Goodpublic

Simply incredible, AoT has been top tier ever since it began, now it has reached a whole new level of greatness with these past few episodes.

Indeed it is a masterpiece, in storytelling, in animation, in characters, everything there are too little flaws for it not to be.

I love miraculous... For its characters... (besides Marinette)

Plot:

Let's be honest, 6 years in and this show has gotten nowhere. Almost nothing has changed between seasons 1 and 4 besides the fact Ladybug became a guardian and more and more people are getting miraculouses... The plot is still the same focusing on Marinette crushing on Adrien, sometimes attempting to fool us, trying to make us believe she's actually going to confess to her crush but no, if she were to do so, the world would literally end! Why? Cause we gotta milk this series as much as possible am I right? The story has so much more potential than it seems, if only every episode didn't have no lasting consequences for each character. For example, Marinette humiliates Lila in front of Adrien cause she's scared Lila will take Adrien away from her, even though she and Adrien aren't a thing. At the end of the episode Marinette doesn't have any consequences to face, therefore preventing Marinette from growth. In the New York special, the heroes aren't in Paris and the city takes a lot of damage while they are away, at the end of the special no one is mad at them for not showing up to protect their city, no one seems afraid that Hawkmoth could take over Paris and possess everyone and the authorities don't seem to search for Hawkmoth a lot, no investigation is ongoing, yet in an episode, I can vividly remember a police officer telling ladybug that it wasn't a kid's job to fight crime but doesn't seem preoccupied with stopping the man responsible for all these attacks... There are so many other examples but I don't feel like going over them right now as it would take hours to write them all.

Each time a big risk is taken in an episode, one that could move the plot forward, everybody forgets by the end of the episode, so the plot doesn't go anywhere..

The miraculous aren't and will probably never be correctly explained in an interesting way.

The plot is repetitive, afraid of change and has become uninteresting.

Characters:

Marinette is a creepy, obsessed stalker, a mary-sue who ultimately has everything go her way (we all know she and Adrien will end up together at the end), no one stays mad at her even when she screws up, everyone seems to like her, she ALWAYS finds a solution to everything... She's just... Boring...

Adrien is waaaay better yet has less than one tenth of Marinette's screentime even though he's a main character, his story would be a far better focus, the drama in his family is easily the most interesting part of the show which is weird because this show is about magic and superheroes... He deserves better than Marinette.

Chloe is just as good, she had a sort of redemption arc in season 2 but got screwed over by the writers in season 3 and especially season 4 because the creator does not like her but she's waaay better than Marinette. Everyone is in this show.

Gabriel is really weird sometimes he really cares about his son and sometimes he doesn't care at all, to the point of akumatizing Adrien in some episodes. Still he's got an understable goal and tries... Maybe not his hardest but he tries... Better than Marinette...

The animation in this show is really inconsistent, some episodes look awesome, some not so much...

Overall this show is meh, but I love it for its characters besides Marinette, who unfortunately gets 99% of the screentime in this show... The fanfics are better than the show..

(Reviewing both parts)

Plot:

After the 104th Cadet Corps graduate, Annie Leonhardt, who ranked 4th on the Top 10 best soldiers finally gets to join the military police and reside in Stohess district, behind Wall Sina.

This story takes place the day before the 57th expedition outside the walls led by the scout regiment, where the Female Titan appeared.

Annie is on a day off, she receives a letter from Reiner, who is trying to leak Eren's position in the formation of the scouts. Her goal for the next day would be to capture Eren, however the next day was not a day off for her so she asks Hitch, her roommate, to tell their supperiors that Annie would be sick the next day so she wouldn't seem suspicious for not showing up at work. Hitch agrees on the condition that Annie works on a case Hitch was assigned to solve during everyone's day off. Annie never liked playing soldier but still decides to work as she doesn't want to feel depressed because of the murders she will have to commit the very next day, she wants to take her mind off of it and takes the job.

Annie's job is to find a young woman who had disappeared ; Carly Stratmann, the daughter of Elliot G. Stratmann, the president of the 'Marleen' Company.

Annie starts the case by going to the Stratmann manor to talk to Mr. Stratmann. He reveals info on Carly such as, when she disappeared, when he last saw her, where she went to university,... He notably stated that Carly "loitered around" alot, which helped Annie find out that Carly had frequently worked at "Pit Riddles", a bar in the suburbs of Stohess. Annie continued her investigation by going to said bar and looked for clues there, she got the information that a shady group of people lead by a man wearing fancy clothes and an artificial red eye, were after her, she also managed to get the address of Carly's boyfriend Kemper Boltz and continued her case by going there.

Annie found him, but he was dead. She also found 'coderoin' drugs in Kemper's appartement. Annie deducted that by reporting Kemper's body, the Military Police would interrogate her for the next few days, whereas Annie had to be elsewhere the very next day. So Annie decided to not report it and head back to the Stratmann manor. On her way back she got abducted by mercenaries, including the men searching for Carly. The leader of the gang reveals that Carly is with them.

Annie uses her ring to partially turn into a titan, killing most of the mercenaries. She engages with the remaining two in hand to hand combat but is shot in the chest. To avoid having her titan powers get revealed, she pretends to be dead.

A few moments later, she gets back up and finds out where the mercenaries are keeping Carly, by interrogating the leader of the mercenaries, Wald, who later dies of an earlier gun shot caused by his little brother, Lou, who betrayed him. The man also reveals that at first they were hired by Mr. Stratmann. Then Kemper told them that they would get more money if they used Carly to get a ransom and so the mercenaries changed sides without warning Stratmann.

