Board Thread:Anime/@comment-5774380-20190610013059/@comment-1327106-20190610070753

I can't help feeling that Wit shot themselves in the foot with this one, considering some of the anime-only comments I've been reading elsewhere. The basement reveal that humanity had not perished was a big shock when I read it in the manga, because Ymir's flashback about how she became a Titan happens later on, only after going to the basement.

But at this point the anime-only audience has already seen that there's a civilization outside the Walls. Ymir came from there. The fact humanity exists outside the Walls in large numbers was revealed back in Season 2, and though Ymir didn't tell the characters the details of her story (because that would have derailed the plot), the audience already knows there's a thriving world outside, so the result in this episode is that only the characters are surprised.

It's been a while since we had an episode that primarily draws from a single chapter, and you could tell, because the plot is very thin (that might be the shortest wiki episode summary I've written this spring). There was a lot of padding, and while I don't think it was disruptive, I was very aware it was there, and at the end of it they still had to pull from the start of the next chapter.

Also, flashback Erwin sounds hilariously too much like older Erwin rather than a teenager. Nile's VA does a much better job of de-aging his voice.