Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20180906211831/@comment-35822279-20180907213530

Can't say that I felt very strongly on this chapter either way as I didn't hate it or love it. It ultimately felt like a placeholder and set up before something grander takes place.

Pros:

- It was nice to see the return of Sasha's adopted sister and to get her perspective on things.

- I thought that it was nice touch that the one female Survey Corps member was the same girl Mikasa saved way back in Trost and it ties into an interesting theme of this chapter, the effects of hero worship (of Eren, Mikasa, and Sasha) and how simple actions can have a profound impact on both the micro and macro level.

Cons:

- The pacing for me has turned into mush again and I think in general this stretch has been one of the dullest in the manga as like Uprising (Manga) for me the themes and ideas are interesting and probably going to be vital going forward but the way there rolled out is not interesting as we have slowed down to a crawl with very little forward momentum (barring 108 which I felt was a great chapter) as Eren twiddles his thumbs in a cell and Gabi is going through a generally predictable and rote I learned something today type story and just to clarify I don't think the execution here is terrible but it's not great either and when so much of these recent chapters are hinging on this it just needs to be better than this, it needs to be spectacular rather than meh to justify the amount of screentime it's given.

- Parts of Gabi's story are starting to feel overcooked and hacky like wow she just happened to be in the same part of Wall Rose as the Braus family (think on your sins x 1000) which is forced and unnatural storytelling as not only is it predictable but it's also meant to make Gabi feel even more guilty than a normal Eldian family would and the entire Gabi storyline from 105 onwards is starting to feel increasingly contrived with Gabi being conveniently near people who will stimulate character development for her or something going her way to ensure she gets to where she needs to be (Poorly guarded prison cell or everything about Lobov). It feels a bit like fan fiction at this rate and I don't know back in 105 I was interested to see where Gabi was going due to her big speech but at this point everything revolving around the character is subtle as a jack hammer from her bouts of manic delusion about the devils of Paradis to the oh these people aren't monsters moments and at this point I just want it to be over with as Isayama has really lost my attention with this one and I want a new path set for Gabi already because I feel like this current character arc has already run it's course and then some with very little room to grow or expand past this chapter.