Recap: The recruits finally graduate after two years of training and now must decide which division of the military they will join. Eren, set on becoming a member of the Recon Corps still faces derision from those who have accepted humanity’s inevitable demise. In addition, a familiar face shows up again to torment our heroes.

Gee’s Thoughts:

Haha yes, they finally introduced Annie! Annie and Sasha (Potato Girl) are hands down two of my favorite characters from the manga so it was nice to finally see her make an appearance. Uh, we’ll get back to her in a bit.

This episode was pretty much all setup. Our recruits finally finish their training as drill sergeant nasty discusses their various strengths and weaknesses from how Reiner’s the ultimate bro to how Potato Girl is fucking weird (and amazing). It gives us a little more insight into the various styles of performance our heroes are working with and it’ll be interesting to see them in action soon.

I will say this about this episode though. It’s obvious that their budget took a hit with this episode, with characters appearing off-model almost any time they were in the background. Thankfully the action sequences seem to remain relatively intact, but I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. Titan is a show that needs a budget to work, and if it’s already starting to lag now, that doesn’t fill me with confidence.

One of the most interesting topics from this episode was Annie’s lecture to Eren about the hypocrisy of the Military Police, the third of the three branches of the military. Only the top 10 recruits are allowed to apply for the Military Police, tasked with guarding the king and maintaining order in the inner city. However, recruits are graded based on their Titan killing ability, so recruits are essentially training to defeat the Titans so that they can get away from them. This creates a hypocritical situation in which the lesser trained recruits are the ones thrown into the meat grinder while those with talent are free to live their lives in ignorant luxury. It’s certainly an odd choice and it’ll be interesting to see if Titan addresses that inequality later down the line. In addition, she schools Eren in the art of CQC that would make Solid Snake himself proud.

Finally, the Colossal Titan returns with a vengeance at the very end. It’s wonderfully harsh and brutal how Attack on Titan builds up our hopes and optimism only to crush them at their peak. It’s what makes the show entertaining and intriguing to watch, similar to HBO’s Game of Thrones. Next week’s episode is promising some intense Titan killing action so here’s hoping it delivers on the lofty setup this episode presented.

Marlin’s Thoughts:

The vibe this show gives off is very interesting. For being such a bleak setting, it’s always so vibrant. For such pretty characters, so many have their eyes sunken in. Unfortunately, the good art which has been a cornerstone of my love for this show really took a hit. There is honestly a scene that was so bad I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more photo-realistic Picasso paintings than what was going on there. Still, I enjoy this story immensely, and I’m definitely starting to understand what Gee’s been talking about. It’s absolutely brutal how Titan brings up our characters’ hopes before smashing them to the ground. I’ve been itching for some action though, and what’s to come definitely promises to deliver.

Gee: In addition, for everyone watching this, I’ve created a character guide for those having trouble remembering the loads and loads of characters this anime is going to introduce. While the anime doesn’t suffer from the sameface and rather poor early artwork that the manga did, I have a feeling it’ll still come in handy. I’ll continue to update it every week as new characters are introduced.