Quote Originally Posted by DarthEnderX View Post
I never much cared for Claymore. To me, Claymore feels the way the first 7 episodes of AoT felt. But then episode 8 of AoT happens and it becomes a completely different kind of show that's awesome.
How I see it is that AoT spent the first 7 episodes building an air of general hopelessness with some small relief in episodes 3-4 to prevent fatigue, and then cashed it in brilliantly in episode 8 (Erin titan reveal), effectively blowing the lid off of the scope of the story, but not in a ham-fisted way (to me). That nurturing of despair into hope is the single best element of AoT, in my opinion. The story beats are essentially "we have to fight the titans", followed by "the reality is we can't really fight the titans on even terms", and then "things are getting really bad because the titans are engaging us on their terms", until the climax of "this new development changes the rules a bit and gives us a chance against the titans". The characters persevere and succeed, but at great cost. I love the formula.