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At an unspecified (pre WW-I) point in history in a (presumably) alternate universe, mankind gets overrun by suddenly appearing giant man-eating zombies called titans. Slightly over a 100 years later, humanity is on the brink of extinction, hiding behind huge walls.

Like most movies with zombies or giant monsters, this is the kind of story that works best when you don't think about it all too much. Alas, the viewer is given a lot of time for that.

The action is good, very good. The show also does a good job of capturing the grim atmosphere of the situation, but then makes the mistake of pointing ... this out far too often.

Anyway, if you think you can suspend your disbelief long enough and don't mind that the main plot point is going nowhere from episode 2 onwards, go and watch this, for there *is* enjoyment to be had.

This is a very nice drama. Good for plenty of tears and a few laughs as well.

+ well executed storyline
+ excellent side-stories
+ clear character motivations/emotions

- way too much foreshadowing
- bit heavy on the melodrama
- dialog slows down the story sometimes

This anime managed to create quite a buzz which tricked me into watching it. After all, it's only 12 episodes and how bad can it be?

Yet after episode 5, I'm more or less satisfied with the plot as it is and I'm just wondering who's gonna kill who with what. (So basically, I'm now watching "Clue"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluedo ). Well, serves me right for finding out in advance where the end is going, I guess.

Seriously though, after episode 5 all the series is about is the psychological mistreatment of more and more of its cast. Up to that moment the plot was still believable, but ... after ep. 5, it had me going "wtf?" more and more. The main character just gets himself into more and more trouble, and he's not even noticing it. How dense can you be? Not once is there a spark of hope for a happy ending, except pherhaps in the last episode, but it's pretty obvious by then they're just trying to set you up up for a shock.

If this anime has any redeeming qualities, it's that it's storyline is original. Allthough... part of me feels he's just watched some hentai with the XXX parts cut, so pherhaps it's not all that original after all.

Those less familiar with the gothic/horror/scifi crossover genre might enjoy this series a lot more, at least 1 or 2 points more, than I did. If, on the other hand, you've seen a lot of this sort of stuff, this series will inevitably seem somewhat predictable.

I'll not go into details to avoid spoilers, but let's just say that everything in the plot basically ended up doing what I thought it was doing. Masked soldiers, young girl with powers, weirdo green liquid, brooding hero-type, they were all unable to surprise me. Another annoyance was that I couldn't identify with any of the characters, which seemed emotionless, ... even frigid, to me. Lastly, the plot takes way to long to develop. Nothing of consequence happens in eps. 2-10.

So what is good? Well, all of the above may just be a way for the director to allow you to focus on and enjoy the atmosphere of the show. Even though I never managed to "get into" it, I still noticed the obvious attention that was payed to the every scenery, location, costume and just the overall detail. This also means that every now and then something comes up that is not explained, simply because it's part of the scenery and not part of the plot. In all, this anime does a very good job of presenting an alternate reality that is fully believable, and aesthetically pleasing to look at.

So, this is probably a very good series for those that enjoy atmosphere but don't usually like the action / magic / supernatural genres, because those elements tend to overwhelm a series' to the point of becoming rediculous. Well, here they don't.