‘Attack on Titan’ Meets Season High in Season 2 Finale. A Review.

Taylor Bauldwin June 26, 2017 Leave a Comment

[Spoilers ahead for Attack on Titan]

And just like that, season 2 of Attack on Titans is over. The season finale was my personal favorite of the highly anticipated second season as we have been leading up to this battle for 4 episodes. The battle for possession of Eren finally comes to a satisfying climax.

source: ignimgs.com

This episode finds Eren face to face with the Smiling Titan once again. Eren unable to change into his Titan form to save Hannes feels just as useless as he did when the same titan killed his mother. Hannes’ death and the minutes immediately afterwards prove to be some of the most powerful moments of the show. Eren unable to protect his friends still after all this time, ripping into his own flesh multiple times in order to trigger his Titan form gives way to some of the more moving moments of Attack on Titan. You can just really feel for Eren. If it was not for Mikasa’s love, Eren would not have made it. This is beautiful because thus far Eren relied on his rage to get the job done but it was love not hate that was needed to awaken Eren’s latent abilities. The Armored Titan refers to Eren’s abilities as “the coordinate” which somehow gives Eren the ability to control the lower tier Titans as they rush and kill the smiling titan in defense of Eren shortly after his powers awaken.

Ymir’s story arc also shows her splitting from Historia and returning to the aid of Reiner at the end of the episode. Ymir finally follows her own advice to live only for herself, her inner conflict during this battle was one of the more interesting side stories and I can’t wait to see where her character ends up in future episodes.

This episode ends very Attack on Titan like, leaving more questions about the future than before. Even in the aftermath of a huge win, the sober reality sets in that a large part of the scouts have been killed in the battle and a conversation between Erwin and Levi reveals that Titans do indeed come from humans. The season finale then ends with Beast Titan watching the events unfold from afar.

How does Eren control other titans? Who is the Beast Titan? What does he want? How does a human become a titan? Looks like we will have to wait till next year, or I guess you could read the manga. Either way some big changes are on the horizon.