How Return to Shiganshina STUNNED Us All - Overanalyzing Attack on Titan & Retrospective

[Music] the opening sequence of episode 50 much like the previous episode is another case of armen's narration mixing together very practical recap with a whole bunch of recontextualizing of what we already seen all of which of course hits even harder knowing how this season and eventually entire story ends and with that said let us get right into overanalyzing he opens with some basic Exposition about the territory they lost with the fall of Mario which with us then seeing all the refugees I think this sort of mirrors the migrant camps of Marley as well as the refugee camps after the rumbling different battles same story it is the innocent people who actually get caught in the crossfire and on that note the next scenes we get are of Aaron with him proclaiming that he'd wipe out everything as we focus on his super detailed eye this is where that narrator angle really kicks into high gear because the way Armen phrases this is deliberately separating the Monstrous founding Titan Aaron from that innocent boy boy who himself faced down other monsters and even more importantly when Armen talks about that boy who took the blade within his Hearts we first see just his empty fist that only then Fades into the knife as the world blacks out around him this is of course the cabin sequence but thematically just like we'd hear in the rumbling op I think it tells us that Aaron never wanted to grab a knife he only took it because it was the world that darkened all around him he then goes on to talk about bringing down a massive Titan whose head collided with the ground the visual we see Is Mikasa the story he tells is the cabin but in reality I think you could even take it to be the Colossal because you know it's literally the most massive Titan and Aaron would bring it down very very shortly or on the other hand you could just take it to actually be mikup since Mikasa fights for Aaron and Aaron is the one who got her up up to you really but the goal of this speech I think is just to establish this boy as a hero of humanity and to continue on that angle of separating these two errands he then asks what did that boy Inspire in humanity saying for some it was Pride others hope but others still cried out in anger as we see none other than Aaron himself I've talked about this adnauseum already but I think this again just captures that Paradox that is the founding tin there is the boy who grabbed a knife and fought to liberate Humanity but there is also the boy who quite literally embodies the hatred and sins of the past Generations that is the founding Titan this impossible reality where both of those things exist within the same person and so in the story that Arman would tell the world after the rumbling he talks about this boy who brought hope to the walls but he never names him because that same boy is also their biggest monster Armen knows that in those days he never wanted to grab that knife and that it was his best friend Aaron the friend who saved him time and time again but at the same time the world could never see that and so he remains just a nameless boy and if and of course the whole daggers in your eyes from Keith also ties into everything we see here that innocent boy is Carla's baby who is special for the simple reason of having been born but that boy grabbing the knife is those daggers that Keith described within Gia but okay I got one more because the nameless boy could rather be a symbol for Aaron Mikasa and Armen all rolled into one armen's book was the thing that got Aon to fights but it was also Mikasa being kidnapped that got Aaron to fights but it was mikasa's love for Aaron that got Mikasa to fights and it was Aaron's bravery that got Armen to fights Aaron is that connective thread but in this story that the world must hear all of them are sort of one on one hand all of them are heroes of humanity but on the other all of them are devils of parody and the music here oh boy this is one of the newer tracks in the series but I absolutely love the sheer emotional spectrum that we see throughout this opening We Go From That acoustic guitar and this uneasy pulse to these almost sorrowful and regretful [Music] vocals and to immediately follow up on that Armen asks whether Humanity would finally realize that they are the authors of their own Fates purely on a surface level considering this is the last push toward reaching the sea and reclaiming the entirety of parade it is just a a nice speech to sort of hype us up but more broadly speaking I think it perfectly encompasses a lot of Attack on Titan's themes and the often self-contradictory nature of said themes just like that nameless heroic boy turned into a monster this whole sentiment of them being authors of their own Fai is also sort of dubious time and time again we've seen and we'll continue to see how this entire war is almost entirely inherited the people that are a part of it are either forced into it or have simply been molded into these soldiers in which case are they really the authors of their own Fates but okay before we move on I think I need to reiterate that all of that is a recap sequence can someone please explain how does Attack on Titan have more Nuance in a recap sequence than like 70% of Television how did that happen and this is not even me overanalyzing the whole leaving Aaron nameless that's pretty on the nose but anyway we then move into the new opening and yes I've said this a 100 times already but I definitely plan on returning to all