Sweet lovely God YES! This is when things get both ugly and still keep wringing the feels out of us as an audience. Now a quick comparison to the manga is spot on here but I can tell you that it is immensely satisfying to see it in anime and the shock of emotions just hits you right in the old ticker.
I have heard a few friends grumble that these mini-arcs are getting a bit drawn out but I counter that with the emotional impact you feel in this episode.
For the audience we have only just met and started to get to know Capt. Levi's squad, Levi himself and other members of the Recon Corps we still getting glimpses of regardless of relation to Eren it seems. The squad assigned to Eren though, we have seen in flashback and in present the character of these 4 individuals.
Eld, Petra, Oluo, and Gunther have come alive for us thanks to this slow burn in both the manga and the anime. Thus when the Female Titan makes its alarming suicide by Titan call, we are left feeling tense as Erwin outlines the true terror of the 3 Titans that for sure breached Wall Maria 5 years ago.
Eren is in many ways a novice and using him as an example of what happens to humans that can turn into Titans had been a terrible miscalculation. Now the Female Titan, in the clothes of the Recon Corps, hunts Eren in the chaos of the retreat.
Armin reveals to Jean the terrible truth also that the only reason the Titans had not pressed Wall Rose during Trost was that one of the members who had witnessed the awesome power of Eren was the Female Titan. All these facts begin to point to dark facts Jean does not want to face, but Armin seems to have accepted very quickly.
That moment shows a lot of strength in Armin, he may not have the physical prowess of Mikasa or Eren, but in tactical and analytical thinking he is much more ready to deal with hard facts and revelations than the others. Fighting monsters can be easier since you are fighting to stay alive, but to keep thinking about them and fighting them or their potential allies in your head must take a level of courage that is impossible to not admire.
Of course these short diversions do not last and we come back to the squad and Eren as they find a stranger approaching dressed like one of them.
Without warning as happened at the end of last episode, Gunther is brutally killed. Eren is left shocked and confused while the others try to keep him moving to HQ. The ferocity of the attacker is just as terrible, if in a different way, as the Female Titan.
Despite being outnumbered, the traitor cannot be touched by the experienced Levi squad. Worse they put 2 and 2 together just as the Female Titan is reborn!
Once more Eren faces the choice to use his power or not, and again Petra implores him to trust in his comrades. Again Eren struggles, but this time he seems to embrace the faith in his friends and wishes them luck.
Unlike any of the other squads, we see what makes Levi's squad so different. Even though the Female Titan seemed to kill the others so easily, suddenly she is on the defensive. Instead of attacking directly as they would any other Titan, the 3 remaining members perfectly coordinate a brutal offensive that blinds and maims the Titan.
However, despite their clear power and prowess, Eren remembers Levi's words. That no one can know the consequences of their actions until they occur. He turns in mid-air just as his world is shattered once more.
Viciously we see the Female Titan kill Eld after regenerating a single eye. Petra and Oluo are also brutally slain right in front of Eren. The punch of those moments make you feel as Eren screams out his Goal and bites his flesh to become an avenger.
Still terribly wounded, the Female Titan does masterfully to stay out of Eren's reach at first, but the enraged soldier will not stop at anything less than her destruction. Admitting that his choice resulted in the deaths of his comrades, he still swears to avenge them all.
We see why the enemy Titans want Eren so badly, as even as a novice and the Female Titan improves as she heals, he seems incredibly more powerful than her. Just as it seems Eren might get his wish, the Female Titan does a move the freezes Eren in place in shock.
Too late to react she smashes the top of his Titan head off and before any chance of regeneration can occur, she rips his neck apart and swallows him whole.
This last part in front of Mikasa sends the young woman in a swift dip into despair and then we see both the rage and even scarier prowess she seems to have been born with. Where squad Levi had put the Female Titan on the defensive, the lone Mikasa sends the Titan to its knees.
Despite her effort however, the hardening the Female Titan can do still thwarts her. The weak spot is all that need protecting so long as that is safe, the Titan can regenerate. Following the now slowed Titan, Mikasa is joined by Levi who orders her to stop leaping blindly and follow at a distance.
We are left with Levi asking Mikasa if Eren is alive since he saw the Titan body after looking at each of his murdered men. Despite the feelings we know Levi has for his comrades, he remains detached for now.
The pace of the anime and the manga allows us to really feel for the myriad characters that are lost to the Titans, no matter how trivial this story does a phenomenal job of making you connect with characters and rooting for them to survive. In this episode we saw Eren suffer a loss perhaps as bad as when he was forced to watch his mother die 5 years ago.
This time he had the power but made the choice to trust his comrades to fight on their own. The next few episodes will be just as jarring and I now highly suspect where this season will end...aside from all of us screaming at our screens to keeping going I mean! Till next time!
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