Episode 53, Perfect Game

I’m a little annoyed that Attack on Titan has clearly dragged the conflict on too long. I don’t know why they didn’t just have fewer episodes. Also the animation seemed worst this episode and I hated the CGI. The series has animated the Colossal Titan before, they should do it more. Anyway, Armin freezes up when tasked with leading. He leave Jean in charge. Jean orders everyone to ride on top of Eren to preserve gas. Armin is still responsible for coming up with a better plan.

The results of the explosion from the Colossal Titan on Hange’s squad remains unclear. As Levi considers rejoining his comrades, stones fly towards him with devastating force. The Beast Titan wipes out many of the scouts on the front lines. The Beast Titan picks up another bolder and plans on shooting a “perfect game.” Not to nitpick but, how does the Beast Titan know about baseball? It’s possible of course that it’s part of the culture or maybe something that use to exists in the AOT world.

Anyway, the scouts are trapped. Erwin joins them on the ground. The Beast Titan has them defeated. Eren and the others attack the Colossal Titan. It doesn’t have any effect as Bertholdt simply kicks Eren onto the top of the wall. Jean comes up with another useless plan and the Armored Titan re-emerges. Erwin decides that their only plan is to charge the Beast Titan. The problem is he needs to convince the other scouts to ride out to their deaths. In order to do this Erwin must be the leader of the scouts, meaning that he will die first.

Erwin gives a powerful speech and is successful in convincing the scouts to ride with him. Erwin’s leadership is in stark contrast to Armin’s lack of leadership. If Armin is going to replace Erwin the he will need to at least emulate some of what makes Erwin a great leader. Their styles are going to be different, but good leaders share similar qualities and right now Armin is missing a lot of these qualities. Despite the slow burn I’m still excited for the next episode. Erwin and the scouts are probably goners. How will Levi react to Erwin’s death? How would Armin?