Just wow.
Episode 5
Wow! Ouch! Wow again. And let’s throw an ‘ooh’ in there for good measure.
Yep, episode 5 of Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2 has rendered me effectively speechless and trying to describe the emotional response to this episode results in onomatopoeia, word salad, and mostly inarticulate phrases. Shock, horror, celebration, stunned silence, horror again, utter depression, minor triumph, followed by the stillness that comes from being so confused about how I feel and yet moved nonetheless.
It isn’t as though the episode is some model of perfection. There’s sections of animation that aren’t as polished as some of the sequences we were getting in season one, the character points are all very much orchestrated as are the emotional notes. It isn’t in the slightest bit subtle as we see the death and disaster roll out before us and other than a moment of excellent timing there’s nothing overly clever about it.
What makes this episode work is that it is the culmination of the all the events leading up to it. Each character moment, whether it is Levi, Armin, Eren, Jean, Bertholdt, Reiner, or the random scout who apparently survived the suicide charge, fits beautifully as the next step in their journey’s even if that step seems to be the end of the line.
Affiliate Link
This is where episodic reviewing is a problem. In terms of spectacle, this episode brought it. Again, it could have been more polished in places, but it looks good enough (significantly better than a lot of anime out there). There’s enough going on to keep the audience hooked and invested with sufficient pauses for the characters to have their moments. However, this episode doesn’t progress plot or the like. It consolidates a sequence of events we’ve been watching and invested in over the last few weeks and as such it nails the perfect emotional climax.
I’m not going to say what happened, you should just watch it. However, new respect for Levi. That was pretty amazing. Eren gets an incredibly bitter-sweet triumph with a heavy dose of the bitter side of it. And Armin… well, as I said, just watch the episode.
Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
- Attack on Titan Season One Review
- Attack on Titan Season Two Review
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part One Review
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Review
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episodes 1 + 2
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 3
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 4
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 5
- Scott and Karandi Discuss Attack on Titan (Part 1)
- Scott and Karandi Discuss Attack on Titan (Part 2)
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 6
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 7
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 8
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 9
- Attack on Titan Season Three Part Two Episode 10
- Images from: Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2. Dir. T Araki. Wit Studio. 2019.
I must be an outlier. I kept seeing obvious tactical mistakes. The attackers should have spread out so one throw couldn’t take out so many people. Kill your opponent immediately when you have the chance. Nobody had ever thought thru the proper way to deploy smoke. They had gunpowder all the time yet only now figured out how to use it effectively (thunder spears)? What happened to Eren’s ability to command titans? Comes from a military mindset.
But… OTOH this last couple of episodes have been stunning. Epic. Awesome. Let’s give someone a shot of titan juice and head to that basement.
I don’t think they could have spread out anymore due to being surrounded (they did travel up three different lanes of houses so they kind of spread), and Eren was unconscious on the wall when they decided on this last minute plan so whether he could have commanded the titans or not is almost irrelevant. The lack of technology I put down to successive leaders deliberately limiting the access their population has to decent information.
Then again, Attack on Titan is logically full of holes from the beginning and mostly unless they do something stupider than normal I don’t tend to worry about it.
If Erin has a power, I’d have used it the very first thing
I’ve been waiting for this episode to be animated for so long! This season is truly some of the best Attack on Titan has to offer
Yeah, this episode had me babbling incoherently with words like “Holy,” “Ohmygod,” “what the fuck,” and many more. As bittersweet as it was, it was probably one of my favourites for the whole series to date.
Agreed. It just gave me the feeling I have kind of wanted from Attack on Titan since episode 1 but seldom actually feel while watching. So good.