the Ops and EDS to analyze them separately because just like the opening sequence they are simply way too dense to unpack without spending like 20 more minutes on them that said though this one is relatively straightforward mostly because it just has a lot of spoilers for the upcoming Arc the season 2 one of course did have Aaron and Riner throwing down but it also had fake scenes like the Colossal throwing the rocks and whatnot which more so resemble Zeke this one though yeah it just shows a whole lot we get Armen waking up after acquiring the Titan we see the coffee GE that we already saw back in utgard So finally connecting those two events we also see the Thunder Spears in action but I think that's about it in terms of big spoilers all right right right right there's also that small thing of you know literally be TOS nuke but okay I think that is actually it oh wait what is this Ain standing with a bunch of people what's so important about that I don't really see anything what do you mean they're all dead but all right aside from all the funny goofy spoilers I think the underlying themes in this one are super interesting especially when you look at them in the context of the new Ed I think The overarching Narrative of this op is showing this dead and empty parody that is contrasted by the war that engulfs it if you go frame by frame those glitchy transitions are locations we know very well but all of them are eerily empty it sort of exploits that Lial space eeriness because with locations like the trior Aaron's house we have never seen them be empty subconsciously we know that something someone is missing so the natural question that arises is what happens why are all of them entirely empty and when you combine that with Ed that is all about this somber longing for the past well it paints a quite morbid outlook for this Mission a longing for the simpler times empty buildings and a war I think if you combine those three things you probably know the outcome yeah the outcome is they're empty because probably everyone's dead but one thing that I absolutely have to overanalyze is this Frame right here before I say anything else what do you see in this just an immediate iate gut check don't think about it because my immediate thoughts was that this is the global Allied Fleet and only then did I see that it's probably just the HQ and the walls but you know considering the fact that the ocean has already been revealed and the fact that a mirror and the rumbling has also already been revealed I mean all the puzzle pieces are already there so I think there's a case to be made that this is indeed the fleet yes I am well aware that it is definitely not the title of the series is overanalyzing let me overanalyze okay though another line here that I think is super interesting is wi pursur dreams even through hell and Beyond and that is paired with exclusively Aaron Zeke Titans being summoned Zeke himself and within the glitches we see the tip of the wall Aaron's home and the HQ all of which I think you can tie together as the main catalyst of the rumbling and on a very similar note it then asks how much are you willing to give to bring them to fruition a sweetly demonic voice demands that we pave a road of corpses to take us there all of which is of course paired with Awin this ties into everything we talked about last time with him saying that confirming his father's beliefs is more important than Humanity's victory that selfish desire is that sweetly demonic voice and aowin would indeed PVE a road of corpses but on the other hand there is also the give up on your dreams and die so we'll leave all of that for when we actually get there right now I think he's just neatly establishing those themes there's also another interesting sequence here of Aaron's eyes going to air and the devil of all things to the A Airship to Armen seashell to Marley to the basement and of course the rumbling I think it establishes that tangled web of memories and events that eventually lead to the rumbling as well as The Duality within Aaron with us seeing both the Purity that is arm and seashell as well as the hatred of past Generations through air and the hot air balloon another cool little sequence here that actually connects back to the first Ed of the season is the it would still be too early for the requium with the visuals being a very similar drop of blood but this time it is not Historia in this Antiquated art style this time it is a soldier's boot in the present day as we then cut to Historia looking back or recalling air and then arowin standing with the dead much like with the story and never getting the time to properly mourn air for aowin 2 it would still be too early for requium and the final thing we see in this one are two black birds or more likely crows which of course connects back to the second op where it was two white birds and eventually the rumbling where it is a bit of both as with every other time in this series as well as basically any series crows are pretty clearly used as an omen of death everything from Aaron waking up under the tree to crows feasting on the dead to the crows we see here things are about to get really really bad and this just signals that because this is a linked Horizon op there are a whole bunch of other references to previous Ops as well as the lyrics referencing the titles of the Ops themselves for brevity sake we'll leave all of that for the inevitable overanalyzing Ops though one last thing I want to say here is just that this shot right here is really really cool as for the