Attack on Titan - Episode 5

As per five years previously, humanity is once again face-to-face with a titan among Titans - more specifically, Eren finds himself staring down the creature which punched a hole in both the wall and his entire world in that prior attack which robbed him of his mother.

This time however, Eren has his training and 3D manoeuvre equipment at the ready, and in spite of the size of his opponent he has no qualms of taking it on with a view towards destroying it.  However, this colossus vanishes as quickly as it appeared having done its damage, thus leaving one of Wall Rose's gates with a whacking great hole in it.  Needless to say, it isn't long before Titans begin to stream in through this hole, with a battery of cannons able to do little more than slow them down slightly.

In light of this new assault against humanity, it's all hands on deck amongst the city's military forces, including its newest recruits regardless of where they were supposed to be stationed starting from the very next day.  Even after years of training, many of these youngsters simply aren't mentally prepared to face the Titan threat - not so Eren, who is more than ready to fight and has some stirring words for those whose hearts and minds are wavering.  Talking is big is one thing of course, but acting likewise is quite another, and for all of the talk of slaughtering the invading Titans reality turns out to be very, very different... horrifyingly so, in fact.

Having not read any of the original Attack on Titan manga, I think it's fair to say that I wasn't expecting the outcome of this episode - having seemingly set up Eren and company for at least some measure of brave victory in their first battle against the Titans, the reality is a gut punch that left me gawping, slack-jawed, at what transpired instead.  It's a fantastic sucker punch that completely shifts my expectations of what to expect from the series moving forward, and coupled with that stirring soundtrack and some brief but notably fantastic snatches of animated action, it's going to be a frustrating wait until next week's episode.  My only gripe about this instalment was that the aside about Titan history and biology should have been placed earlier in the series but hey, it's a minor quibble against an increasingly fantastic series.