Here's an interesting premise: it's the Middle Ages and gigantic, grotesque, naked creatures known as Titans are roaming around, gulping down humans with ease. As a result, humans have created larger-than-life walls to block off Titans from the humans. The 'scouts', the bravest of soldiers, are assigned to venture beyond the walls to slay the Titans. My New Year's Day was consumed by the first two volumes of Attack on Titan, and watching this anime was worth my time.
       

I was hooked from the first episode. In one emotional scene, an elderly woman asks a scout how her son is doing. The scout replies, "I wish I had better news," before handing her the son's severed arm and the woman breaks down in tears. Eren Yeager, the series' protagonist, serves as the narrator and immediately stands out as a brash, hotheaded little boy with a bone to pick. Eren is accompanied by (my favorite character) Mikasa, his overprotective adopted sister who (for you FMA fans out there) is the Hawkeye to Eren's Edward Elric, and Armin, a hyperintelligent blond-haired boy with serious self-confidence issues. In the first episode, Titans invade Eren's village and one of them, a particularly frightening Titan, devours Eren's mother. At the end of Episode 1, as a severely traumatized Eren escapes with his friends via boat, he promises to kill the Titans. "Every - last - one," Eren says with burning anger and determination in his eyes, and that's where Attack on Titan takes off.
       

Eren Yeager is a character I despised since the beginning. An unbearably annoying, egocentric brat with anger problems, Eren personifies Attack on Titan's biggest flaw. The show has more than a few distinct features, like its abnormally sharp animation (which might take some time to adjust to) and its excessive use of speeches, but Attack on Titan's most persistent problem is its extreme intensity. I'm a huge fan of anime with intensity but, after the first two episodes, the amount of it became over-the-top and was in desperate need for balance, a few laid-back moments to complement the more serious scenes. This is what I hated most about Eren; he's an eternally intense child who's always viewing life from a pessimistic perspective, and it's because of him that I almost stopped watching Attack on Titan. In the third episode, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin (teenagers at this point) enter training camp, where a ton of new characters are introduced, Jean (Eren's rival), Connie, Krista, and Sasha. It's the days in training camp (and Sasha in particular) that help lighten this abnormally dark anime, but that period isn't enough because the trainees quickly head to battle, against the Titans.
       

It is in this battle, The Struggle for Trost, that new aspects jumble out in the open (there are usually agile titans dubbed 'Abnormals', the humans have a wealthy and selfish coward for a king, preferring to live lavishly in his beautifully constructed castle than to support the people, and Mikasa is lethal with a sword in her hand), but the biggest twist of all occurs when a Titan swallows Eren. In the belly of the beast, surrounded by screaming corpses, engulfed in blood, Eren reminds himself of the promise he made, to kill the Titans, ("Every - last - one," Eren says, his hand grasping above) before biting his thumb and bursting out of the beast a Titan himself. This is where Eren's promise morphs into a disturbingly psychotic obsession, as the newborn Titan defeats, destroys, and devours the monsters that traumatized him. Eren reverts to his human form and his comrades, at first fearful of him, begin to trust Eren with the help of Mikasa and Armin, who finally gains self-confidence. Eren saves the day via his Titan form but Volume One ends with Eren discovering that more than a few people still don't accept him.
       

In Volume Two, the three main characters (along with Jean, Connie, Sasha, and Krista) become scouts, the bravest of soldiers, and Eren is assigned to the Special Operations Squad, where the show applies attention to people seen in Volume One, like Captain Levi (another favorite character), a one-man killing machine with a mysterious past, and Zoe, the extremely eccentric 'Titanologist'. The focus of Volume Two is on a fellow scout who transforms into a Titan at will and slaughters humans with ease (I'm not going to name names, but the human/Titan is really obvious, a certain blond-haired girl Eren encountered in training camp). I think Volume Two is much better than Volume One; it has that aforementioned balance Volume One was lacking and Eren is a much more tolerable character (though he does have moments where he reverts to his Volume One self).
       

Overall, I think Attack on Titan is a must-watch anime, flaws and all. Attack on Titan is a show with dramatically developed characters, tons of cliff-hangers, and an overflowing amount of intensity. It's certainly not among the best anime I've ever seen, but it's still an excellent show.