title of the episode the town where it all began you know what I actually don't know why it's called that I can't even begin to theorize why you'd call it that like why is it called that must be some sort of weird plot hole I don't know just in case anyone needs a little bit of clarification I was being sarcastic that was sarcasm the episode is called that because the episode takes place in the town moving into the episode itself we opened with the scouts super sneakily moving toward chagan with each and every one of them being cloaked and trying to avoid even speaking Aaron's name unfortunately for them it doesn't really amount to much as we know that Peak is watching their movements basically the entire way and this I think nicely summarizes what this mission is actually all about thus far both the Marley Squad as well as Awin have approached their enemies with caution and precision the female Titan Arc was all about Awin completely alone drawing up fake plans so that he alone can lure out the enemy and that of course means that their preparations were also relatively light I mean no one except Arn knew about the fake plans and no one really knew about the mission right and the same goes for the Marley Squad instead of all three of them just popping off and yuking the entire Mission into Oblivion and he tried to strike precisely at Aaron's position and just Ying him they didn't know what the founding Titan is capable of they still didn't even know that Aaron has the founding Titan and they really didn't know what the king is up to it was about precision and it was about caution after the events of season 2 though the gloves are very much off sure there's a decent chance that they could have just tried ambushing the scouts right here right now in this Forest but the thing is they know Awin by now what if Aaron gets away Solo or what if he does some wacky founding Titan stuff like he did at the end of season 2 kind of a bad idea and so what they do is deliberately kite them into shagan and then just turn shagan into a literal killing box this is quite literally the nuclear option yeah I know it's not literally a nuke because the explosion isn't actually a nuke n is just a big explosion but it is a nuke okay and on the flip side again the same goes for the scouts the basement is the end game whatever happens they aim to finish this fight in shagans even if they face a yet unknown enemy on the other side of all of this the basement is kind of their end all be all and speaking of yet unknown things an interesting development that we see here are the nighttime Titans or as hji calls them the Moonlight Titans as hanji notes Moonlight is just reflected sunlight so if the moon were out theoretically the occasional Titan could still function with that tiny bit of light in reality though these quote unquote new Titans they're describing are just Zeke's Titans who for some reason can move around regardless just like we already saw back at ard as for why that discrepancy exists between zek's Titans and just regular Titans well we don't really have a concrete answer so I just write it down to the good old magic is Magic and Magic is cool you don't need to explain everything for some reason pure Titans are slightly different from control Titans why not but the point I was making is that I really like that there are these theories that are entirely sound but still based in incomplete information these Moonlight Titans are in some kind of new mutated type of Titan or anything like that they're just the ones created by Zeke I think it just adds a nice bit of realism that we see these weird things and we try to explain them based on what we know it's a very small thing that seems obvious but a lot of shows just want to give you the actual and don't really allow the characters in the universe to theorize about this keep this in mind because we see the exact inverse of this in this same episode with Armen also also we see their new lanterns which of course come from the glowing crystal Discovery we get an eye-catcher about them later in the episode as well but if you recall the Torches we talked about back in season 2 this is another case of Technology developing based on these discoveries which I think is just super cool for my realism sense we then get a small conversation between Aaron and Armen that I think very nicely encompasses that theme of pers perspective in this conflict Aaron realizes that he is trembling and obviously scared but when Armen asks what's wrong he just says that he's cold Armen on the other hand with absolutely no shame just says oh I'm terrified then turning to ask whether Aaron has ever really been afraid of The Titans with how much we talk about these macro themes of perspective and both sides sort of being victims yada yada this is a very relatable human example of exactly that just like Arman assumes that Aaron's projected confidence is what's actually going going on in his head I think this is something that all of us fall prey to expensive clothes luxury Brands and Status symbols are probably the easiest example it's very easy to look at someone who's dressed very nicely or driving a nice car and assume that they're very well off but in reality a lot of research has shown that there is a very very good chance that they're not well off at all a lot of them might be spending an ungodly share of their income ons set clothes or car or whatever else and it might just stem from some sort of insecurity or appealing to status or even just plain anxiety in due spending it signals composure while