English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “Wound – The Struggle for Trost, Part 8”

Eren’s Titan ability goes rogue in this episode. The only thing I want to know is how many pieces Mikasa is in.

 

This was what I wanted to see, just Eren just taking a swipe at Mikasa. Unfortunately, I don’t think it connected. We would lose an integral character, and Eren would have no one to make him feel like a child.

Spoilers!

All of the Titans are corralled into the corner, and the army has lost 20% of it’s forces. Pyxis is regretting the decision, because Eren went rogue, and he will be called a butcher no matter what the outcome is. Over by the boulder, Eren is still attacking Mikasa, but Miksasa goes right for Eren’s Titan face, trying to talk some sense into him. Eren readies a punch, but Miksasa dodges at the right time, and Eren punches himself in the face. With two Titans closing in from the rear, Ian deems this a failure, and orders a full withdrawal. Miksasa isn’t having any of that, because Eren is still in the Titan.

Back on top of the wall, the soldiers find the red smoke, but Armin runs off with a gas tank. Pyxis refuses to give up, and says that is a fight to the death. Back by Eren, Mitabi is trying to talk some sense into Ian, but Ian orders the team to defend Eren until he recovers. Ian realizes that, while the rest of the team is expendable, Eren isn’t. Rico argues with Ian, but Ian tells her that he’s in charge, and will tell her when to retreat.

Ian goes on telling Rico that there is no other option or better plan to use against the Titan. Rico has no idea. Ian says, with Eren, there’s hope. Rico finally agrees, wanting to let the Titans taste humanity’s wrath. Ian let’s Mikasa save the man that she loves. She tries to tell Ian that it isn’t like that, but Ian flies off beforehand. Mikasa notices that Eren’s not regenerating like normal Titans, and there’s a problem.

Eren is trying to figure out what’s going on, but he has a trippy flashback to before the Titan attack. Meanwhile, Armin finally reaches Eren. On the streets, Jean, Connie, Annie, and other soldiers are trying to cage in the Titans near the wall, so no one else has to die. Clouds of smoke emerge, where Mitabi’s crew engages the Titans bearing down on Eren. Mikasa starts going ham on the Titans, but more and more are closing in on Eren. Armin decides to cut Eren out, but that only wakes up Titan Eren for a second. Armin screams into the hole he carved in, but Eren is mixing up his flashback with what Armin is saying now.

Jean and his group are on their own, until Ian and Mitabi’s team show up to help clear the Titans. Connie almost gets caught, but Jean shoots the Titan’s hand to catch its attention. This just jams Jean into a bad spot, because his gear is malfunctioning. He just starts to run inside a house, and finds a set of gear on a dead soldier. Inside Eren’s mindfuck, Armin is starting to make sense to Eren, by talking to him about the world outside the wall. Eren finally wakes up with a firey response to close out the episode.

This week’s episode was rather slow, because it was all about Eren trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. He obviously wasn’t in control, and had that trippy flashback throughout. Mikasa was actually trying to protect him in the right way this week, which is something she has real problems doing normally.

What got to me was that none of the soldiers in the war zone had any idea what to do despite the fact that this is what they trained for. And in the case of Ian’s squad, they’re supposed to be the elite of the elite. Yet, when shit went belly up, the only person who wanted to stick to the plan was Ian which was only because he was honor bound.

The story was very weak, in my opinion. There was a lot that could have been done with Pyxis, but we only got a small taste of his regret for the plan going wrong. I was also confused with Jean and Connie as it felt like Connie and Jean were going to do what they can to not fight, yet a few scenes later, they’re going head to head with the Titans.

Part 8 was a downright mess. Eren finally letting his balls drop and doing something was a nice way to end the episode, but the payoff wasn’t enough to sit through the rest of the 30 minutes.