I honestly do not understand why this show isn’t more popular. Given how popular Attack on Titan is, you’d think this show would be crazy amazingly popular. Whenever you go to a con it’s “Attack on Titan cosplayer this” and “Attack on Titan panel that” so you’d assume while everyone’s waiting for the next season everyone would be all up on this show….but no one I talk to seems to be watching it! What the hell’s with that? I don’t understand it. The original Attack on Titan is not very good at all. It’s like….mediocre at best. This show here is witty, entertaining, fun, makes you laugh, and isn’t a depressing blegh fest. (sigh) then again that’s probably to be expected as if they released a series called “Cosplay Note” where everyone whose name was written in the note by Light would magically transform into a different cosplay, nobody would watch that either. Because once again, we live in a world where people would rather watch that boring mess than something entertaining. Oh and yeah, that’s right. I called Death Note a boring mess. And no, I am not taking that back.
Now that I’ve officially alienated a whole bunch of AOT and DN fans, for those of you who are left, let’s go ahead and start the recap.
The episode starts up with Sasha getting her test results and needless to say..they’re absolutely terrible. So the teacher tells her that if she doesn’t want to have to take a remedial class, she has to take the makeup test. Unfortunately she doesn’t know anything about the things she has to study. No one seems to want to help her study, except for this one kid who i felt really bad for as he offers but she doesn’t hear him, instead asking Armin.
Armin agrees to help her as well as Connie, but Connie forgets and wanders off. Armin tries to help her study by telling her to pretend that X and Y for math are types of food. After a bit of confusion it seems to work and we cut back to the rest of the group. Eren and the rest head to the titan club where the guy who bites his tongue tells them that he did horribly on his own test. Terrible of course for him being a 94. Which…no matter how you slice it is not terrible.
Cut to the doctor/scientist lady who doesn’t have any money for lunch and asks Levi for money. He says no and basically tells her to starve.
It turns out that she doesn’t have any money because she’s been using all of her money to feed the two titans that she’s keeping locked up in the biology club. Levi gives her some dog biscuits for the titans to eat. Which..she begins to eat herself.
Then back to the Armin/Sasha story as we see her respect Armin more as he was able to help her learn math and maybe the slight hinting of a romance.
The episode ends with Sasha having failed her retakes because she was too busy thinking about food and has to take the remedial class.
Oh, and Hange (the scientist chick) runs away from the two titans, seemingly happy about it.
This episode was kind of all over the place. There were really three stories going on. The Hange story, the Eren story, and the Sasha story. All three were all over the place and never really amounted to anything, but they were still enjoyable in their own right.
I would say this isn’t one of the strongest episodes so far, but it’s still by far better than any episode of the original series.
If you haven’t understood this by now (and i’m very sorry if you haven’t) I’m an unabashed fan of this series. I actually look forward to this show every week as I know i’ll be in for a fun time. And that’s what it’s all about. Looking forward to a fun time. Not looking forward to someone getting mutilated or dying.
I really liked the way they played out the Armin/Sasha aspect of this episode and I kind of ship these two now. (even if i DID feel bad for the black haired guy).
I believe that the idea of titans work as a world building tool but don’t work as a central focus of your story. When they are somewhat of a threat but at the same time kind of a joke, it works far better than going “ooohhh look at the scary giants that eat people! wooohhh!!! Look! That one is smiling! wooooohh!!” (note I am making ghost arm movements while saying this). The concept is so over the top and ludicrous, that if you DON’T joke along with it, it’s… a bit weird.
This series can definitely stand on its own, and its nice to see what these characters do in a regular situation with a little bit of titan thrown in.
Like I said, not the best episode, but still good.
Episode 6.5/10
–Hideki
P.S. Seriously , Death Note IS really, REALLY boring.