English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “Children of the Forest”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Zeke explains how he was able to turn the citizens of Ragako into Titans back in Season 2, by gassing them with his spinal fluid and then turning them with his powers, as Levi looks on in disgust. Word reaches them about the Yaegerists taking control and Pixis’ plan to replace Eren, causing Levi to stagger at the irony of having to save Eren so many times in the past just to potentially kill him later.

Meanwhile, The Braus family, including Gabi and Falco, arrive for Nicolo’s complementary meal. The Scouts arrive to ask him if he knows anything about the Yaegerists, and while he doesn’t have any good intel on that, he seems very protective of a particular bottle of wine. Gabi and Falco find him later to ask for help, where Gabi admits to killing Sasha, not knowing that Nicolo loved her. In a rage, he tries to beat her with the wine bottle, but Falco jumps in front, accidently drinking some of it. He outs her actions to the Braus family, but Sasha’s father asks him to stand down, forgiving Gabi. Kaya is not so forgiving, almost stabbing her outright. But this is interrupted by Flock and the Yaegerists arriving to corner the Scouts, who reveal that they have passed around the special wine to the Military Police, and Nicolo reveals that the wine has Zeke’s spinal fluid in it, meaning he can turn everyone who drank it into Titans.

Eren then walks in to talk with Armin and Mikasa.

OUR TAKE

Aside from the brief glimpses at the forest holding Zeke, you could almost call this a bottle episode in a sense, as it takes almost entirely within the restaurant. It’s also probably the most low key episode we’ve had in awhile, setting aside a lot of the global or even local political stuff to just focus on the personal conflicts between the characters in the building, which are only byproducts of those politics. Gabi finds someone who she seems to think represents the ways of thinking and reality that she is used to, bragging about killing an Eldian Devil and expecting to find her weird version of normalcy, only to almost get smacked upside the head with a wine bottle because the devil she killed was definitely a regular person with feelings and loved ones, something she can’t run from any longer. And on top of seeing that Nicolo, a Marleyan, fell for an Eldian in Sasha and is willing to kill for revenge, she also finds that the parents of the woman she killed are forgiving her for her murder, further muddying her perceptions. Though I think it was a good thing to have Kaya have the expected murderous rage like Nicolo, to show that Gabi isn’t getting off scott free. And yet none of these people are necessarily wrong for feeling the way they do. Gabi was raised to feel these things, so this is about unlearning them.

The other big detail would be Zeke slowly and covertly gaining control of Paradis through the poisoned wine, which raises the tension considerably by presenting a danger that is unique to this story. Having the higher ups drink the spinal fluid wine isn’t as simple as potentially killing them. People turned into Pure Titans do die in a sense that they lose their minds and become destructive monsters (unless they eat a Titan Shifter, in which case they actually sort of get revived, even with the 13 year time limit). So having the spinal fluid in them essentially puts a grenade inside their bodies that Zeke can pull at any time, which will not only kill them as people, but turn them into living and eating weapons that act as a brief distraction at best and a lethal source of casualties at worst. This is apparently not the first time Marley has tried this, so it’s interesting to see how detailed this planning sort of is. But these next few episodes will see a much bigger scope going forward.