Attack on Titan Episode 65

My Pain is Far Greater Than Yours

Let’s get the elephant titan in the room out of the way first. I like MAPPA as an animation studio and I have for years. I think they’re good at what they do. However, the tight schedule they’ve been forced to work under has created a less than ideal final season of Attack on Titan.

It’s unfortunate that one of my favorite chapters of the manga had to be adapted in this way — with a lot of CGI. I don’t think it looked absolutely terrible. But I do think it looked bad. Especially the parts when non-titan characters were animated using CGI.

But enough about my pain. Today, I want to talk about Gabi’s pain and how it mirrors what Eren went through way back at the start of the series.

When the Colossal and Armored Titans broke through the walls on Paradis Island, Eren learned what true pain was. He witnessed countless people get crushed by rubble and eaten by titans. His own house was crushed and he had to witness his mother be eaten. He’s lived ever since wondering why that had to happen and plotting his revenge.

With Gabi, the same thing has basically happened in this episode. She saw people crushed by rubble, including Zofia. She saw people get trampled, such as Udo. And she witnessed the terror of the titans first hand — though it was only the Attack Titan, not a horde of titans like on Paradis.

Just like Eren, she too is wondering why something like this had to happen to her and those she cares about. Eren’s confusion was more understandable considering that the Paradis Eldians lived in peace until that moment. But Gabi truly believes that Marley is on the right side of history. So why would someone do this?

The War Hammer Titan

Now that the War Hammer Titan has been revealed, I guess I should recap what each of the Nine Titans specializes in. Let’s start with the Founding Titan. Even though we technically haven’t seen it in the anime yet, we know that its special ability is that it can command the titans that make up the walls on Paradis to destroy the world.

That’s exactly why Willy was so afraid of Eren having the Founding Titan.

The next strongest Titan is the Colossal Titan. It’s a bit larger than the wall titans, and this massive size is what makes it unique among the Nine. It can also cause a devastating explosion when it appears as we saw from Marley’s tests.

The third strongest is probably the War Hammer Titan. As we saw in this episode, it can use its hardening ability to make any weapon it desires. Specifically, we’ve seen it create a hammer, sword, crossbow, and whip.

The rest of these titans aren’t in any particular order. So, let’s do the Armored Titan. As with the Colossal, this one is pretty straightforward — it has strong armor.

Renowned for its speed and stamina, the Cart Titan travels on all fours and can carry a large amount of supplies. As Pieck has mentioned, she was in her Cart Titan form for months on end during the Paradis Island attack.

The Jaw Titan has powerful jaws and the ability to harden its fingertips into claws. This helps it climb, including up other titans to reach their napes due to its smaller size. It’s also fairly nimble.

As far as underwhelming titans go, the Female Titan has to take the cake. It has some good stamina, but nowhere near as good as that of the Cart. Its primary ability is that it can call for nearby titans to converge on its position. Overall, it’s basically just a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none kind of Titan.

I’d generally consider the Beast Titan to be a better version of the Female Titan. Not only can it control nearby titans, but it can create them with its cry (assuming there are people nearby who have been injected with titan spinal fluid). It also has animal-like qualities.

And finally, there’s the Attack Titan, which (for now) is basically just an all-around fighter similar to the Female Titan. There is something that sets the Attack Titan apart, but it hasn’t been revealed in the anime yet.

Comrades

The last things I want to mention in this episode review are Eren’s comrades. So far we’ve gotten to see the updated designs for Jean, Sasha, Connie, Mikasa, and Levi. And we were also introduced to one of the new characters, Floch. There are a lot of new characters, by the way.

We know the old characters, so I don’t have too much to really say about them. But I do want to briefly go over their character designs. Jean, Connie, and Sasha all have amazing designs. I think Sasha and Connie are the best though. They look very good.

Mikasa and Levi were a bit odd. I don’t necessarily mind their designs (in the manga, at least). But I think they looked a bit off in the anime. There was something weird going on with Mikasa’s mouth and chin. And they did something odd with Levi’s jawline.

Floch is another one who I think looks a bit off in the anime. I’m not entirely sure what’s wrong with him though. His face might be a bit too round. Or maybe it’s the hair color. Either way, it’ll take some time to get used to what he looks like.

We did learn some important information about Floch and Eren’s other comrades in this episode, though. Floch agrees with the way Eren handled the attack on Marley while the others don’t. Specifically, Mikasa warns Eren that he won’t be able to take back the killing of civilians, including children.

Conclusion

What do you think of Attack on Titan: The Final Season episode 65? How do you think the events of this episode will shape Gabi in comparison to Eren? Which of the Nine Titans do you think are the best and worst? And how do you feel about the updated character designs for Eren’s comrades?

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My review of the next episode is available here.