in reality it is a masks to hide actual insecurity just like Aaron puts on a brave face here I can't wait to read that one comment from a dude who spent $300 on a t-shirt trying to tell me that the shirt is very high quality and worth every penny and that I just don't understand anything if it makes you happy I really don't care you can burn that money but don't try and tell me it's not just that burning money I feel very luxury than res right and this same Dynamic would of course also play out in the final season Aaron might be this cold expressionless figure just stumbling around while in reality we know that he is burning up on the inside we also get some not really foreshadowing but kind of foreshadowing with them recalling Aaron saving Armen back in trust something we'd of course see again in shagan but the most important part here I think is Aaron saying that he got up because of armen's book it wasn't strength or bravery or whatever else it was hope and it was a dream practically speaking I think this is another point on the graph if you will to tell us as the audience that Armen must be the one who gets the syringe Arn has stated that he has no plan after this not only does Armen see a future past the basement but Aon too desperately needs to cling onto that hope that only Armen can bring and in terms of macro themes I think aerens you were dreaming of bigger things I never dreamed at all very nicely connects to your dream did it satisfy or terrify is The Duality that we see both in this season's narrative with the likes of Ain as well as within Aaron and his entire story reaching the sea is the end but it is also the beginning of something even greater it is a victory but it comes at a loss of so so many including Aaron it was Aaron's dream his only dream but it was tainted and it became a nightmare but on the complete flip side I think you can also think of this as a question of what are we fighting for as in Aaron thus far fought with this abstract goal of just killing all of their enemies he never dreamed of anything bigger because there was a wall holding him back same for the Marley Squad they never got to be kids they never got to truly live or dream but for Armen and this connects back to that bravery Point even in this very ugly world he never lost hope and he never gave up that dream of just seeing the sea in a weird way Armen is infinitely braver and infinitely more resilient than Aaron and so we once again come back to that point of without Armen dream there really is no Aaron's dream without Aaron there is no Mikasa the whole thing falls apart as soon as you remove one thing and that piano as they talk about how this time next year they'll be looking out at the sea Just Hits so so difference obviously there is that dimension of Armen briefly biting the dust but it's more than that is that Impossible Dream of reaching the sea again turning out to be yet another enemy we have to defeats and importantly as Mikasa notices that this is the hill they used to come to to get firewood we again see that duality of Arman and Mikasa Armen constantly looks forward he dreams of what comes next Mikasa on the other hand is constantly looking back she sees the hill and she sees the memories upon that hill and then we of course have Aaron the one who is perpetually in between but all right as we reach shagan up the pacing of this episode and really Arc as a whole just goes nuts and is yet another brilliant showcase of isy setting up these dominoes only to let them fall one by one type of Storytelling and on that notes strap in because in classic Attack on Titan fashion there's the scene right here you know just some generic horse riding filler as they all storm into shagon num right nothing really important yeah well actually no because there's an ominous mound of dirt and a tube coming out of it I am like pretty sure that parade doesn't have Plumbing yeah those are the people that Zeke would transform at the end of this episode they didn't like like magically appear in case you were wondering what the Marley Squad were cooking while we were carrying out casual kudas they were digging these trenches I guess they were not really trenches they're holes but you get the idea and in hindsights this becomes even funnier because literally the first thing Awin says right as we pass these tubes is Titans could be hiding in the shadows well you see Aaron they're actually not in the shadows they are just chilling underneath you oh yeah and the same goes for Riner by the way he's also under you but um there's also this right here I have truly no idea what's going on with the background here because the scouts look Beyond cursed their necks look like they're JoJo characters and there's like really weird clipping going on yeah definitely cursed what's not cursed though is this shot of the scouts soaring above the buildings while the hores continue running and that transition we get into this sort of drawn planning mode is also really really neat also also I usually Babble on about these swiveling shots tracing a certain character but this totally static shots going through the gates while a bunch of Scouts zip all around is also so so cool without a doubt this is overanalyzing but it almost frames the sequence as not some super skillful and hectic move but rather this large scale calculated and strategic maneuver that just keeps going another small detail that I love here is that we once again see Aaron's hand very briefly shaking bro is low-key carrying the entire Mission again I think he has the right to