Shingeki no Kyojin: Ano Hi Kara

If you've watched the rest of the series then you won't gain anything new from this episode. It's a recap. Now, anyone who complains about it doing its job -- recapping the events of previous episodes -- is missing the point of the recap. It's not a stretch to say (based on the production errors in previous episodes) that the animation studio is struggling a bit to get this show out in good quality week after week. The reused animation and story in this is giving them a week more buffer time to prepare the upcoming episodes. This is a good thing as far as ... I can see. If you're just starting the series, feel free to skip this if you want to, you obviously will not miss anything as it is a recap of things already watched.

<Potential Spoilers>
I swear I didn’t want to review another recap but here we are.

I hated reviewing the first two recap movies because I hated having to repeat all the stuff I said in season one. However, this recap came out prior to the movies and is a much shorter recap of the first season. Making this recap episode far easier to review. While the recycled animation and sound design is decent. The pacing of narrative and characters is even worse then movie one.

It is very clear that this episode serves to create a base rundown of the first half of the first season. The main ... problem I had with the first recap movie of Attack on Titan was that the pacing was horrific. You want a recap to be short but this movie was not short, it was two hours long and only served a purpose if you wanted a short rushed version of episodes 1-13. So while it can be argued that this episode has worse pacing. This episode and the movie recap the events of the first half of season one. However, the movie lasts for two hours and feels more like we are meant to be watching for the story rather then a recap. The Since that day episode only has a 24 minute runtime. Making the recap far more tolerable to watch.

The sound design of Attack on Titan has always been great. Hitting all the base criteria for what makes an anime have good sound design. The sound effects of the environment and people interacting make the world feel so much more alive. The voice acting makes every character feel that much more realistic. The original soundtrack is one of the best in anime. The soundtrack conveys both the world of Attack on Titan and the mood of any specific scene. I’ve talked about the sound design of Attack on Titan in all my other reviews of each season. But in this specific recap episode, the sound design of the series is present. But we never really focus on it. Luckily the best parts of the sound design are present in the best scenes which this episode does highlight.

The animation of Wit studios is without a doubt top tier. Which is very clearly the case as when the animation of the series switched over to Mappa. Everyone was sending death threats to the animators of Mappa, starving in an underpaid environment. But regardless, this episode as a recap shows the best moments of the series which also happen to have the best animation. I won’t rank the animation as high because it is recycled animation. But it is easy to watch a 20 minute recap featuring the best animated moments of the series.

I can’t rate this section that high. Mainly because the character aspect of a recap episode is not going to be its strongest element. As a show needs the correct pacing in order to achieve emotional depth with a character. However, a recap episode can’t do that as we are cramming 14 episodes into a single episode of run time. I would have to judge the recap episode by what key character moments they showed and the relevance of those moments in the episodes after the recap. For the most part, the recap does this pretty well. I won’t go into specifics as I don’t want to spoil the series. But for the most part the series does a good job at including key character moments.

Despite the pacing of both the story and characters, it is nice seeing Wits animation and the original soundtrack of Attack on Titan.

Overall, I rank this 5/10.

I'll be short with Shingeki no Kyojin's recap episode.

Shingeki no Kyojin which is already famous for it's overuse of repeating information about the previous few episodes did not need a recap episode. This episode is also only comprised of major plot points, unforgettable to viewers who have watched the previous 13 episodes.

This recap episode is made of entirely reused animation and sound. The animation is spliced together in a totally linear format. This is very uninteresting and shows a strong lack of creativity.

It also fails as a way to entice new viewers into the series, as it explores no characters or creates context for the ... story. If you were to watch this episode and then proceed further into the series starting with episode 14 you would only know the three main characters very vaguely.

There is no reason for any viewer to ever need to see this recap episode and thereby give it a mark of 2/10, dreadful.

Please watch Shingeki no Kyojin from episode one on.