English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “That Day/The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 2”

I really went off on how terrible I thought the premiere of  Attack on Titan was. There was so much hype on this show, that it was unavoidable to anyone who knows what anime is. So, I took that into account, and the episode did not live up to the hype. How does the second episode compare? Well, I’m here to tell you.

The episode picks up right after the first wave of Titan attacks, with the Ravens are pecking at the dead, while the Titans are still ravaging the city of Shiganshina. In the meanwhile, someone that sounds like a priest is preaching. The Titans are grabbing and eating, complete with their creepy as shit smile. Eren is still on Hannes’s shoulder, pissed as hell that he ran when he could have saved her. Mikasa is having flashbacks to when her parents are dead, which doesn’t help, because the Titans are still wreaking havoc everywhere. They go to close the gate on Shiganshina, which is an outlying district outside the main wall. Armin finds Eren and Mikasa, but the old man talks him out of talking to them, saying they need space. The Titans are getting closer to the boats, which are at full capacity. So, the people still waiting  jump for the boat. The gates are starting to close, but another Titan speeds up, crushing the small defense in front of the gate. That gate gets decimated by the charging Titan, creating another hole for the smaller Titans to walk through.

Shiganshina officially falls, and a council is talking it over. This is the kind of inactivity that George W. Bush showed most of the time. On the boat, Eren is showing a major case of self loathing, because he couldn’t do anything. He vows to kill every single Titan on that night. Because of this, all of the humans retreated back behind Wall Rose, losing 10,000 lives that night. Sometime later, Eren has a flashback to a dream with his Dad, trying to inject him with something. The one thing that the flashback kept going back to was the key his father had.

Mikasa wakes him up to get food, but it looks like a Russian bread line. Armin gets a bunch of bread for the other kids, while getting dirty looks from a scout. The same scout likened the refugees getting food to fattening cattle for the Titans. Eren starts getting kicked, until Armin gets in the way, begging for forgiveness. Eren finally has enough of their crap, and starts to derive a plan, but Armin tries to talk him down, because he’s safe. Eren throws the loaf Armin gave him and takes the argument too far, and gets knocked the hell out, for not realizing he’s as much of a parasite as the rest of them. She then takes the loaf of bread Eren threw at shoved it into his mouth. We get a bit of insight into the resulting fight of the humans, who sent 20% of the population, against the Titans. All but 200 all died. Eren decides to join the Scouts after all, with Armin and Mikasa joining as well. Years later, boot camp finally starts, with Eren having an even bigger resolve to kill the Titans.

Man, this episode was a lot better than the first one. I feel that if the first two were shown as a full one hour special, it would have been received a lot better. The action and violence came right out of the gate, but it didn’t feel as gratuitous as the last 5 minutes of the first episode. We finally got a look into the inner parts of the districts, and got a lot of explanation on how life is there past Wall Rose. I actually enjoyed the history lessons.

I need to touch on Eren for a minute. I think my exact wordings from last episode was, “Eren is your stereotypical whining, hyperactive main character who has a female sisterly type who protects him.” While he’s still a god damn bitch, he’s finally letting his balls drop a bit, resolving himself to killing every single Titan. This guy has a lot of work to do. I like the little glimpse they give of the group at basic training, especially Eren. He’s in a total, “No fucks given. I’m going to whoop some ass,” attitude. That’s what this dude needs. Thankfully, he’s showing it. The rest of the characters suffered a bit, mainly because this was heavy on Eren’s development. Luckily that’s how it should be. All in all, this was a good episode to counteract the bad first episode. Let’s hope that this trend continues.