be a little bit shaky but my favorite bit here is absolutely the musical shift that we see here we fade from that triumphant part of the odm Gear theme as the scouts re-enter shagan to those slower strings creeping in as Armen notices the ashes and this is what I mean by the break neck pacing of this episode because while Armen immediately says that they are here and that they are close we don't even focus on that because the music keeps going and we just jump back to Aaron who soar is above the [Music] wall this entire sequence is one an incredible achievement we've taken W Maria and number two just an incredible payoff but that is immediately subverted by us catching glimpses of both Riner and barol just watching we finally made it to shagan up as Aaron himself says the basement is just around the corner but that Victory is immediately ripped away and oh boy are we not prepared for what comes next as an episode Cliffhanger this would be insane but the fact that we are still in the middle of the episode is just something else entirely and on that note we hop on over to the eye catcher talking about the glowing ore I'm a weirdo about these worldbuilding details I know but I always enjoy seeing how fantasy stories incorporate modern or modernish technology in these more magical settings like obviously this is just a lantern but we don't have like like battery power or power in general right so instead it is this super spooky special ore and the same of course goes for odm gear and the whole Ultra hard steel and the ice burst Stone Etc I think it's really neat how different authors incorporate this sort of stuff without breaking the overall Vibe if that makes sense returning to the episode from this point on I think the simplest way to summarize everything we see is just with that was way too easy and note the difference in music before the eye catcher to us again seeing that same sequence but now it is dead [Music] quiet just like with the Rhino reveal at top the wall this is the direction carefully managing our expectations we know they are here and we know they are watching and so that sudden silence just constantly keeps you asking because when will they pop out this is Anime most of the time we expect music to accompany a climactic scene and it's quiet with every ticking second that anxiety builds and builds because we expect something to kick in but it never does we explore that anxiety from a few different perspectives Aaron just can't accept it thinking that surely it couldn't have been that simple but Levi then Cuts in saying that so long as Riner and burrito are alive they can keep plugging the wall a dozen times and that it doesn't matter and that's sort of the thing going into this we aim to finish the fight here and now but everything we're doing is kind of a Band-Aid fix regardless of what happens there is still an enemy that we haven't even really discovered and of course the basement would reveal exactly that also there's the scene of Mikasa giving air in her cloak which always had me raising an eyebrow this episode's narrative was about everyone hiding their faces so naturally you'd expect that if Mikasa were to take off her cloak well people could identify her and everyone knows that she's glued to Aaron so Aaron is probably going to get blasted somehow but that never happens definitely a rare time where that Czech off's gun is never fired so an alternate interpretation I would offer up is that by plugging the wall something that was supposed to be this triumphant Victory they actually inadvertently trapped themselves within shaguna so in other words Aaron does lose his Wings of Freedom regardless definitely a slightly sus scene but we then pop on over to Awin and Durk where they too talk about how they would have expected an ambush by now in a way all of this is kind of a rle reversal of declaration of war or I guess declaration of war is a role reversal of this but in both situations the enemy knows that they enemy is right there but we as the audience observe both sides but what we don't know is what stands behind them and what we're even really watching in the same way that Zeke appeared in season 2 and then just poofed out of existence the Zeppelin In season 3 too appears and poofs out of existence until it becomes the reinforcements the early parts of the final season are centered around Viner so in that case Riner is sort of Aaron in the present story it gets really confusing talking about like enemies knowing where their enemies are but those enemies is parody right is just that the final season is framed around Rhino initially so it does get confusing with the whole Zeppelin sort of being Zeke but I think you see what I'm getting at that's the sort of guns on walls and letting the Domino's fall type of writing that isayama constantly excels in with these sorts of climaxes on the face of it just like in the final season we sort of know what's going to happen right like the the fact that rhor and Beal is here is not even a mystery it was literally shown to us but at the same time we also have like literally no idea what's going to happen it's just excellent Direction both on the anime Parts as well as of course the manga itself but it's not over just yet because in the same way we'd have to solve the yellena mystery in declaration of war we have the mystery of the cups with Armen first of all and I will repeat this every single time this is relevant these poor souls don't have coffee on parody no wonder they kept getting destroyed by Marley but okay as much as I joke about it