Attack on Titan is a shonon anime where humanity has been almost wiped out by titans, which look like giant deformed humans with no genitals or digestive organs, who require no food, and seem to only want to kill all humans, simply for the sake of killing them. Humanity has survived by building three giant circular walls around them. The story follows Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman and (although less important) Armin Arlet, who become soldiers after the outter wall is breached suddenly by a giant 60m titan (they usually don't go higher then 15m) who kicks the gate open, and a armoured titan, who destroys the safety gate, causing the outter ring to be lost. It appears the anime's only confirmed season will cross the first three arcs, also known as the Beginning arc, the defence of the Trost District and the Female Titan arc.

The anime is a nearly direct adaption (as of episode 22) with almost every scene being exactly the same as the manga, or they will show minor additions which all add to the story.

The art and animation of Attack on Titan is incredible, with extremely good animation for the fight scenes, and unique ultra thick outlines on characters. However as the series has progressed, the signs of budget issues HAS been obvious, although it is usually done in ways that impact very little to the overall quality of the show. The show also heavily relies on CGI. This works well in some points, such as the town and forest fight scenes, but looks awful at other points, such as the horses extremely poor animation.

The writing of the story is average, but not great. Characters while realistic, are not explored much. Ironically, right after they are likely to finish the anime, multiple characters get major character development, but that sadly wont happen (unless we get a second season). All the characters are interesting and likable in some way, except for the main character Eren, who seems perpetually angry with no character development at all (this is true so far in the manga as well). Most characters get 'some' character development, but not much.

While the writing is average, it is made up for by the incredible atmosphere of the anime, something the manga lacked. They did an incredible job conveying a sense of hopelessness and despair. It is helped by the fact that the anime does not mind killing off characters, although there has been a select group of characters who are always immortal; strange they don't get much air time. (Until ironically, as with most things, right after the anime is likely to finish)

The music is, to put it bluntly, the best I have ever seen. It is the most fitting and powerful soundtrack I have ever seen, of any time of media, whether it be TV show, movie, anime, radio show or video game. The openings are simply magnificent, the closings are not as good, but they only seem bad mostly because the openings are so good. Voice acting is great all round, not much to say about that.

Finally, if you saw the opening and thought "This is going to be a great action focused anime!" you are dead wrong. There is very little air time spent on fight scenes. Much of it is talking, which really helps the atmosphere, but will leave action loving anime watchers disappointed. This is not like Naruto, where there is a lot of talking, but still a good amount of fighting. This is where you can go 4-6 episodes without any combat at all. This is not due to filler, and due to following the manga nearly word for word.

If you want an anime that does an incredible job at conveying atmosphere with lots of talking and drama, you will enjoy this great anime immensely. If you want an anime is lots of great fight scenes; as good as they are, there simply is not enough for you to enjoy this anime.