Board Thread:Manga/@comment-27321453-20191208140701/@comment-35822279-20191208192529

Another dud of a chapter would be the simplest way to describe this one.

Pros:

- The action was fine I guess and will translate well into the anime. Definitely lacked stakes or energy though despite the excellent drawing.

- The confirmed deaths of Nile & Pixis was good & raised the stakes of the finale a little bit. Glad Isayama didn't chicken out here.

- I guess Connie has booked with Falco & I dig it as a development for the character. I think I would have preferred him attacking Zeke in the last battle if Isayama wanted to kick the can down the road a bit but at least Connie is getting more deserved attention considering how he's been ignored throughout much of the series.

Cons:

- honestly the Gabi scenes were really bad and reminded me of a specific type of Oscar movie I've grown to dislike with age, the cheesy out of touch race parable. This type of movie has shown a shockingly low amount of variation or refinement since Driving Miss Daisy (a exceptionally OK movie at best) always taking the laziest & easiest route to make simplistic points while failing to account for complexity (Ex. no a KKK member is not going to instantly stop being racist after being saved by a black guy). Seeing AOT go this route is immensely disappointing as it feels unearned & hacky to have Kaya immediately forgive Gabi because the plot demands it (seriously keep the hero moment in but let Kaya stay angry). Cringe is never a good feeling to have when this material is played entirely straight and honestly this section would get a straight up F from me as I unintentionally laughed with Gabi's hero moment & the return of that derpy forest metaphor. Chapter 111 is still the low point of the entire manga for me (made somehow even worse reading it in print as a result of Sasha's dads terrible Deep South dialogue on top of the leaden screenwriter speak) because of its mechanically fake nature and the Gabi material showed the same problems once again. If Yams is going to insist bashing his head on race metaphors he should try researching the topic more and accounting for complexity as it can save the material from just being another tired race parable with braindead messages & cringey visuals (Ex. American History X's last 30 minutes completely saved that movie).

- I'm really starting to get nervous that the ending is going devolve into another unrealistic peace, love, and understanding ending and that is just a let down on so many levels. I'm crossing my fingers that Yams does something more complex than Eren being talked down via the power of friendship and Marley turning good for reasons. I'm not particularly rooting for a bloodbath (according to my own morals I would not be on Eren's side at all) but I do want something like Watchmen or Fallout that really makes me think rather than devolving into typical anime-isms (ie. friendship saves the world etc.) and the rumble ending is the kind of bold ending I want.

Neutral:

- Annie is back which is nice but it also feels random at this point & I can't say this is going to have much impact on the plot at this point since she is in Stohess. I think that she should have been broken out by Porco prior to the last battle just to make sure every one is in position for the finale because this feels like the manga stretching itself even more when it should be aiming for a wrap up in 3-4 chapters.

Other Thoughts:

- I've never really thought that AOT is good when it comes to race issues because of two problems. The first is what I would call The X-Men Problem (Ex. X-Men, District 9, Bright etc.) which is when a property uses a clearly monstrous or different other to talk about race issues but fail to account for inadvertently making villains like Stryker or Marley right on some level because the other is noticeably dangerous when they can fire lasers from their eyes or turn into 15 ft tall giants. On the other hand real life discriminated people can't do that and are discriminated against either to serve as an enemy to hate or something to dominate & turn into labour with the racist policies keeping them in check. The series does comment on these real problems but the unintentional supernatural other muddles the message by giving Marley a viable in world context to be awful. Secondly and the worse of the two problems is that Isayama seems disconnected from problems of race and as a result his words come across as hollow & preachy as it feels like he's just parroting other peoples talking points and not particularly good ones. I think that the reason why Schindler's List or Watchmen (TV) work is that the people making them understand the issues explored either through first hand experience or shared experience (ie. a direct family member who remembers some major event). I think that's why AOT's take on sin is stronger because Isayama as a Japanese man clearly knows what Japan did to its neighbours in WW2 and knows that the nation fears that their neighbours will one day come for retribution while his take on race feels like he read Wikipedia pages & washed it down with Crash.