Attack on Titan: Junior High (rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha
Volumes: 5/5 Omnibuses (Complete), In Print
Shounen
Genre: Parody

Summary: The Attack on Titan characters in an alternate universe go to Junior High. But Titans are now more or less normal students who also go to school. There’s a mix of school activities, like dodgeball and putting on a school play, sports festivals, exams, and also many many parallel parody plots that are callbacks to the original manga. For example, there’s a survey club that’s devoted to investigating the Titans, headed by teacher Erwin and has Levi as an upperclassman as well. The school play is a parody of the beginning of the series. There’s parody plot lines that are references to all sorts of things, like the Titan forest, the relationship between Annie and Eren, and etc etc.

Review: When I heard this exists, I really was hoping it was going to be more like Evangelion: Angelic Days. Where their original characterizations are more or less still intact, but they go to school, and the plot is more about what might have been if the characters had a chance to live more normal lives instead of fighting the Titans. And perhaps sometimes have flashes or dreams of their alternate universe selves like Angelic Days.

But instead Eren is literally a racist joke and still hates Titans and wants to kill them, in a world where Titans are more or less normal (and yet still naked) students. The only difference being that one stole his lunch five years ago instead of eating his mother. And Armin is a shut-in D&D fanatic who can’t tell fantasy from reality. Who wears a futon on his head and can’t tolerate cold weather. Only Mikasa seems somewhat similar to her original counterpart, since she’s still as devoted and loyal to Eren as always.

The extended cast suffers even worse. For example, Connie, loyal to his friends and family, his defining trait was picked to be stupidity. And not even just dumb, but can’t even figure out dodgeball and has to have it explained to him (again). And he eats glue sticks.

Recommended: How much you’ll enjoy this depends how you feel about heavily Flanderized characters. If you don’t mind the characters being warped beyond recognition for sake of parody, then you might enjoy this. And if you do mind, then you’ll probably feel like this series is a travesty that should never have been made.

Age Rating: PG13