Monday 10 November 2014

Shingeki no Kyojin/ Attack on Titan 63 (Chains) review

Hello and welcome to my second review for Attack on Titans.

Last chapter gave us some huge revelations on the story, we learned what happened to Eren's father, Historia's family and saw the aftermath of the government falling, Chapter 63 provides more information what Grisha Jaeger's attack.
It seems like not only did Eren remember things from his past but so does Historia as she remembers seeing her sister when she visited her although she already knew that a woman was visiting her before.


The Reiss family is very good at altering people's memories, I wonder if this has something to do with them being royalty somehow or if they became royalty by erasing everyone's memories of what happened?

Historia wants to meet her half sister and you can see how this terrifies Eren as he know what happened but Historia doesnt....yet. Rod Reiss though decides to reduce his daughter's ignorance and tells her how his entire family was killed by Eren's father. Way to bring those two character's closer, anyone who shipped Eren/Historia might abandon ship now, having your father in law kill your entire family doesn't really improve one's relationship.


From this page I think it's quite obvious that Grisha wanted the Reiss family to do something, remember that Grisha disappeared after the fall of wall Maria so I'm sure he asked the Reiss family to do something about the Titan attack that had just happened, when they refused him or maybe he thought they were responsible for what happened to his family, he stabbed himself and Titan'ed their asses.

Freida's Titan form was apparently the strongest Titan form, the fact that Rod Reiss even says that shows that he has a lot of knowledge on Titans if he can recognize that his daughter was very powerful, this power however wasn't used to it's full potential and Grisha was able to eat her. He ate her to steal her power which I am guessing is the "Coordinate" thing that Eren can use now.

It's a very violent tale and clearly part of the reason Rod said it was to get his daughter to hate Eren more and it works, she thinks his father is a monster but before anything more can be said Kenny Ackerman shows up and warns them of the current Coup situation, Rod tells him to leave cause he needs to do something without them around and I'm guessing that Historia is going to be turned into a Titan and asked to eat Eren to acquire his power and Rod doesn't want anyone around for that.


The scene switches to something quite disgusting, Zackly designed a horrible torture device that he intends to use on the previous government and parade them to the public so they lose all sense of pride and power. It's funny how often people who are oppressed end up being oppressors themselves the moment they gain power and Zackly is proof of that here.

The scene switches to Erwin and Pixis and I always enjoy seeing Pixis in this series, he has an interesting presence that fascinates me, he tells Erwin that some officials have said that the Reiss family can alter memories but some bloodlines are immune to it, I think two of these bloodlines are Erwin's (His dad seemed to know a lot about history and life outside) and Armin's as well, whose parent's wanted to travel the world. Just a hunch.

Pixis says he doesn't understand Zackly's ambition and I like his opinion, if Zackly hates these people why not just kill them? the ability to torture someone just for the pleasure of doing so is such a twisted ability for anyone to have.



Pixis continues by saying that he sided with Erwin only because he thought he was right, had siding with the government saved more people then he would have done that instead, it's another interesting point of view that shows how Pixis only cares for humanities's survival, not it's leadership and he is willing to let corrupt people rule if they can lead people to safety.

Erwin leaves to start their rescue of Eren and Historia, not that Historia wants to be rescued anymore though. Before Erwin leaves he says that conflict between men will only stop when the world has one or less men in it, which reminds me a lot of the story about Cain and Abel.

Levi's team is already on the way to the rescue and they are briefed on how Kenny is going to be the biggest obstacle there, I think Titan Historia is going to be more scary but we shall see soon. Levi continues by asking Mikase about their shared name of Ackerman.


From the above we can see that Mikase's father was persecuted due to having some sort of power that scared the common folks from him, it seems that in this Titan universe we have some families all possesing some sort of unique bloodline power, Reiss family can control memories and the Ackermans can activate some sort of power that makes them much more powerful than regular humans, it's why Levi, Kenny and Mikase are the best fighters in the universe. The "Awakening" power can be seen here from the anime and it explains how a 8(?) year old girl can break the handle of a blade and the floor from her jump.

Back in the love cave we see Historia remembering her sister and glaring at Eren, like it's his fault his father went berserk. Once everyone is gone Rod brings out the serum that we have seen a few times in the show before and Eren recognizes it immediately as it's the same thing he was injected with earlier by his own father, how nice of parents to pass on the gift of turning into monsters to their children, warms the heart.

Rod tells Historia that her sister isn't dead...okay, you just said she was dead like 30 pages ago but Rod explains that her memories are still around and Historia can see her, Eren starts going crazy on his chains and the chapter ends before any action can take place.

Predictions

1- I think we will get more information on what happened when Grisha went to the Reiss family, he clearly looks like he is pleading for something in one of the pages and I think he either asked them to do something about the Titans or blamed them for the Titan attack that happened that led to his wife dying.

2- Rod Reiss has a strong connection to Titans that I hope gets explored, I wonder what he knows because it's clear his family has some very strange powers.

3- I didn't think it before but it's pretty obvious now that some families have bloodline abilities in this show, at first it was just the Reiss family with their memory altering but now the Ackermans join them with some sort of physical enhancement ability, I wonder if more families will have special traits in the future as well.

4- Pretty sure Kenny is still hanging around near that cave, he will show up at some point in the coming battle.

5- Rod will turn Historia into a Titan and ask her to eat Eren to gain his abilities, he wants to manipulate her to acquire this "Coordinate" ability thing.

6- What the hell is that needle that can turn people into Titans? we've seen 2 of them so far I think with  Eren and Historia yet Reiner, Bertolt, Annie and Ymir didn't have any memories of being injected, also why doesn't Rod simply inject himself and eat Eren? There must be some side-effect to being a Titan as Grisha cried a lot when he injected Eren.

7- Some people seem to be born as Titan shifters, those who are from the "homeland" while Humans can acquire this ability.

Rating

I loved this chapter! not as many revelations as the last one to be honest but it does set up the future nicely, it's definitely more of a set-up chapter than anything else and hopefully 64 will be about Historia turning into a titan and the battle to rescue Eren. Attack on Titan 63 gets a 4 out of 5 from me and I really enjoyed it.

Please share your thoughts on this chapter.


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