there are good reasons to believe that the proliferation of coffee in Western countries was a huge accelerator for societal developments before I say anything else once again a disclaimer I've taken a grand total of one anthropology course so I'm about as experienced as Marco was entrust conceptually going from primarily alcohol a depressants fuel socializing in bars to coffee houses where patrons are mostly sober and consuming a stimulant seems ideal for fostering debates and breaking down social barriers that said though it is still a somewhat contested point there are plenty of cultures who have longc consumed other caffeinated drinks and it's not like they slingshot themselves into the enlightenment or anything but then again those coffee houses were less SW about the coffee or caffeine and more so about the environments as in no alcohol and random dudes just chatting about things so it's purely a societal angle that doesn't really have anything to do with coffee the coffee is just the conduit for that in a way we do kind of see that in Attack on Titan Levi is a tea enjoyer while leanas was very much not a tea enjoyer but whatever the case definitely interesting to at least think about Armen then reports what he found to Awin and here I think it's important to note that we obviously have some pretty strong information of symmetry between the scouts and us as the viewers the scouts haven't seen the monkey in a very very long time there is good reason to suspect that the third person is Zeke but there's really no way to be sure we as the viewers on the other hand I mean we've literally seen them interact but this is Attack on Titan so there's of course even more dominoes to be set up here so as the music shifts into full-blown horror they come to the conclusion that there must have been at least one more person if they had enough time to drop everything again in position it's possible that they had a scout in addition to the three on the wall with that mind of yours you've saved us from disaster countless times if you remember what I said about theorizing based on wrong information yeah this is the inverse of that I think Armen jumping right to the conclusion that there must be four people is a pretty blatant check off gun in hindsights yes we can confirm that it was indeed Peak but from a writing point of view I think with this is sayama didn't really want people to start wondering about some other means of communication or maybe more Traders or anything like that rather he basically just gave us the answer right away is just a neat way to continue building and more importantly concentrating that suspense on what truly matters the tangible threat of rher and Beals that we know very very well we've had plenty of suspense stemming from Mystery so this time time we are going 100% in on what we already know and that is scary but even then there's of course stuff that we don't know more on that in a second Awin then tells Armen to focus on finding them saying his mind has already proved invaluable as with the entirety of the Awin Arman debates many of these scenes tend to bring up some very very spicy takes and one that I've seen around this point is arowin suddenly giving Armen Authority and recognizing his brains apparently being super sudden but uh I don't think this is sudden like I don't called first of all the Ani mission that was led by Awin but Aran was the one actually doing everything secondly back in trust we saw something extremely similar with pixus so in terms of big brains recognizing other big brains this has been a thing since very early season 1 and secondly there is Awin himself he has always surrounded himself with extremely skilled people and delegated tasks that best fit their skills I mean that's exactly what makes him a good leader knowing how to allocate resources is like 85% of the job he himself is relatively strong but he is nowhere near Levi's level and so Levi is his right hand even if he was an outlaw he is also smart but he has nothing on hanji which is why he doesn't carry out any research himself and so him delegating this task to Armen is also exactly that him noticing that Armen excels in this human Centric thinking that has allowed him to already lure out Annie to largely confirm that rer was an Insider and now that they'd be hiding within the walls and to cement that even further Durk asks whether promoting Armen is another one of his gambl only for Awin to say that no I've already judged him a big brain respects a fellow big brain the point I'm making here is that I don't think Arwin promoting Armen is sudden at all and I also think it is yet another point for Levi's decision later on and there's another cheeky little scene here of us briefly lingering on the walls before we pan up and see them actually talking about where the enemies are just like the pipe sticking out of the ground this is the show basically showing us where they are as they talk about where they are and the Thunder Spears are of course also teased here though as they split up to search the perimeter again Doom sets in for Armen as he realizes that this is too simple they know Marley Is Here Marley knows that they're here but they can't find them and they're not retaliating there is something that they are missing on a fundamental level and so we get these really cool shots of the world literally shifting all around as Armen spirals we zoom out to depict him as the small Speck hanging on the wall but we then Zoom back in and the world shifts 90° I think it's just a cool visual representation