Thursday 9 October 2014

Attack on Titan 62 review

So recently I watched the Attack on Titan anime and I was pretty much blown away by it, it was just awesome but sadly it only covered around half the story and being impatient I decided to read the Manga and finally caught up to it. Now a new chapter has come out and I'm hoping to review AOT from now on.
Let's begin, the title of chapter 62 is called Sin, which fits in very well with the ending of the chapter, but before we get there we see the aftermath of the revolution, I love how the announcement of what the survey corp is done on the stage where Erwin was meant to be executed. People went there expecting to see Erwin die yet instead he is now in a position of even more power than before.


Here's something I enjoy with this show and that is how it shows that whoever wins a conflict, decides what the truth is. "History is written by the winners" and that is how the world works, by winning the revolution the survey corps can say anything they want and it will be considered the truth, of course they are saying the truth but had the government won then the government can say what ever they want as well, and who would stand up to that?

I also like the idea of how they need to work with the true royal family, what determines who is royalty and who isn't? A person's parentage sounds like a very simple way to an easy life and the whole reason is bull to be honest, had the current head of government agreed and helped the survey corps then they would have had no issue with keeping him as king. Lineage and bloodlines only matter because they are using it as an excuse to get rid of him.

A Coup is such a dangerous time does not encourage the people nor make them feel safe, I like how one of the characters in the manga addresses this and wonders what and who they should believe in now, AoT as in real life is a very complicated show.


We see some character growth from Erwin in this chapter, he's always been so sure of himself and all his plans yet when he is alone with Zackley he reveals how he is not sure if his choices have been correct and whether he should have just gone with the flow as he always had, the previous government was able to keep the people alive so why should he go against them?

Yet surviving is more than just being alive, it's about thriving, if a person can't do anything in their life then what is their for them to achieve? we can put people in cages and feed them and that's all they need to survive, but is that all humans require? I like Erwin's decision to do what it takes to give them a shot at not just survivial, but at winning the war. His doubt is also equally impressive because while showing doubt in front of your subordinates is a very bad move, having doubts is a good thing because it allows every captain and leader to think of better and safer plans, rather than just thinking that their actions are always the best moves in every situation.

We haven't seen much of Zackley before this and certainly he has never talked this much in one appearance yet his speech on how he has been forced to follow the government his whole life kind of made me think of how many of us have had bad jobs and were forced to endure terrible superiors, seeing him get revenge on them after so many years...well I'm sure we've all had bosses we hoped would get fired or replaced.

The last we see of the duo they are discussing Erwin's dream and I think he dreams of being a teacher like his father, time will tell.


The scene switches to the survey corps and their current mission of finding Eren, they suspect that Eren might be eaten so that someone can acquire his Titan power, for those who are as confused as I am, Eren's titan power is the ability to control other titans. It's also interesting to see that Titan's acquire their powers by eating others, this was kind of obvious when we learned that Ymir became conscious when she ate Reiner and Bertolt's friend. One thing we don't know though is how are Titans originally created? so far we've seen 2 ways, one being the giant monkey Titan and the other is some sort of injection.

We get some history of the Reiss family and their children, all of them were killed in a robbery turned arson, all except for the Head of the Reiss famil, Rod Reiss. One wonders why he was spared and why he sought out his daughter, Levi asks if it has something to do with their bloodline and it's probably related to that, as Ymir wanted to bring Historia with her as well.

Excellent question.
Armin has the right idea, if Titans gain power by eating Titan-shifters, how did Eren turn into a Titan and who did he eat afterwards? Luckily we don't have to ponder that question for long.

Eren wakes up, tied and gagged while his arms are bandaged, I'm guessing it's to prevent him from scratching himself and transforming yet he could bite his tounge and transform, we haven't seen it yet but if it's injury that causes a Titan transformation then I think that's a possible scenario.

Historia tells us that her father is an ally of humanity and has been misunderstood, can't wait for that explanation considering how little we know of him and his actions. Apparently he loves his daughter who he has abandoned for years and has a lot of control of the previous government.

Shifting to Eren he seems to remember being in this underground prison before, I'm guessing he may have been there before but as a Titan and not a human. Rod Reiss decides to skip the explanation and instead try to jog Eren's memory of the past. This shows us that the Reiss family definitely has some sort of power in their blood, as both Rod and his daughter work to remind Eren of his past. The question now is, Does this power work on Titans only or all humans?



Eren sees the past where he is taken down that chapel, he sees someone transforming into a Titan and it looks a lot like Historia to me, perhaps her mother? he also notes that these aren't his memories, this confused me a bit but as we see later Eren was subjected to a certain experiment by his father, this experiment was also performed on the Reiss family and we can see that Eren's father was able to transform into a Titan and subdue the female Titan, in the page after we also seeing him go out of control and eat some guy, so the story about robbers destroying the chapel is wrong, as it is Eren's father who kills and eats members of the Reiss family.

Afterwards though he injects Eren with something that causes him to transform into a Titan, we can assume that this Titan was uncontrollable or something and in his rage ate his father.

That's right, Eren ate his dad in his Titan form, how's that for some family friendly entertainment?

And that's how the chapter ends, it seems that not only do Titan's obtain the power of other Titans they eat but also their memory, as demonstrated by Eren and his father in this chapter.

Predictions

1- Anyone think that maybe Eren will end up siding with the Titans at some point?

2- The female Titan we saw in the flashback is either Historia or her mother, my bet is on her mother as the female Titan looks like an adult woman and Historia must have been quite young at the time.

3- Historia's sister seems to have the ability to manipulate people's memories, as she appeared to be the woman who taught Historia how to read yet somehow managed to make her forget as well. This gives further evidence of the Reiss' family's ability to manipulate memories as we see them do here with Eren.

Rating

An extremely revealing chapter which I enjoyed immensly, took me a couple of read throughs to understand what happened at the end of the chapter but when it finally sunk in I was really surprised.

I can't wait for the next chapter and therefore give Attack on Titan 62, a 4 out of 5 and hope we get chapter 63 soon.

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