Shingeki no Kyojin

This new manga is topping the sales charts in Japan and I think for a good reason.

I just started reading it (I am just into the second chapter) and I am already hooked.
First let me spend a few words on the drawings. The backgrounds are quite nice and polished, but the characters, although nice, could be less "noisy".
I think this kind of style is instead very appropriate with the giants (or titans). They are strange, distorted human forms with the skin of their faces revealing all their theeth in a wicked grin. Their body proportions are usually off enough to give them even a more monstrous appearence.

The faces of the characters are nevertheless pretty good at conveing emotions. I felt immediately immersed and shared their fear and their helpless rage.

The story is about a world 100 years after the titans appeared starting to devour humans and bringing them on the brink of extinction. The few survivors closed themselves in a walled city. The walls so high and strong the titans cannot break in.

The people of this city managed to live well (let's not think about how a small closed environment can sustain itself...) and going out is a taboo. Only men joining the scouting squad go out trying to figure out where the titans come from or any possible information about them. They usually get massacred and only a few come back.

The main protagonists are a boy and his sister. The boy hates the way mankind is living. Closed in a cage like cattle. He wants to see the outside and plans to join the scout squad someday.
The tragic event starting the story is a huge titan, so big that his head is seen above the 50 meters tall wall, suddenly appearing and smashing a hole in it. The titan then disappears and a swarm of "normal" titans (about 15 meters tall) invades the city devouring everyone they can grab.
The protagonists house is hit by the rubble caused by the huge titan and their mother trapped with her legs broken. The two kids try to save her, but she manages to get them saved by a member of the wall guards before a titan devours her.
As I said the mangaka is very good at conveing strong emotions.

Their father left the day before after telling Eric (the protagonist) he would show him his locked room in the basement when he would come back.

After the tragic event the boy swears he will kill all the titans. He will have no peace until their have diappeared from the face of earth.

Not all is lost fot the humans, the city is revealed to have three sets of walls and the titans only got through the external one.

There is a time shift and we are shown 10 years later. The two protagonists both coming out among the top 10 recruits in the army.

This manga looks very promising.
It plays on our instinctive fears of predators. It's true that today humans are at the top of the food chain, but it hasn't always been like that.
Probably if lions would evolve an intelligence they wouldn't know this kind of fear as they have no natural predators (normally), but for us the fear of being preys, of being helpless in front of a strong predator is something we can understand well.

I don't remember another manga with such a strong enphasis on this aspect and this certainly is a good thing!

I also like very much how the drawings are able to convey strong emotions.

The only small complaint could be that the drawings quality is not always the best, but seeing how the series has just started I think the author has plenty of time to improve!

I definitely recommend this series!