Shingeki no Kyoujin – 53

It’s a high bar, but that might have been the stupidest Shingeki no Kyoujin episode ever.

Attack on Titan can be a very entertaining series – in fact it is so to a baffling (genuinely) degree a good chunk of the time.  That’s why I keep coming back to it, despite all the things it does to drive me crazy.  But by God, there are times why Isayama being so terrible at important parts of his job is a mighty big hill to climb.  This season is shaping up to be full of them, but this episode especially really took the cake.

A couple of things Isayama is really bad at – writing characters and writing battles.  The former is legend to the point where there’s hardly much point to dwell on it, but the latter was really on display here.  And it cuts to a fundamental problem with Shingeki, which – like so many of them – centers around Erwin.  Almost every battle plot in this series is full of genuinely stupid and inane strategies, which I’m some point we’re asked to believe are genius.  “Strategy” my ass – this ain’t even checkers, never mind chess.  And the hits just keep on coming.

This is the problem – the reason Isayama can’t judge Erwin as he deserves to be judged is that in his mind, Erwin is a genuine hero.  And a military genius to boot.  And political, too.  Never mind that all he ever does is lead people to their deaths and walk away unscathed – he gets to hear people (Levi is an idiot in his own right, but on a different scale) wax eloquent about how indispensable he is.  He gets to give unintentionally comic heroic speeches about honor and sacrifice.  And he gets to – has the unmitigated gall to – dredge up the memories of the people he’s killed in order to shame a new group of kids into dying for him.  And he gets to have it work.

Seriously, I threw up in my mouth a little.

The worst part of all this is there’s no judgment carried out here – this is all played straight as an arrow as far as I can tell.  We’re supposed to be inspired, and consumed by admiration.  There are times when I wonder whether AoT is trying to be ironic, whether it’s intentionally or unintentionally hilarious – but this wasn’t one of them.  Seriously, the gist of Erwin’s argument here is “The plan I came up with has led us into (another) untenable situation, and we’re in the process of being slaughtered.  So I need everyone to commit suicide and act like it’s an honor.”

For everything else that annoyed me here – Armin being rendered useless by fear, the totally out of context humor – the worst part by far was that I sat through all this on the faint hope that Erwin would finally, actually die as he so richly deserves to – that it would be he paying the price for his own stupid arrogance and horrible judgment and not those under his command.  But no, Erwin lives – and until I see the body consumed by flames and reach to the heavens in the form of smoke, I’m never going to believe for a minute Isayama will kill him.  He loves him too damn much.  Seeing Erwin like this just makes me want the Beast Titan, Bertholdt, Reiner and their side to wipe everybody out and have done with it.

 

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23 comments

  1. I think honestly nothing was as comedic as Erwin’s constipated face at the end. I can KINDA see why “well, let’s risk our lives on a tiny chance of victory rather than just wait to be killed make sense”, but yeah, Erwin has some guts saying that out loud after he’s the one who dragged them into this mess. Also, not sure “yeah, you’re going to die” is the best motivational speech ever rather than trying to give them SOME hope that this could somehow succeed. Not to mention, it all rides on the Beast TItan being a complete idiot and falling for it.

  2. Isayama apparently also has a poor understanding of biology. The beast titan has this whole baseball motif associated with it, supposedly being better at throwing stuff because of its ape-like characteristics (long arms specifically). However, in reality, humans are far better at throwing objects than apes (it’s something we’ve evolved to do).

  3. The Beast Titan is also 20 m tall though, with proportionally long arms. And TBF the way he throws seems like he’s got some baseball training. He even talked about “a perfect game”.

  4. M

    Considering all of the combat he’s been through, Armin freezing out of fear almost seems like character regression at this point.

  5. Yes, Isayama regressing the one character that’s still alive who actually has some depth is not progress.

  6. R

    I kind of bought it. Because this is a situation everything is screwed and everything is solely on him to get them out. I can understand him freezing up in this circumstance.

  7. Yeah, it’s not “first life-or-death situation”, it’s “first life-or-death situation IN WHICH THE RESPONSIBILITY IS PLACED SQUARELY ON HIS SHOULDERS”. He’s not freezing out of fear for his life, but out of the weight of having to save everyone. It’s the same feeling, times a hundred.

  8. G

    ”the one character that’s still alive who actually has some depth is not progress.”

    Completely laughable statement. It”s almost like Enzo wants us to give him some credit for choosing Armin -the smart character- as his chosen favorite. Like it would reflect badly on him somehow if he admited to liking anyone else. And now he has to pretend that Eren and Reiner (to choose 2 among many) aren’t some of the greatest characters in the history of anime.

    The whole thing is such an infuriating embarassment, honestly. Enzo clearly isn’t the only one underestimating Titan as a story, so I am not putting this wholly on him.

    Titan being underestimated so thoroughly (and for various reasons) from the smart crowd is truly sad to me. Personally I cannot accept that this amazing story is just lost on so many people, so the only justifications that make sense in my head are, frankly, patronizing stuff like a) ppl wanting to detach themselves from its overwhelming popularity or b) score some woke points (the more recent phenomenon). The discourse around it is so fundamentally broken and confused and the political conclusions (that it is fascist) so willfully blind to the story’s moral truth that It makes me want to applaud Titan for exposing so many frauds that want to pass as sober intellectual appraisers.

