Sunday 23 June 2013

Attack on Titan - Episode 12

Using Eren's new form as a weapon (or at least a tool) to win back some territory from the encroaching Titans was a brave decision, but it looks liable to fall flat on its face within seconds as the mission actually begins.

Rather than following his orders and taking a large boulder to plug the hole in the city walls, Titan Eren instead seems to be completely out of control as he lashes out at Mikasa and looks set to attack absolutely anything in his path despite her pleas and attempts to bring him back to some kind of state of rationality.  Such is the ferocity of Eren's attacks that before we know it both of his Titan's hands and face have been effectively vaporised with no sign of their regeneration, leaving his squadmates with no choice but to brand the mission a failure.


However, thanks to Mikasa's pleas (and more importantly, her decidedly threatening body language), her comrades at least agree to do everything that they can to protect Eren until he can be extracted as Titans begin to pour towards his prone Titan body.  Meanwhile, Armin sees the signal that something is amiss and goes on a lone charge to find Eren in his incapacitated state - while Eren himself is in a state of dreamlike reverie, Armin does everything that he can (including some rather drastic measures) to bring him back to a state of consciousness in the hope that the day isn't yet lost.  Even though Eren had previously ignored even Mikasa's voice, perhaps this is something which Armin is capable of doing...

As per the past couple of episodes of Attack on Titan, this was another slow-moving instalment in broad terms that didn't actually cover all that much material when you get to the heart of it.  However, it's far easier to forgive this when such slowing of its pace occurs in the midst of chaos on the battlefield, and we were treated to just enough human on Titan action (no, not in that way, get your minds out of the gutter) to make it feel worthwhile.  The series still feels like it needs to pick up the pace at its current juncture, but it is at least doing its job of keeping my interest proficiently at the moment.

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