joyless and dire in tone. I got a good bit of stress in my life at the moment and AoT didn’t seem like what I need right now

Yeah that’s fair

Attack On Titan doesn’t drag in my opinion and I totally recommend it. The 1st season is the “worst” of the bunch, but still a decent action anime, after that it becomes really solid with good suspense, mystery and political games (a lot of action too of course, but it takes a backseat).