  9. All that’s missing from that comment is the word “snowflake”.

  10. G

    ”All that’s missing from that comment is the word “snowflake”.”

    More proof of your gross misreading of this whole situation. It’s interesting how chose this word, so associated with right-wing bullshit. That is how you must think of people who like Titan. Either stupid children who don’t know any better or actual hard rightists. That’s the only thing that makes sense to you.

    Because all of this, all your writing on this show was never about the actual text, the characters or the story. It’s about Isayama and what he may or may not believe and about some ”proof that it’s fascist” from some later chapters of the manga. You are blinded by that and refuse to really look at it. I would earnestly tell you to go back and rewatch it from the beginning, but it seems almost pointless now.

  11. b

    I’ve been looking forward to your reaction to this part for a long time, Enzo. And it was worth the wait. Erwin been sending his men off to their deaths for awhile now, but he’s never sent *everyone* before. Assuming he really is dead, it’s the perfect send-off for his character.

    “He died as he lived–screaming incoherently and getting everyone killed.”

    Tragically, we already used the best Zap Brannigan quotes last season, so I’ll just leave this here instead:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8tfuAa1zHU

    (Not sure who Nixon would be in SnK. Maybe Levi.)

  12. Why would you assume he’s dead? He’s unkillbale, no matter how many he kills with his criminal incompetence.

    Like I said – smoke to Heaven, then maybe I’ll believe. But even then I’ll still be skeptical.

  13. b

    Dangit Enzo, you know I can’t outright say if he lives or dies! (Cos’ spoilers.)

  14. And please stick to that…

  15. I must say I’m starting to agree with you here more and more… Given that the preview mentions the next episode is called “hero”, I really wonder if the battle can somehow be improved in a credible way, that doesn’t involve some kind of Deus ex machina or another sequence of crazy Levi skills.. I don’t expect that much anymore, though 😉

  16. B

    “If you know yourself and know your enemy you need not to fear the result of a thousand battles”

    Erwin knows nearly nothing about the enemy but the enemy knows everything about them and themselfs. So how is erwin supossed to make a master plan against an enemy who is stronger and actualy knows whats going on??

  17. R

    I can see you don’t read the manga.
    Then I can tell I’m looking forward to your next review, that one was hilarious. You have a unique way to read the characters. True, the animation is overexagerating with Erwin’s charge and is raging face as someone said in the comments but that’s anime style…
    Can’t wait.

  18. R

    He doesn’t have to read the mangas just like the Movie-only viewers don’t have any obligation to read the book many films are based on; each media has to be capable of standing by its own as a piece and expression or art, if you have to check the original to understand something, then there’s a problem in how the adaptation is dealing with the storytelling and characters portraying.
    And also, let me tell you, I agree with lots of things he has remarked with this series, I have read the manga ’cause people told me that “it was better” as I expressed my dissapointmente with the series, and guess what? is bullshit, sorry, it isn’t any better, it’s even worse, AoT may be popular, but it isn’t a masterpiece, it isn’t even well written, I’d say even a noob can tell that, but watching all the hardcore fans it has, I guess I can’t, furthermore, that something is popular doesn’t mean it’s good or has quality.
    What I can see with AoT is that the adaptation, or more like that the direction is doing a favor to the original material same as happened years ago with Elfen Lied who also lacked in all aspects (drawing, writing, character design..) to the point of making something so ridiculous look good, even when it wasn’t. The colours, the dynamic, the pace, the animtion, it has lot of budget, so it seems good, even when the content isn’t, that’s all, is good loocking and nothing more ( it has to, all that mercadishing sells has to be worth something in order to generate more and more money)
    You can’t offer an objective analysis since you are only blaming Enzo or the fact he hasn’t read the manga as the only factor of why AoT receives those critics, that isn’t objective.
    I agree with some of the comments above too, Isayama doesn’t have any understanding of lots of themes he is dealing with, such as biology, politics, military strategy, even with my limited knowledge in those themes every single time those so called “genius” thoughts or actions of that world and his characters are protrayed seems so dumb to me to the point it exasperates me, I’m here just to see animated that certain scene with Erwin, ’cause I can’t stand him too.

  19. I think his point was, if you HAVE read the manga, you will KNOW he hasn’t, just from the things he’s said. Really, I won’t add anything because spoilers, but trust me, it wasn’t malicious, just giddiness at the thought of what comes next and Enzo’s reaction to it.

  20. R

    Chill out my friend, I wasn’t talking about quality and adaptation, just about manga facts Enzo seems to ignore (well, seemed to ignore since I’m writing this after ep 54 came out). He’s massively misreading some points because he doesn’t know future facts manga readers know. And in SNK you need to know the future to understand the present you are reading.

  21. G

    Not really. You can come to some safe conclusions even without knowing what comes next. Enzo’s misreadings cannot be justified by his ignorance of the manga. He is often willfully ignoring the text because it goes contrary to the narrative he is invested in that has to do with the series themes and ideology.

  22. h

    it’s hilarious how you have vastly different opinion than the masses with regards to Erwin’s disposition.

    but right Erwin and Erwinism is incurable, he is like unintentional ironic piece of story device, a character emerges from the writer’s psyche.

  23. “Erwinism”. That about sums it up.

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