More plot, less parody.
Warning: spoilers for the episode follow.
After a strong, funny premiere, parody Attack on Titan: Junior High’s second episode is a bit of a letdown. The frame-by-frame redo of the original Attack on Titan opening theme is still awesome, as are all the parallels to that series, but it struggles a bit with its tone and isn’t as funny as a result.
One character is notably missing from the classroom: Armin. At the beginning of this episode, Eren reveals that Armin hates the cold so much that he doesn’t go to school in the winter. The teacher, Keith, tells the kids that they all have to join clubs — including Armin — or else he’ll put them all in whatever club he chooses, so Mikasa and Eren set off to drag Armin out of his house. It’s actually a kind of standard plotline for school anime, and it’s far more mundane than the premiere’s immediately silly setting.
We want to hear it.
On the way, a Titan steals the food Eren and Mikasa were going to use to lure Armin out. Eren, of course, tries to attack it and ends up flailing uselessly. A mysterious upperclassman knocks out the Titan for him, and Eren decides that he wants to be in whatever cool club that kid is in. It’s all typical Eren and very spot on, but I didn’t find it especially entertaining — the scene isn’t ridiculous, just devoid of actual danger. It’s almost like watching a stress-free, sterile version of Attack on Titan with chibi characters, not a full-on parody.
The mysterious upperclassman is Levi, who’s the actual comedic highlight of the episode. His entire parody is based off one scene in the original series in which he opens up window shutters like a Disney princess (while cleaning and wearing a dorky scarf thing on his head). In Junior High, he’s absolutely obsessed with cleaning. It’s the exact joke the internet has made tons of times, and I enjoyed seeing it taking over Levi’s entire character.
We want to hear it.
Armin’s also parodied in the extreme. Levi takes his blanket suddenly, and he catches a cold without its warmth. In the original Attack on Titan, Armin starts out frail and kind of cowardly, so it makes sense that his parody self is the ultimate crybaby. However, I found him and his incessant sneezing irritating instead of funny. I would have liked to see him afraid of losing his lunch to the bully Titans rather than just being cold all the time, since that would both be a goofy version of his existing character and actually work within Junior High’s setting. Being cold just makes him whiny.
This episode does develop the show’s plot a bit, as all the kids find and join the “secret” Scout Regiment club. It’s necessary for the show to go anywhere, and in that sense, the episode is successful. In furthering the plot, though, Junior High sacrifices the comedy inherent in the parody setup. It really seems like it would have been a good OVA, but I’m still looking forward to seeing how other characters are lovingly made fun of and where the plot actually goes.
Though this episode continues the funny setup, its tone was jarring for me — instead of putting very serious, intense characters in a ridiculous situation, this episode puts them in a more bland one. For some characters, like Levi, and for the sake of the plot, that’s a good thing. It just seemed more like a watered-down version of actual Attack on Titan than a true parody.
- Plot development
- Levi loves cleaning
- Weak on comedy
- Armin is annoying
