Dammit, why can’t every day be Saturday?
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)
Okay, this review is pretty spoiler-heavy too, but I promise I’ll start cutting down on those soon. The last few episodes have just had lots of plot points which seem like they’ll be really important later, and this one probably has the most of those so far. Anyway, episode 9 starts off with an exhibition of the power of the “elite” survey corps. They’re the strongest fighters humanity has, and it’s partly due to their absence that the Titans had such an easy time breaching Wall Rose. A more routine scouting mission ensured that all of them were away from the city when it happened.
We also get to see the whole process of Eren’s transformation happening through his eyes. He remembers looking at Armin from the inside of a Titan’s mouth, then having his arm chomped off and falling down into its stomach (or at least it looks like a stomach). Dozens of corpses are drifting around in a large pool of red liquid. For some reason it’s pretty bright in there; maybe the thing also swallowed some glow sticks? Eren looks almost pitiful as he stares up at its throat and continues yelling about how he’s going to kill all of the Titans.
The scene switches abruptly to a view from outside the creature, and a huge arm suddenly bursts out of its mouth, followed by a fully-formed gigantic Eren monster. This time, we get to hear his vague, animalistic thoughts while he’s in this form: “Kill, kill, kill more!” If the real Titans possess even that level of sentience, I’m sure they’re all thinking the exact same thing. His lust for murder is more than a little worrisome—maybe transformed Eren isn’t as trustworthy as he seems.
That’s definitely what his fellow soldiers are thinking. When Eren wakes up, Mikasa and Armin are sitting beside him and a large group of soldiers has encircled the three. A lot of them saw Eren climb out of the body of a dead Titan, and now they’re not sure what to do. Confusion leads to fear, and fear leads to violence. They hear him muttering “I’ll kill them all” to Armin and Mikasa and think that he’s referring to people, not Titans. It doesn’t take long for the hysterical commander to point some artillery at the three and ask Eren what kind of being he really is. He confidently answers “I’m a human!” but the guy isn’t satisfied. He orders the cannon to fire.
At this point, Eren has a flashback to the time when his father injected him with that strange drug. He speaks of a mysterious power that Eren must learn to control in order to protect his loved ones and fight back against the Titans. Just as the artillery fires, Eren bites into his left arm (the one that somehow regrew after he transformed). There’s a huge explosion, and as the dust settles, everyone is horrified to find Armin and Mikasa sitting safely inside a gigantic skeletal torso. Eren is nowhere to be seen.
This episode opened up a lot of options. I was pretty sure Eren would only be able to transform into a regular Titan, but his power actually seems to be more sophisticated and controllable. Maybe one day he’ll be able to contort his body to be used as a bridge, or heal other people’s wounds, or morph his arms into sharp blades like a certain other anime character. The possibilities are endless! There also seems to have been a new goal set for the protagonists: get to Eren’s basement. They’re all basically outlaws now, so they’ll probably have to skip town at some point anyway. The area surrounding the old house should be fully occupied by Titans at this point, so it’d be additionally cool to watch how they manage to survive outside of human territory.
In Summary:
Eren’s a Titan. Sort of. Some soldiers find out about this and begin to fear him. A paranoid commander tries to kill him, but he transforms into a skeletal torso to protect Mikasa and Armin. We now know for sure that his power is related to the drug his dad gave him years ago, and the basement under their house supposedly holds an important truth about the Titans. Basically, episode 9 set up a whole bunch of interesting plotlines at once. Eren has a new ability to master, there’s a big secret waiting to be discovered, and the crew is probably going to have to explore Titan-occupied territory for the first time. It’s tantalizingly unclear what’s going to happen next.
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
