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.

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.