Tag Archives: Attack on Titan: Lost Girls

Attack on Titan: Lost Girls Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time to take a look at the Lost Girls OVA that came out a while back. This one mainly focuses on Annie and Mikasa in side stories outside of the main story. One of them even works well as an AU of sorts that helped with the timeline theories from way back when. It always feels a bit odd to have a Titan story without the Titans really doing much here but it’s a good way to get some character development in and I can’t say that I really miss the titans must at all.

The first story focuses on Annie and it’s a two part adventure. Basically it’s almost time for her to pull off her plan of betraying the Survey Corps and kidnapping Eren but she needs an alibi and so she asks her roommate to cover for her as she takes a day off. The roommate says sure…as long as Annie does her a favor first. In this case it’s following up on a missing persons report that the girl just left hanging. The Military Police have a rather bad reputation of being extremely corrupt and not doing anything about it so Annie’s expected to just do the bare minimum but she has some free time so why not right? She is at a disadvantage though since the events happened a few days ago but she will give this her best effort.

So this is a detective story through and through. We get to see Annie checking around the city for any trace of Carly (The girl who vanished) and asking around. Most people would be far too scared to do anything like this because the city is so shady that you could die at any corner but when you’re a living titan with regen that makes things a little easier. Annie also knows a lot of hand to hand combat and takes out anyone who messes with her. The thugs of this town will certainly know not to mess with her next time. She uncovers the clues rather quickly and then has to decide how to handle this.

It’s not as simple as just solving the case since she can’t be tied up with any extra details when her mission is the next day. Additionally this isn’t just someone getting lost. It becomes clear that Carly disappeared deliberately so that also complicates things. Annie is quite efficient at solving the case though to the point where I thought this was only a single episode before checking and seeing that it was two. The mystery was handled well though so this was a good pair of episodes.

There were a good amount of twists and the writing was on point so it kept your attention the whole time. The animation looked good and the soundtrack was on point as well so definitely no issues there. Carly’s father was also a good character. I liked how perceptive he was. He wasn’t just some NPC to be tricked or discarded. Instead he had some good insight of his own and made sure that he wasn’t just being led around the whole time.

Meanwhile Carly does well for herself too. I wouldn’t say she is quite the strategic mastermind that the father is, but she was clearly able to strategize enough to pull off this whole plan so that’s impressive enough in itself. Then Annie did good in actually solving the whole case. In the end it’s one of those case where all of the characters are being rather corrupt and acting like criminals but I would expect no less from the world of Attack on Titan. After all, even the investigator herself was a titan traitor so that’s just how the ball bounces.

The only part of the special that may make you think twice is when Annie transforms for an instant near the end. No way the people of the town wouldn’t have seen that with such a large/bright flash of thunder. As a side story you want to make sure you don’t mess with the main timeline and I feel like this definitely does. The odds of nobody else seeing that is slim to none. You’re definitely going to notice that and so they probably should have had Annie win this without transforming. Sure, I bet they wanted to have her use the power at least once but it is a potential issue there.

The final story is about Mikasa and this one gets really trippy the whole time. You get lots of flashbacks, flash forwards, this is partially an AU and so everything is odd. There are random flashes of different times that Mikasa will get. Now this is fun for theory crafting and foreshadowing for sure but you definitely need to be ready for it. I was having a good time with it all the way through though. The actual main plot though is that Eren is coming up with a Hot Air Balloon so that he can finally escape this city and see the rest of the world. Mikasa desperately wants to go too so that she can always be by Eren’s side but a clown stands in her way. If she doesn’t get by him quickly then it’ll be too late.

This clown guy is definitely a rather odd figure. So his goal is to make Mikasa murder him and he figures he’ll prove that he can use his magic to corrupt anyone. Mikasa is just a little girl at the moment after all so this should be seemingly impossible. The anime uses a lot of fun effects to make this guy appear as deranged as possible and it definitely gets rather spooky. More props to the animation with this and the whole thing is framed very dramatically. It’s an effective way to use a short bit of time and make it intense.

