Hi there! I've been lurking in these forums for quite a long time now, but I just decided to make a profile now just to share my thoughts on this discussion here!
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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo
Really, really awesome analysis.
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Basically, everything you said, is what I think to be really close and possibly accurate to what the author of Shingeki no Kyojin wanted us to see. It may really just be me, because I haven't seen anyone anyone describe it this way, but I feel that, as out of place as it is, the staff actually intended the opening to bring these kinds of expectations and atmosphere to, as you might've already guessed, bait the viewer. And I sure as hell love the opening for that!
From the way I see it, they made the whole opening scene into something like a propaganda. And a lot of propagandas are one-sided, optimistic and aims to boost a certain target audience's morale. To just elaborate my points, an example is the opening sequence of the 1st episode itself.
In my opinion, they showed the Colossal Titan to describe the degree of danger that the humans were facing, but the next scenes they showed were the Recon Corps attacking a Titan, which basically showed us that they were at least be able to fight the Titans in general ('Have a taste of mankind's strength!', as one soldier shouted), and was basically emphasized by the opening song that followed after.
A lot of things in the opening are really misleading to a lot of people because it's totally different to the actual situation the anime is showing. For example:
1) The Lyrics. Most of the lyrics revolved around the themes like freedom, being able to resist the enemy and fight back equally, being as free as predators and not trapped like the prey (The very first chant in the song was 'They are the meal and we are the hunters' in German, and was in the point of view of a human), and a lot of revenge themes as well.
2) A lot of visuals just showed the humans fighting the Titans, not the other way around. They also always showed the humans fighting in groups, and don't show what happens if you fight a Titan alone.
3) The big-ass letters that gave the viewer an in-your-face kind of feel that emphasised the lyrics of the song.
4) The upbeat feel of the song itself. It's the type of song that's put when they're showing great achievements, with the vision of a glorious victory right in their reach.
Ironically, the anime is literally nothing like what I just stated above. They weren't free; they were stuck inside a wall that was the only thing protecting them. They can't even resist the enemy; they were just pushed back to the next wall. It's the Titans that did most of the attacking, and the only things humans can do was counter-attack most of the time.
But the anime knew this and was quick to show why. When the Recon Corps came back, they came back wounded, fewer in numbers and not proud like they were supposed to be, had they succeeded. The next events after that then became a constant roller-coaster of despair and terror, and crushed everything you felt at the start of the episode. I think that they set the opening like that because they did expect the viewer to realise that the situation was hopeless at the end, which had more impact because they made it look like the humans were toe-to-toe with the Titans in battle. They made it misleading because it worked well (but some people didn't know that the Titans attacking were as one sided as it actually was, so they did hate the start of the episode for misleading them.
I also know that there's a loophole with the things I wrote above. A lot of people already know the actual situation humanity had in Shingeki no Kyojin: those who have already read the manga or even those who've already read a detailed synopsis or spoiler (I was part of the latter when I started watching the anime). And because of that, it's obvious that the shock factor is already lost and won't be as effective anymore. When I watched the OP, I thought to myself, 'That's totally not how the story goes. They just like to make it look like a shounen battle anime where the protagonists are fighting an equally strong or slightly stronger enemy.' And as much as I still love the opening (it's epic, I have to say), I doubted it quickly. But I still think it worked the way they'd wanted. I think that the more each person doubts the OP each time, the more they begin understand the degree of terror and hopelessness of the characters fighting the Titans, which was again, what
Jan-Poo explained above. I'll never be sure about this, but I think the staff was aware of what they were doing when they made the opening song and the anime itself. Then again, I may have only been overthinking and exaggerating how much they planned it, haha.
Oh, and sorry about this really, really long post!