Board Thread:Anime/@comment-27321453-20180729185438/@comment-1327106-20180729214347

I think this was better than last episode, but still felt disjointed. I would have expected Jean's death fake-out to have been an episode ending rather than a commercial break, but I guess they couldn't do a wagon chase for a full episode even while intercutting other scenes (since it was really boring when they did that in the Female Titan arc).

The Erwin/Nile scene felt muted too. Though it's interesting that Erwin is more under house arrest than anything else, nothing really happened in that scene. It could have been cut entirely, which is odd since this season has been all about trimming.

Jean's one of my favorite characters though, so I didn't like how his hesitancy to shoot was handled in the adaptation. In the manga we had more of a lead up to the event. By the time he has his near death experience in the manga the kidnapping and torture of Sannes has already taken place so he already knows what lengths the squad has to go to. Despite knowing this, Jean is still trying to be a good person, and he gets to voice his opposition to the idea of fighting other people, saying that this isn't what he signed up for when he joined the Survey Corps. He doubts he could kill even if Levi ordered him to, and he says all of this in advance of his hesistation.

In the anime, the torture scene happens later, and Jean never gets to say that he doesn't want to fight people, so all he has is a heat of the moment order to kill if the opportunity arises. And because the animators know what's going to happen, they really focus on showing that Jean is nervous, but he's the only member of the squad that freaks out like that (the manga makes it clear that all of them are varying levels of anxious, which disguises Jean's particular anxiety better). And then of course the anxious guy is the one who whiffs the shot.

It would have been fine with the room to set up, but there wasn't any. Instead it just looks like Jean blew it.

The rest of the changes were all right. Hearing Hange's voice in the torture scenes was a definitely plus though. Such enthusiasm. :)