Board Thread:Manga/@comment-26056057-20160509020829/@comment-26932251-20160509045008

Neetaku wrote:

I disagree with this part of your analysis. Let me ask you, have you ever tried to swat a fly but you couldn't hit it to save your life? I feel that's the same reason Zeke just had no chance against Levi for the same reason you never manage to hit that fly with your bare hand... Levi is just the right combination of too small, too fast, and too unpredictable for someone who has no experience fighting an ODMG user in titan form to be able to hit. Remember, when Levi is in the zone, he is crazy fast.
 * Con: Levi and Zeke's much-hyped fight is... very anti-climactic. Hell, even Annie held her own for a little bit, but Zeke is decidedly helpless. Now, I spent a long time after seeing this sequence trying to reconcile this portrayal of Zeke's abilities with previous depictions: "Well, we've only ever seen Zeke kills people from far away with projectiles, so maybe he's just not a good hand-to-hand fighter"; but then I remembered that in Chapter 70, Zeke defeated the Armored Titan in battle without breaking a sweat. And I know he didn't just beat him by throwing rocks... So what this entire sequence ends up being is, rather than a legitimate fight between two certified badasses, just a few pages of fanservice, in which Isayama draws what most fans want to see, rather than what would actually happen (mind you, I'm not saying Zeke would win in a real fight, but all previous factors indicate that he would at least hold his own)

To put it simply, I have to imagine that it's a lot easier for someone like Zeke to defeat Reiner, large and slow, than it is to kill Levi, small and very very fast. I don't think it's fan service... nothing Levi has done in this chapter is really anything he hasn't done in previous chapters other than probably beating his previous record of most 15 meter titans killed consecutively in the shortest period of time (I thought he was just going to swing from titan to titan but not Levi, nope he killed every last one of those fuckers).

Also, it's important to note that Levi basically got the drop on him, the element of surprise, which any self-defense instructor worth their salt will tell you is the main determinant of who wins most kinds of fights. It also doesn't help that Zeke somewhat panicked because instead of guarding his nape with his right hand, his best chance was to use both hands to try to fend Levi off. And really, I mean, remember in the anime when the SC members, while fighting Annie, say "it's like she knows what move we're gonna make next"? Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt all had the benefit of 3 years of intensive training in ODMG and so have a deep knowledge of what it means to use ODMG and fight against ODMG soldiers. The same can't be said for Zeke.