Then by the ending we see more of how this is an AU although the balloon was a good first guess on that. It’s a solid special that may not be as important as the Annie one since the things there actually happened but it’s an interesting look on how things could have gone over here. Eren is just as ambitious and single minded as ever so the guy is always in danger no matter what timeline it is. The idea that the characters can see other timelines while they’re dreaming or asleep was always a good one. It’s nostalgic thinking of all the Attack on Titan theories from back in the day.

The animation for both specials is good as I mentioned earlier and the soundtrack is on point too. It’s a nice complementary piece for any fan of the series and I’d be cool with more OVAs for smaller adventures like this. You could probably have a lot of fun with it while keeping the Titans out although the series doesn’t have the most interesting cast so you probably would want to keep it to these characters and Eren. Not sure there are more than 3-4 other characters who could hold their own episode like this.

Doing more mysteries is probably the easiest way to generate more stories unless you want to do more AU type stories. The reason being, it’s not out of the question for the survey corps and military police members to have some down time between missions. There are quite a few empty gaps in time during the series and with the sheer amount of crime and craziness going on in the city, it would be believable that they were short staffed enough to add the characters in. You probably would want to keep it to short one shot adventures though instead of going for the big conspiracy mystery ongoing though because otherwise then you start to make things a little tricky. Having Carly’s father return would be fun as well.

Overall, Lost Girls is a good OVA. The title may not make sense in a literal sense but maybe what they’re going for here is how both of them have lost their purpose at the moment. Annie is being a traitor but doesn’t really know why so in the meantime she’s solving a mystery case. Meanwhile Mikasa is lost in a whole other timeline but rolls with it in order to save the day. At least that would be my interpretation of the title. There may not be much action here but the OVA is still interesting so I’d recommend giving it a shot. I think you’ll have a good time watching it.

Overall 6/10

Attack on Titan: Lost Girls Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for another Attack on Titan novel! After that last one, I prepared myself for just about anything. This one splits into two very short stories which end up equaling a novel that is still 100 pages shorter than the last one. As such, it goes by fairly quick. On the other hand, it doesn’t stop the first story from severely holding the whole thing back for basically the same negatives as the last novel. Lets dive right in!

The first story is about Mikasa and how she first met Eren. It turns out that Eren was a lot meaner and more unlikable than we all remembered. Mikasa had been pretty bored at the time and only got to spend time with her parents on rainy days. One day, her doctor showed up and brought his kid along. Eren didn’t like to play with dolls and immediately started helping Mikasa break rules that she had never questioned. The two get to be friends, but Mikasa is always worried that one day Eren is going to go too far and anger the wrong people. This could end up being a fatal mistake.

At least Mikasa is a likable heroine here. She helped out around the house when her mother got sick and was always courteous to those around her. She stood up for Eren when he was getting bullied and didn’t give up even after he kept ditching her. Whether that was the right move or not if another story. Mikasa ultimately did grow up to be a very likable character as well as one of the best fighters in the series so she’s certainly never strayed from that path.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about Eren. He could be a likable main character at times in the anime although he ultimately dropped off quite a lot in the manga. In this book Eren is not even close to being a good character. He starts off very quiet and reserved and comes across as just very aggressive and mean whenever he talks to Mikasa. He compares her to a Chicken multiple times and even predicts that she will one day be destroyed. He picks fights with just about everyone and gets beaten up multiple times. Even though Mikasa is the one who helps him out of these situations, he refuses to visit her and spends all day hanging out with his new friend Armin. The way that Eren handled the situation was terrible. Whenever he appeared, you knew that Mikasa was going to feel sad again since that’s what Eren does best.

