Board Thread:Manga/@comment-24407809-20160709015000/@comment-5774380-20160710160447

I haven't posted my thoughts on this chapter yet, so here I go.

The most interesting part of this issue was Zeke's conversation with Eren. The "Zeke is Grisha", "Zeke is Mr. Smith", "Zeke is Darius Zackly", "Zeke is X character with glasses and beard" theories are over, but the "Zeke is Grisha's relative" have gotten a lot stronger. Now we know that not only Zeke met Grisha in the past, but also now even Eren notices the striking similarities between the two. And Zeke also claims that Grisha is the "evil twin" here. If he's telling the truth (well, it's Zeke...), then I have the feeling that Grisha actually took part in the creation of the Titans (who knows how many years he wandered outside the walls? Ymir wandered for 60 years) and the basement hides the truth about what happened 100 years ago.

Also somewhat intrigued about the contents of Ymir's letter to Historia (btw, Reiner still refers to her as "Krista". Evidently Ymir didn't tell him her true name and he likely doesn't even imagine that she's a Reiss and much less the current Queen). It could be an irrelevant love letter, but I think it reveals something about Ymir's backstory ("The World Ymir Saw"?). In any case, that seems to confirm what I've been telling for months to everyone who keeps asking about Ymir's whereabouts: she's not in Shiganshina, she was handed over to the Hometown and is probably in a cage or in another more horrible place (if she's still alive; although I'm pretty sure she is).

The negative side of this chapter can be described in two words: "plot armor".



Seriously, at this point it seems to be a competition on who has the stronger plot armor, Armin or Reiner (Plot Armored Titans?); but in both cases it has ascended to ridiculous levels and totally ruined the intensity and tragicness of the previous chapter. The last month I got jaw dropped by Isayama's seeming audacity at killing a main character, now I'm dissapointed and doubting about his ability to tell a story logically. Did you notice that Armin doesn't even have a drop of blood or any signs of fractures after falling dozens of meters on a hard surface? Or how the unnamed recruit managed to spot Eren and the others from the other side or the wall, and bring Erwin to there even by escalating a building while showing no signs of fatigue? And this:



One of the reasons (maybe the primary) why I liked this series in the first place was because it looked much more realistic than most mangas. Yeah, it has physically impossible Vertical Maneuvering and Titans, but other than that it seemed pretty realistic (no people with pink hair, or exaggerated reactions with eyes popping out of the face, or people crashing through walls and suffering no damage, etc). But in light of the recent events, that image I had has disappeared and I'm taking the plot of this series and Isayama's storytelling skills much less seriously. Also, this is the first chapter since the early ones of the arc where I felt that there was little progress, and there wasn't character development this time to justify it.

For this reasons, this is the chapter I've liked the least in the arc. Still looking forward for upcoming issues and expecting that they turn out to be better.