayal of comrades he trusted trace the process by which simple vengefulness bleeds into doubt about himself. Kaji’s voice work handles the swing between scream and silence effectively, and the tremor in the moment Eren cannot accept the truth is especially memorable. Yui Ishikawa’s Mikasa expresses the fear running beneath her composure in a restrained tone, while Marina Inoue’s Armin convincingly carries the tension of a character forced to make judgements in the middle of crisis.

The most striking performances of the season come from the betrayers’ side. Yoshimasa Hosoya’s Reiner reveals the complex interior of a man crumbling between guilt and self-justification even as he stands as an enemy, and his wavering voice conveys a tragedy that cannot be reduced to a simple villain. In the moment relationships among comrades flip to hostility, the cast carries the full weight of that emotion.

What the series says — The Line That Divides Enemy from Comrade

The question Season 2 poses is plain: where is the line that divides enemy from comrade? A story about fighting an external monster called the Titan moves to an entirely different plane once that monster turns out to have been human, and even a close ally. To hate someone, that someone must be evil; but if they too had something to protect and unavoidable reasons of their own, where should that hatred go? Here Attack on Titan deliberately dismantles the binary of good and evil. The ambiguity is uncomfortable, but that very discomfort is what separates this series from a simple battle anime. Season 2 opens the doorway into the grey zone the later seasons will explore in earnest.

Ratings & reception

The Attack on Titan series holds an IMDb rating of 9. Season 2 is shorter than Season 1, yet it earns high marks for narrative density and the shock of its revelations. The arc where the Titans’ identities come to light and the bare-handed Titan brawls sit at the centre of that praise. That said, the season’s reduced length of twelve episodes left some viewers feeling that it wrapped just as the real story was getting going.

Verdict

I give Attack on Titan Season 2 ★4.5. It may be short, but its weight within the series as a whole is anything but small. As the core secret of the Titans’ nature unravels, the world expands in a single stroke, and as the boundary between enemy and comrade collapses, the story gains moral depth. The polish of the Forest battle and the shock of the truth coming to light rank among the series’ finest moments. The one regret is that the short runtime left some characters’ stories underdeveloped, but that flows naturally into anticipation for the next season.

Recommended for

• Those who felt the shock of Season 1 and are curious where the story goes next
• Those who prefer narratives where the line between good and evil stays blurred
• Those who love forceful action like the bare-handed clashes between Titans