Attack on Titan: Junior High

Episodes 1-2

Now here's a show with a captive audience. Whether or not Attack on Titan: Junior High turns out to be good or bad, you can bet I'll still be watching it in anticipation for season two of the main series. This is just a way to get your Titan fix in the meantime, with some new adventures to boot.

Then again, “new” might be the wrong word here. You can think of Attack on Titan: Junior High as an irreverent retelling of the serious show it parodies. The bulk of its humor comes from attempts to reframe the same events in a harmless alternate universe. It's wonderful to see characters that we love, who have suffered so much, deal with nothing more severe than having Titans pilfer their lunch boxes, but it's an enormous paradigm shift. The quirky bits of Attack on Titan that served as brief respites from its horrific premise now take center stage, and the success of the show depends on whether these gags can stand alone. Even if many of them fall flat, the show's quick pacing keeps the jokes coming and tries again and again.

In the first two episodes, gags have fallen into two categories. First, there are “inside joke” gags, which can only be understood by people who have seen Attack on Titan (and if you haven't, you're probably not going to like this parody at all). There's Jean's crush on Mikasa and resulting hatred of Eren, who Mikasa adores. There's the moment Sasha chows down outside of lunchtime, and Keith's resulting unamused interrogation. In the original show, these are light notes that momentarily change the tone. Here, they're just more of the same for a comedy series. When the premise is already humorous, there's no reason that jokes from the original Attack on Titan would work here.

The second category is far more successful, with jokes that I'm calling “character-based” gags. Attack on Titan gave us a fantastic cast of ridiculous characters, but between the life-or-death situations and endless action, we only got to see a little bit of their full potential. The main cast is deeply relatable, and we can imagine being even more likable if they lived in a universe where they could be their ridiculous selves without worry. These gags expand on characters' personalities by asking “what if?” What if Mikasa didn't have to constantly look out for Eren's survival? Would she instead focus on running into Eren on the way to school, all the better to catch his eye? What if Levi's clean-freak tendencies were the only thing he had to worry about? If so, he'd definitely worry about people mixing up the recyclables. What if Armin's serious personality only had a mundane focus, like keeping warm and finding a futon? (Okay, I didn't exactly get that joke.) Instead of reusing the same jokes from the original show, character-based gags expound on them. Episode two has a lot more of these than the pilot did—there are only so many jokes that can be recycled from such a serious original show—which gives me hope for the continuing series.

The continued watchability of Attack on Titan: Junior High will depend on how quickly it comes into its own. It amassed a captive audience in those of us who adored the show, but we don't just want to watch reruns of that in chibi form. As this strange universe— where Titans and humans go to school together—establishes its own rules, its strength will come from the way these familiar and likable characters navigate their new surroundings.

Rating: B

Attack on Titan: Junior High is currently streaming on Funimation.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.