Just whose side are you on?

Creative Staff

Story/Art: Hajime Isayama

Translation: Ko Ransom

What They Say

THE CHASE IS ON

Erwin and the Survey Corps desperately mount a rescue operation to take Eren back from the Colossus Titan and Armored Titan. But without the numbers to form up properly outside the walls, how can the humans catch up before they’re all slaughtered? Just whose side is Ymir on? And will Eren ever see his friends again?

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):

Eren… Eren… Eren…

You’d think someone would be able to check their rage at the door in order to try to get some answers out of the folks most likely to have them. Nope, not Eren Yaeger.

Luckily, while Eren is busy trying to make life impossible for himself, Ymir and Reiner have a chat where we can glean some information about what’s up. Ymir’s past is more complicated than I thought. In fact, this whole volume ends up being her conflict, about whose side she’s on and what she’s going to do about it.

Ymir can’t decide where her loyalties lie, and what she’s fighting for. Is it Krista? Is it herself? She spends the volume changing her mind every seven pages or so, which doesn’t make it easy for the survey corps when they catch up to their escaping weapon of mass destruction. Is Ymir still on their side or not?

I really like what Isayama did during the shouted arguments and conversations at various points in this volume. The tight panels and angry, thick word balloons really represented the ratcheted tension levels during that flight across the forrest well. It almost makes up for some of the atrocious perspective shots which come at a pivotal moment in the last chapter.

With the corps back on the scene we find Mikase in a furious rage of ‘kill em all, let god sort them out.’ Just check out how she’s riding her horse in the panels where you can see it, she’s standing on the saddle. She’s not the only complete badass in this volume, as everyone’s favorite Commander Erwin throws caution to the wind to drive his forces to get Eren back. Even Armin manages an amazing scene which clinches the rescue of Eren. With all this do or die action, it’s not surprising that we loose yet another cast member in the fray. Unfortunately it’s a lose which happens at the worst part of this volume, which also happens to be the climax.

The key scene of this volume, which should be dramatic and personal, had me laughing my ass off. I’m really not certain it was meant to be funny, but Mikase’s speech to Eren as the titan that ate Eren’s mother bore down on them was so ridiculous that I nearly lost it. It’s the framing of the scene, the slow down of the action happening all around, the strange positioning of side characters, the pep talk, the whole bit. The only way it could have been more silly is if they had started making out or something. I honestly hope Isayama was going for that B-tier horror movie vibe specifically, because it hits that feeling a little too on the nose.

In that major scene we discover exactly what it was about Eren that made him a valuable asset to the outsiders. The ability he possesses, that the enemy group wasn’t even certain he had but suspected, is a game changer. It goes way beyond being able to transform to titan form at will. And yet, Reiner is convinced that the last person on earth who should have that ability is Eren. Is it just because Eren is idealistic or is it because he’s impulsive? I guess we’ll find out later.

In Summary

With much yelling, loss of limbs, and conflicted judgement calls, this volume of Attack on Titan manages to drop at least one more surprise on readers. The mad dash which makes up the majority of the action of this volume was great fun to read, even if the big reveal moment was an embarrassing mess. Now that we know why Eren was so important, I wonder what he’s going to do with this new ability. Hopefully he’ll head for that basement and get some real answers if the other side is unwilling to come clean. I can take a few educated guesses as to what the origins of the titans are and why, and I’m sure everyone has they’re own pile of ideas as to what happened in the past. However, it’s not so much the why at this point, but how to stop the implied destruction that’s hinted to be coming in the future.





Content Grade: B

Art Grade: C +

Packaging Grade: B

Text/Translation Grade: A

Age Rating: 13+

Released By: Kodansha Comics

Release Date: April 29th, 2014

MSRP: $10.99