of arman's headspace right now and also the musical contrast set up here with Armen spiraling to that realization setting in to him calling off the mission is also so so cool but it's at this point where our glorious ballhead resorts to Classic Attack on Titan information symmetry battles this is that crucial human variable that Armen simply beats Awin out on Awin is a genius strategist and leader when it comes to large scale operations AK to season 1 he is unrivaled I mean they captured Annie without even expecting her but armen's way of thinking is much much more concentrated if Awin does a horizontal slice Armen does a vertical and analyzes every single layer of just one tiny sliver if the Marley Squad knows a lot more about the Titans how to use them and everything like that it's no wonder they can constantly keep one step ahead thing is we know there are Titans within the walls it's safe to assume that Marley also knows that there are Titans within the walls but what Marley doesn't know is that we know there are Titans within the walls because they were suspects Annie was captured without rher and Beal ever knowing and after the events of season 2 I mean obviously they weren't caught up on every everything that happened so yeah this is information symmetry versus supposed information of symmetry in this case airwin of course also faces the natural debuff of Arman having spent years with these people whereas he doesn't really know them at all though a smaller detail I find really interesting here is how Armen breaks confidentiality the wall Titans weren't exactly made public right and so we briefly focus on Awin as Armen blurts out to check inside of the walls in part I think this is just because he realizes that armen's probably on to something but also because Awin always holds his cards very very close to the chest so here he sees Armen largely gambling on one a very big secret and two just a hunch that completely ignores traditional strategy based on what we had seen previously the closest thing to this would have been mik and his JoJo nose so I think it's no surprise that Awin immediately recognizes that this is the kind of thinking they need if they are to stay ahead of all of these new threats in a perfect world we'd of course have aowin and Armen putting their heads together but you know for now that human Centric profiling ability is exactly what they needs and speaking of note that as Awin shoots off the flare and gives Arman commands we once again focus on Levi piece by piece his decision is slowly being made and so we enter the climax of The First Act they find the cavity Riner pops out and we get that classic shriek in the music as those dominoes come Crashing Down of course this is Attack on Titan so we break the anime Rule and with zero Fanfare Levi launches forward and sticks one sword in riner's neck and the other in basically his Hearts riner's durability throughout the Sark will be a huge point of conversation so I won't get into that now but obviously taking two swords from an acur and smashing down from like 40ish MERS is a real bad time but yeah more on that soon you know what I'm talking about we'll talk about it plenty what we will talk about now though is viner's transformation because the entire sequence is gorgeous even ignoring the Levi sequence the transformation itself is so so good you really have to go frame by frame to catch all the impact frames and whatnot but I love how we actually see the ground underneath pounded in as he begins to transform and then when he pops his Avatar States I love how we see that Titan lightning sort of zip through his core a few times before it begins proper and Al the whole eyes lighting up each getting bigger and then merging into a transformation is also super cool I know a lot of people love the impact frames from like the wall sequence where we see their Titans briefly but I've always been a huge huge fan of when the animation goes minimalistic with that fuzzy look to it and this is exactly that I'm going to have to keep stressing this because this is Attack on Titan we know how these arcs are written now so when we jump to airwind we get the actual reveal of the sequence he screams to keep their eyes out but without ever skipping a beat we see lightning behind him and then just one after another across the entire Horizon and like with this sequence what is there even to say Obviously on a first watch I never noticed those pipes in the ground and I certainly didn't expect like literally everyone to join the battle in the very first episode of The Ark I think awin's reaction is kind of all of us because like one transformation big deal two Transformations very big deal a dozen across the entire Horizon yeah I kind of don't even have a descriptor for that you know it's bad but even Omega brain airwin can't keep his composure and sure they are just pure Titans but man the way the entire sequence is framed just gives me goosebumps each and every time but again we keep on going because as the vocals slow down we see Z crab a boulder and as there is that moment of silence we move into the crescendo these fights and especially liberio are written like a dance and I love it the glowing eyes the downright nightmarish glare of Zeke peak in the background by the way it's glorious and that's not even mentioning the new mystery that is brought up by the fact that the Beast Titan seems very very different from what we saw with mik like don't get me wrong mik was brutally torn apart but there Zeke seemed almost intrigued in him here on the