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Rivers of fire, lands of ice…freedom.

Summary:

The surviving troops head to ground level and resort to distraction tactics to the get the other titans out of the way as Eren moves the rock into place to block the hole in the wall. The plan succeeds at high cost, and the returning Recon Corps and engineering division move in to clean up the remaining titans. The troops that live have no time to rest as they must clean up the dead before an epidemic starts. Jean finds Marco dead on the street, and realizes that this is not the end of the fight. Eren awakens in a dungeon, where Levi and Erwin discuss how to deal with him. Eren’s application into the Recon Corps  is accepted by Levi, who will now take over handling him.

Impressions:

Oh man, this is probably legitimately the first time in a season that I felt like crying through. I suppose because so much of the past few episodes were based on talking and not so much character development (unless you count Eren turning a titan as “development”), there were little snippets here and there of the different soldiers as they put their last breath into making sure the plan is a success. With Eren unresponsive last episode, Armin successfully wakes Eren up, who then carries the rock to the whole in the gate. I guess there’s not enough room to roll it, but the problem was that the other titans were still being attracted to the area…in summary, a shitshow for the human side. I think this is also another reason that the humans were opting for distraction techniques over kills was because they were getting tired, as seen when Marco distracts a titan away while Jean was trying to get the 3D maneuver gear off a corpse. I was expecting him to kill the titan, but…I guess not everyone is a Levi or Mikasa.

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It really sucks that weapon and gear malfunction is a as much of a human killer as titans, and this episode was especially bad for Jean and everyone in the elite team. At the very last second, in order to keep the titans off, they opted to running the ground over using the gear in order to become more interesting as bait, but at the same time, everyone in the team was killed, with the exception of . This is very much the worst case scenario, that you have to throw yourself into the most dangerous situation because success was so close. TT_TT

Levi swooped in at the last second after the hole was blocked. It’s awe inspiring and slightly terrifying just how fast he is, even compared to someone like Mikasa.

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Probably the worst part of the episode, outside of the elite team getting wiped out, was when the clean up begins. We sometimes think that when the battle is over/won(?) when all the titans are eliminated, but picking up the pieces is just as hard as being in battle. Just the fact that Marco died in a back alley where no one saw him, and all that for a “strategic success” against the titans…I think Jean will grow from here, even if he was here for the wrong reasons. The guilt will set in eventually, and that is something that needs to be dealt with. Marco…as much as he was not the best soldier, he did give the perspective of the average person who understands weakness and teamwork.

As titans do not need to eat humans to survive, and cannot digest them, apparently they throw up crystallized balls with the food they ingested embedded in the middle. Not only do the teams have to chip the bodies out, they will have a hard time identifying it, and on top of it, this is not particularly safe in terms of health-wise. Pandemic, food shortage, stress are very real factors in success. I can’t imagine getting assigned to that task. @_@

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Annie…there was something something weird, there, but I’m not sure what it was.

Annnnnddddddd…let us have a moment to appreciate Levi and Erwin’s relationship. I feel like there’s a very strong connection there, even if they have differring ideals and methods. As Levi has been ruthless in his hatred of titans, I wonder how taking Eren under his command is going to pan out. Eren does have the same drive he did before he found out that he could turn into a titan, and that is enough to have him considered to become a Recon Corp member.

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And here ends season one coverage from me! Episode 14 is a recap, so check that out if you don’t feel like watching the whole season…but I feel like you’ll miss a lot of things like…Levi? 3D maneuver gear action? More Sasha moments? But yeah, I think, more Levi and Jean are in order. Oki will be taking over for me for the remaining half, so look forward to her impressions and coverage of Attack on Titan!