This series continues to enjoy upping the grittyness factor as much as it can and this story is riddled with it. For starters, a grown up beats up Eren for many, many pages. Keep in mind that Eren is only 9 years at the time and the beat down is very brutal and descriptive. It just keeps going on and on and on. This isn’t even the only time that Eren is beaten as a group of kids also took him out. It’s a scene that we really didn’t need in the volume, but it’s meant to show how corrupt the world is. Nobody is going to stop these guys and by the time the heroes investigate, the criminals are already dead via car crash.

There’s also a random magician who tries to get Mikasa to murder him and succeeds, but the twist is that it was a trick knife. The point of it was to show that ultimately anyone can be corrupted and convinced to murder someone. Before that, a mob ended up beating up Mikasa a bit by mistake as she was shoved to the ground and hit a few times. I believe that one aspect of the series which continues to bring these situations up is the overall locale. The slums are shown to be in extremely poor condition with people doing their business in the streets and the place just being in shambles. It makes for a lot of unnecessary details that don’t help the book, but just remind you of what a tough world the place is. Eren and the others will never get too much peace because they are defying the system. A bunch of people will die to the Titans and the other humans. It makes for a very somber piece.

Mikasa’s story was basically just a tale of grit and how you can’t trust anyone with the actual plot being on the backburner. The other story was about Annie which took place the day before she attempted to kidnap Eren. She needed her roommate to explain that she could not make it the next day but in exchange Annie was told to try and locate a missing person. The case is 10 days old with nobody actually looking so Annie would have a tough challenge ahead of her. Luckily, she is fairly determined and does have some time to burn.

This story was a considerable improvement over the last one. I’m always up for a good mystery. Some lingering elements of the Titan writing style remain as the areas continue to be described as being excruciatingly bad and it seems like everyone is either a drunk or a criminal in this world. Nonetheless, there is less time for grit and less opportunity for it since Annie does have her Titan powers and regenerative capabilities so she is never in any real danger. It really is handy to have powers like that right?

The end of the case may not be the most satisfying, but there were a sufficient amount of twists along the way and it was an interesting one. I liked how the rich father of the missing girl was actually smart for a change and was good at telling if someone was lying or not. It may not have helped him much in this scenario, but at least he wasn’t just oblivious to the whole thing. I’m a little skeptical about Annie transforming into Titan mode to take out the villains though. It’s not a question of whether it was necessary or not, but I feel like someone would notice even if the place was fairly deserted. It’s hard to miss the explosion and the light blast that hits the Titan to start the transformation right? I definitely wouldn’t mind a novel adaption of the actual mission to get Eren from Annie’s point of view. She’s a fun main character and has always been an interesting villain. Learning more about her background could help solve some mysteries in the long run.

There is a bit of an epilogue where Mikasa and Annie meet each other. I’m guessing it relates to the actual TV special/OVA content. It’s always cool to see veiled threats being hurled at each other and then the novel ends with Mikasa striking Annie down. Those two were certainly good rivals and if Annie ever breaks out of the ice that she’s in, I wouldn’t be too surprised if she ended up joining the heroes. It would make sense in a way as she was never too committed to the villains and seems like someone who could make a turnaround.

Overall, This novel had two very contrasting stories. On one hand, the first story was pretty terrible and had just about everything that’s wrong with the franchise as a whole. The second half was good and is certainly one of the better attack on Titan products, but still doesn’t exactly fall into great territory. Respectively, the first story would probably score a 2 while the second would get a 6. If we go halfway, then that’s around a 4 although the halves aren’t necessarily weighed equally. It’s like how a negative review always seems to hurt more than a positive one helps an item. In this case that’s the score that the novel gets though. I’d just advise to skip the Mikasa story when you get the volume and just read the Annie one. It’s still worth a purchase even if the book is a little small in that case. Alternately, buy the first Before The Fall novel. That one’s a solid story and easily had the least amount of grit from the Titan novels. I’m finally reading the last two part adventure for now and then the Titan novel marathon will be over. It was a good run even if the scores started to fade out. At least it’s always interesting to read, whether for good or bad.

Overall 4/10