Well, that was easily the best episode yet.
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’m going to include a secondary warning: this review has even more spoilers than usual, because I enjoyed this episode so much that I just had to put all of its main events into my own words. If you have any interest in Attack on Titan but haven’t caught up to this week’s episode, stop reading this right now and go watch it.
Episode 6 is all about Mikasa. Almost immediately we’re introduced to a greedy tycoon who has blocked off the town’s only evacuation route. He’s trying to get the people to help shove his oversized wagon of expensive merchandise through the gate. Titans are still flooding into the city, but he and his guards are essentially holding the people hostage over a few material goods. Of course, eventually a Titan finds the crowd of trapped humans and charges toward them at full speed. Enter Mikasa: flying swiftly past the other soldiers to catch up to the rampaging Titan, she expertly slashes into the back of its neck, and it tumbles to the ground right in front of the terrified crowd. It’s the first time we really see a person defeat a Titan, but she makes it look easy.
Climbing down off of its body, Mikasa is horrified to find that the gate has been blocked. The tyrannical guild boss protests that it’s the job of the common folk and the knights to put themselves on the line to serve wealthy higher-ups like him. She strolls over to him, knocking both of his bodyguards aside with a single blow from her swords. Holding a blade to his throat, she says, ‘If you expect someone to die for the sake of another, I’m sure you’ll understand that sometimes a single, noble sacrifice can save many lives.’ Suddenly he becomes very cooperative.
A fellow soldier asks Mikasa how she came to be so impossibly badass, and this triggers her memory of how she met Eren for the first time. She used to live in a nice log cabin with her family, off in the middle of a forest somewhere. One day, she and her parents were talking happily amongst themselves when they heard a knock on the door. Sometime later, Eren and his father arrived at the house to find her parents’ blood splattered all over the walls. Mikasa was nowhere to be found.
Cut to another house where three bandits have taken her after slaughtering her parents. They plan to sell her, reasoning that as one of the last surviving descendents of the mysterious land of Asia she’ll fetch a high price in the sex trade. Eren then arrives at the kidnappers’ hideout looking scared and explaining that he got lost in the forest. The man tries to reassure him while the camera angle tilts down to reveal the gleaming knife Eren is holding behind his back. He confidently plunges the knife into the man’s chest then swiftly closes the door. The other criminal jumps up to follow him, but Eren charges at him holding a broomstick with his knife tied to the end. He savagely slices the man over and over, yelling at the top of his lungs, “This is what you deserve!”
Mikasa is stunned, both by the death of her parents and by Eren’s violent rescue. As he is cutting off her bindings, she mutters to him that there was a third bandit, just as the man rushes into the room and starts choking Eren up against a wall. He’s dropped the knife; Mikasa is free to grab it. But she hesitates. Eren tells her to “fight,” that she has to “win” to survive, and that losing a battle is equivalent to dying. This is the moment of Mikasa’s awakening. She remembers images of death from her childhood: a praying mantis eating a butterfly, her father bringing home a dead goose for dinner. Her epiphany: “This world is cruel.” Mikasa’s hands stop shaking; her eyes focus. In an instant she is transformed into the girl who will one day be the army’s most powerful knight. Cleansed of all reservation, she drives the blade straight through the man’s back and into his heart.
In Summary:
I really can’t overstate how powerful Mikasa’s “awakening” scene is. Maybe that’s why I spent a whole paragraph trying to describe it. We also get to see her defeat a hungry Titan and lay down the law on an evil rich guy. But Eren gets some time in the spotlight too. As a young child, he tracks down a captured person he’s never met, tricks and then kills 2 of her kidnappers, and somehow knows exactly what to say to trigger her warrior instinct. When they reunite with Eren’s father, Mikasa says she’s cold and has nowhere to go, so Eren extends a hand to welcome her into his own family and gives her that red scarf we always see her wearing. How could she not fall for a guy like that? I’ll leave you with a telling line that Eren delivers while explaining his actions to his agitated father: “I got rid of dangerous animals…Animals that happened to resemble humans!”
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
This show just keeps getting better and better.