What They Say:
Many years ago, the last remnants of humanity were forced to retreat behind the towering walls of a fortified city to escape the massive, man-eating Titans that roamed the land outside their fortress. Only the heroic members of the Scouting Legion dared to stray beyond the safety of the walls – but even those brave warriors seldom returned alive. Those within the city clung to the illusion of a peaceful existence until the day that dream was shattered, and their slim chance at survival was reduced to one horrifying choice: kill – or be devoured!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I can’t possibly review this without massive spoilers. Normally I try to avoid mentioning it when something like this happens in an episode, but that’s completely impossible this time around, so read on at your own risk.
The Female Titan is chasing down the Special Ops squad. Petra, Oluo and Eldo tell Eren to retreat to headquarters while they stay there to fight her. Amazingly, she still has enough energy to transform back into a Titan. Remember, her old body was devoured probably less than half an hour ago. The Special Ops squad uses coordinated strikes to slice out both of her eyes, then repeatedly slashes at her arm muscles until she can no longer hold her hands over her neck. They have one minute until her eyes regenerate—or so they think, but she somehow regrows only a single eye and regains her sight within 30 seconds. She bites Eldo right out of the air, smashes the momentarily stunned Petra into a tree, then finishes off Oluo with a well-timed kick. Instantly, the three elite members of Squad Levi have been killed. And Eren has been watching the whole time.
It was wonderfully surprising to watch Attack on Titan completely undermine the moral of trust it had just spent two whole episodes building up. Eren believed that his teammates would defeat the Female Titan, and now they’re all dead. Even earlier, when they were riding through the forest, he trusted them when he could have possibly prevented more casualties. They died because of his inaction. But Eren isn’t the type to get down on himself; that terrible burden only makes him stronger. He turns around, he heads straight back toward her, and on the way he both literally and figuratively transforms into a bloodthirsty monster.
By the way, this entire episode is beautifully animated. It must have taken ages to draw so many fast-paced fight scenes in a row. I should mention that some of the expressions Eren makes are, well, funny. Mostly he looks angry and menacing, but occasionally his face turns into something completely ridiculous. Still, I didn’t laugh this time just as I didn’t laugh the first time I saw a Titan sporting a stupid, dopey grin. There’s an intentional pattern here: everything in Attack on Titan that makes a silly face is also horrifyingly powerful and willing to kill people without a second thought. If you stumbled into a den of hungry grizzly bears, would you giggle at the one that was drooling?
Eren throws punch after punch at the Female Titan and even knocks her to the ground several times. She manages to evade Eren long enough for him to become tired, and in a moment of weakness she slices his head in half with the side of her hand. That’s three times now that she’s looked to be in a position of utter defeat and still come out victorious. Mikasa arrives just in time to watch her bite Eren out of his Titan’s neck.
After seeing this firsthand, Mikasa’s assault on the Female Titan is fierce even by Mikasa standards. She darts through the air so quickly that even the agile Titan can’t lay a hand on her, endlessly carving away its flesh and single-handedly bringing it to its knees. Eventually Levi catches up and stops Mikasa so that they can both regroup. He asks her if Eren is still alive; Mikasa thinks he is, but all she can do right now is glare furiously at the creature that stole him from her.
I have to commend this episode for so effortlessly killing off three seemingly important characters. It was really unexpected, for me at least, and I love things that are capable of surprising me. It’s also common in anime for “trusting in your friends” to be the moral of the story, so the way that Attack on Titan initially appeared to agree with this but then turned around and exposed it as naïve idealism was especially impressive. Sometimes, your closest friends are wrong, and you shouldn’t believe in them. It’s that kind of brutal honesty that made me fall in love with this show in the first place.
In Summary:
The Special Ops squad separates from Eren to fight the transformed Female Titan, but all three of them are killed. Eren learns the harsh lesson that he can’t always trust his comrades, no matter how much he might want to. Enraged, he becomes a Titan himself and charges toward her. He eventually loses a well-matched fight and Mikasa witnesses her biting Eren out of his Titan’s neck. She and Levi team up to continue chasing the now tired Female Titan. From start to finish, this is a ruthless and intense episode. I’ve always been a sucker for raw displays of emotion, but this one didn’t need any sort of bias to bump it up to an A+.
Grade: A+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Insignia 1080p TV, PS3 with Crunchyroll App; Occasionally 17” Toshiba Satellite Laptop, 2.13 GHz Core i3, 4GB RAM, Windows 7
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