Twelve Days of Anime 2013 – Shingeki no Pingu

Shingeki no Kyoujin as anyone who hasn’t been under a rock may know has arguably been one of the most successful anime in years, it also happens to one I found incredibly boring, so much so it sent me to sleep. As a side note, the last series that managed this was Fate/Zero. There is however one aspect of Shingeki no Kyoujin that I absolutely loved, its first opening and the numerous spoof videos that it spawned – Guren no Yumiya, or Linked Horizon in English seemed to work with almost every anime opening you can imagine, making even the most innocuous series seem as if they were about an epic struggle of life and death. Even now I can watch the original Opening and it will instil a sense of action, and tension that I know the series rarely had, and often squandered. This is how well produced this opening was – but, this is not the version that I most enjoy watching, that is served for the masterpiece that is Shingeki no Pingu. I grew up with Pingu, that strange British-Swiss stop-motion animated series about a family of penguins living at the South Pole. It was all a little silly; with Pingu, Pinga, and Pingu’s friends messing around, changing shape, and generally make strange sounds instead of words. Once again, putting Linked Horizon with Pingu turns an epic struggle between Pingu and his greatest nemesis the walrus, plus some ice sliding to add a little extra tension. This is definitely the best thing to come out of Shingeki no Kyoujin, by a large margin.