Attack on Titan Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Historia

This Attack on Titan review contains spoilers.

Attack on Titan Season 2, Episode 5

My first thought watching this episode was “Marco’s alive?!” I proceeded to spent the next minute and a half wondering how the hell that came to pass when we clearly saw him die in season one before realizing that we opened in the middle of a flashback scene set during the 104^th squad’s trainee days… Anyone else misses Marco as much as I do?

I want to say that nothing much happened in this episode because, unfortunately, that’s how the slow, dragging pace made it feel like, but we did gouge a decent amount of things from this week’s 20-something minutes. We got a better look at the emotional relationship between Ymir and Christa. We got to see Ymir kick ass as a Titan-shifter. We got to see some cool Titan-killing action from Mikasa and the rest of the rescue team towards the end, which is always fun. And we learned Christa’s real name. That being said though, I was a little bored.

Ymir and Christa

The flashback scene on top of the snowy cliff is arguably the heart of the episode. Unfortunately, it’s also the dullest part.

A lot of it is due to the fact that most of the conversation between Ymir and Christa is just a rehash of what we already know: Christa has a hidden past, a secret name, and a family that for some reason, she’s estranged from, and Ymir knows about her secret and sought her out because of it.

What does make this scene is that it takes it a step further by setting up the dark side of Christa’s character—that she is ultimately some sort of self-serving person who’s trying her damnest to prove to the world that she’s good and noble, even at the expense of her own and other’s lives; that she is somehow selfish and selfless at the same time. It’s pretty telling of their dynamic that Ymir can see so clearly through her, and it also plays well later on when Christa tells her to save herself and abandon everyone else in the tower. There’s something dangerously ruthless about people like her, and I’m looking forward to when the show explores Christa as a person in depth.

Also, if Ymir can talk in her Titan form, and the Beast Titan can talk, does that mean Eren’s Titan should be able to as well?

The Rescue Scene

Because Mikasa killing Titans will never not be a great thing to watch.

While that ending scene isn’t much, it’s still a pretty sweet wrap up seeing a dozen Survey Corps soldiers sail through the sky and sink their blades into those Titans’ necks. Plus, Eren killed his first Titan as an actual human! That’s something worth clapping your hands for, I think.

Now the question remains, what will they do with Ymir?

Sure, we know that Ymir will do pretty much anything for Christa/Historia, but we still don’t know her exact angle is, or how much she know about the Titans in the wall or where did the Titans come from. I personally would love her to be a more prominent character, but there’s no telling if they’ll just shelf her away like they did Annie. 

What Else?

– I’m not liking how cryptic Reiner and Bertolt is about seeing Ymir turning into a Titan. It’s very fishy. Also, none of the questions I’ve had about them since two episodes ago has been answered—most important of those, who is their dead friend?

– Opinion: The darkest moment of this episode would have to be when Ymir decides to to drop Daz off a cliff because, as she so logically lays it out, Christa’s idea of dragging Daz through the snow will ensure that he dies a slow, painful death, so they should really take the risk because what’s the worst that can happen? Either he lives, or dies a quick death. Despite all the flesh-tearing and blade-action in this episode, it got really scary for me here because Ymir and Christa’s literally gambling with someone’s life, and that’s a little too real. Even though we kind of know they’d survive because Ymir’s a Titan-shifter.

– Another opinion: Ymir’s Titan is ugly… All Titans are ugly, yes, but I feel like Ymir’s Titan is especially hideous.

– This episode really got me to question the economic nature in the Attack on Titanuniverse. By losing Wall Maria, humanity would have lost anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of their total land. Not only that, the remaining Wall would have to accommodate for the sudden influx of migrants from the outermost wall, meaning the population in the inner walls experienced anywhere from a 30 to 50 percent increase. So how can they still afford to have forests? Or vast, uninhabited cliffs or fields? Or long stretches of roads? Where do people farm? How are they sustaining themselves when they’ve lost that much in resource? Where do their water source come from? There’s a lot of things that don’t add up.

– Fingers crossed for a more exciting episode next week!