Annie goes to the location, beats all the remaining mercenaries and finds Carly. Carly explains that her father is the reason she fled home, she would produce drugs for her father as long he didn't sell any in Stohess, so he could keep making money. But her greedy father still sold those drugs in the city, which is why Carly didn't make any more for her father. Earlier that day Mr. Stratmann had received a note that was a ransom from Kemper, he wanted money in exchange for Carly. So Stratmann went to find Kemper, attempting to find Carly in the process, they got in an argument and Mr. Stratmann killed Kemper, which is why the man was dead when Annie found him.

Annie helps Carly escape from Stohess by giving her an authorisation from the Military Police. She then goes back to the Stratmann manor and exposes Mr. Stratmann with all the evidence she gathered, notably a particular cigarette she found in Kemper's house. One that could only be found in the Stratmann manor. Mr. Stratmann accepts his fate and is willing to go to prison but Annie has other plans, she asks of Stratmann to help her get rid of any evidence that Kemper and Carly were in Stohess recently, in exchange she won't arrest him.

Annie uses the situation to her advantage by writing in her report that Carly and Kemper probably fled the city a while ago and that it would be impossible to ever find them again. By doing this, she wouldn't be interrogated that very day.

And so Annie concludes the Stratmann case, early in the morning, right before heading out the walls to start her attack on the scouts.



Review:

Story:

Considering this happens before episode 17, this little ova makes sense, it shows us what Annie was thinking about the situation, how she avoided being a suspect for not being present/on duty during the expedition and why she attacked the right flank first. Then the rest of the OVA is not really necessary to understand the main story, it's basically Annie paying her debt, a little side story that gives you more of Annie. Besides the points I just mentioned the story this ova shows is quite irrelevant to the main story but it is very relevant to the character of Annie, I'll explain my point in a sec :) as a standalone story this is very entertaining especially if you're a fan of Annie but when you wonder where all of this ties within the story of Attack on titan, you'll notice out that it is a very pointless story (I'm not just saying that for this Annie ova, the other snk OVA's and OVA's in general don't affect main stories in anime which is why I'm not taking points away for this) excluding the fact it re-explains a few plot points.

Characters:

Annie, Hitch and Marlow are the only characters relevant to the main show, the other new characters are here only for this little story and that is totally okay, since they will never be apart of the main story, I don't feel like Carly, Lou, Stratmann, Wald,... Have to be complicated characters, however this ova is a little gift, like in the actual story, the new characters aren't all black and white, except for Lou and Kemper maybe, but these new characters are damn interesting, I wouldn't mind seeing them again in the main story. Like the warrior trio, Wald, Mr. Stratmann, Carly,... Aren't all good nor are they all bad, Mr. Stratmann has a pretty good reason to do what he does. He wants Carly to make drugs for him because his business is in danger.

Wald is an interesting character, he helps Annie feel even more miserable. Before dying he states that if the colossal titan had attacked even one day later, he and his son would've been safe behind Wall Sina, implying his son died because of the warriors.

Carly is human, she knows that producing illegal drugs is wrong but if she's around her father she will want to help him cause she doesn't want to see him struggle.

I know that these new characters aren't really "great" characters. But for characters that only play a role in two episodes, I'd say they were really good and interesting characters.

Now Annie, our main star, in this ova we get to see a bit more of her mindset, we get to see her guilt for killing Marco, her hatred of murdering people, her empathy for others as shown when she helps Wald have his final moments with his cigarette.

Annie contradicts herself, one day she can show herself as a cruel person, like that time she spun that soldier like a yoyo and sometimes she even spares the life of people who attempted to kill her like Lou. (in the Manga version of this ova she was more ruthless and makes Lou's balls pop, I'm not kidding). In this ova we see a bit more of her soft side, she clearly wants to be seen as a good person and wants physical comfort. She wants to play with a cat but gets hissed at. She gets scared seeing a corpse. She loves sweet food (they even animated my ship Annie x Donut '3').

We also get a bit of her past, we get to see her training in Marley and snap at her father, kicking him multiple times.

We see that Annie is both a cruel monster and a poor victim, she clearly doesn't want to do all this killing but when she does it she seems to have fun. I believe that Annie doesn't actually find the killing enjoyable but she does find satisfaction in showing off her superiority over others as Eren said "she seems lively when she demonstrates her martial arts".

I absolutely love Annie's character, she feels more realistic than most, she's selfish yet considerate of others as she saved Jean and Connie in the past and spared Armin, Jean, Lou, Stratmann and even Mikasa instead of killing them. I don't think that's inconsistency but more of a way to show that Annie is a hypocrite and that just makes her all the more realistic as we are all hypocrites without even realizing it.

I'm gonna stop here for the characters cause this review is already long as is.

(gonna speed things up from now on cause I don't wanna make you read a whole book)

Animation:

Great animation, a few reuses here and there but that's in every ova so I don't mind, great use of color as usual, makes the atmosphere more evident.

Fights:

There aren't much fights but when there are, they end quickly that is because Annie is a beast and none of the antagonists in this are a match for her, I noticed a lot of Muay Thai in the way Annie fights and this ova shows it in all it's glory, clinches, knees, elbows, high kicks and of course Annie's flipping technique are seen in the fights of the ova.

Music:

The musics in this ova were nothing new except the ending song at the end. At the time it was all new. The osts used in this ova worked perfectly for me personally.

Great ova definitely 10/10 when you compare it to ovas from other shows, this is very consistent to the main plot, nice animation, very interesting characters.

It also made me realize that I miss Annie