other hand like Awin immediately deduces they are trapping them inside with the singular goal of killing all of them with mik the monkey was kind of smiling he seemed kind of wholesome now he is glaring at us with glowing red eyes and on top of that if you go back to the Rhiner and baros looking out at something scenes I don't think it's a huge leap in logic to look at the barrels Peak is carrying and already figure out that chances are that's where all burrito is chilling and this zoom out shots of the army of Titans it's so so good these are the kinds of scenes that just make me dream of a super high budget super faithful liveaction adaptation at some point because like seriously imagine the ride of the rerum but with Scouts and Titans it'd be so cool but yes in terms of kicking off a new arc this episode is simply legendary and easily up there with my favorites in the entire Attack on Titan run going from marching over here to full-blown Titan Army appearing in the space of 10 minutes was experience that I'd give anything to live through again but the episode is not over just yet because we also get a new Ed if a lot of the previous ones have been super creepy or super foreshadow then this one is definitely up there with the saddest ones in my opinion most of it is about this logging for the past about looking back and in a way giving up on their dreams to only call each other's name to only share each other's happiness to trust only each other's words to embrace each other's pain it is a story of love trust and commity it's a story of the scouts including rer bonani a story of the times where the world was still as cruel as it is today but everything was a whole lot simpler but now that that naive has been ripped away and we've lost so so many along the way All That Remains are those singular picturesque moments captured in time the entire Ed are like pictures in an album harboring years and years of memories and feelings and of course knowing how this Arc ends the lyrics of somewhere in this world if we can meet in the future please don't forget about me the truth about me hit particularly hard obviously there is the death of Awin but much more importantly there is also the death of Hope upon reaching the sea the truth of Aaron would be gone I think the ending shot of the empty dorms captures that really really well it's a visual representation of that sadness of we can never go back anymore those dorms they are empty and they will never be the same again and also if you were call the oddly empty locations from the op the Ed sort of contrast that because amongst the war ridden destruction and the Dead parody there are these Polaroids of warm memories with each and every one brimming full of life and it's only the ending frame that is the empty dorm also also there is the shot of the classroom that I think warrants a wee bit of overanalyzing first off just like with the rest of the Ed there is of course that somber undertone that this is probably the best time of their life lives so um yeah that's very very sad numero two the tables all sit three people but the only ones missing a third are air and hisor up and Rhiner and burrito for air and hisor up I think the missing piece is the real Amir while for Rhiner and bars it is of course Annie who is sitting as a loner I guess there's also the possibility of airr just never allowing anyone else to sit with a story because you know that would kind of track and speaking of also note how burrito is looking at Annie because you know he has a crush and also note how old horse face is looking at Mikasa because you know he has a crush and Connie looking back at Marco who is just babbling about something is just funny goofy but yeah this entire Ed is like the Pinnacle of getting extremely sad by looking at happy memories but with that said that is episode 50 an absolute break neck fast one and we are only getting started and that's not to mention that every episode after this is also just incredible but all right this video is long enough as is and I am losing my voice so next time we are finally diving into the heart of Shaga and the absolute Insanity it entails so I hope to see you back as we continue over analyzing Attack on Titan and that's the video pretty sure 40-minute videos are going to be the norm for this Arc so don't be too surprised if I happen to fall a teeny bit behind schedule starting to think that I might be nearing my 133 years because man there's not enough hours in the week anymore but anyway with that I want to say a massive thank you to our current patrons and YouTube members who allow me to produce even more of these for you all and let's also give a warm welcome to the newest member of the team Chris Ferguson without you there'll be a whole lot less of my ramblings so seriously thank you thank you other than that I want to say thank you very much for watching I hope you have a great day and hopefully I'll see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Korotos Mystery Shack

Views: 66,502

Keywords: Koroto's, Mystery, Shack, Korotos, Koroto, Overanalyzing, Attack on Titan, AoT, Shingeki No Kyojin, Return to Shiganshina, Shiganshina, Armin or Erwin, Levi Ackermann, Foreshadowing, analysis, AoT retrospective, season 3, Retrospective Overanalysis, Overanalyzing Attack on Titan, Attack on Titan Explained, AoT Explained, episode 50, Zeke's appearance, zekes appearance, attack on titan return to shiganshina, return to shiganshina arc

Id: yuFV5f7tdxw

Length: 42min 19sec (2539 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024