Watching only the first and latest episode of AOT

It’s your favorite inconsistent blogger! The one who always says they’ll make a schedule and stick to it, and then doesn’t! What’s new!

I decided to introduce a new segment, where I watch only the first and last (or latest) episode of an anime show and give you my opinion. The idea came to me one day, as I was watching an anime I had never heard of or seen. I sat through the entire episode, until realizing during the end credits, that I had actually watched the very last episode….I don’t know why Hulu told me it was the first episode, but it all made sense after that.

Spoilers don’t scare me (because I literally read manga), so this wasn’t all too bad, but quite funny. My theory is, if I somehow enjoyed the very last episode of an anime, it would propel me to just watch the entire show from the beginning. I usually give new anime a two episode limit. If I cant figure out the plot by the second episode, or I’m not interested by the second episode, then it’s wraps. So I decided to try something new. Instead, I would watch the very first episode, and then watch the last or latest episode that has been released. As I am typing this, I realize what I haven chosen to do is extremely chaotic….but here’s how it went…..

The first episode quick recap

Disclaimer: okay so this post will already be up by the time you’re reading this. I take anxiety meds that make me really sleepy and just wanna say I was drugged tf up when typing this. Bear with me on the spelling/grammatical errors. Grammar is a social construct anyways….remember that.

So the beginning of the first episode, starts out with what I am assuming, was a titan breaching the safety of the wall around this large village. It then cuts backwards to a boy, who I’ve come to learn is named is Eren. He is considered very ah…emotional. He and his sister (I think she’s his sister) are heading back from collecting wood, when they run into a drunk scout. I guess the scout regiment is full of men, who basically sacrifice themselves against the Titans to keep the city safe?

The scout and Eren argue, because the scout is very convinced they will not get attacked, and Eren is basically like okay, but how you know that??? They eventually head home and Misaka decides to snitch on her brother, by telling their parents that he wants to become a scout. Eren’s mom gets upset as she doesn’t want her child to be “fodder”.

The two head out to meet up with their friend Armin, who seems to be a boy who doesn’t resort to violence, which results in him often getting beat up. The three walk through the city, when suddenly the wall is breached by a very large humanoid creature. Which is a titan. It blasts a hole through the wall, and all hell breaks loose. Eren runs home, to find his mother under a pile of rubble, injured. He wants to save her, but she urges him to go.

The scout Eren was arguing with earlier comes along to save the day. But, as soon as he comes face to face with a large titan he chickens out, deciding to take Eren and Misaka and run. While Eren is being carried away by the scout, he watches his mother get eaten by a titan. And so his origin story begins!

Latest episode recap (S4 E3) and thoughts

We meet some kid named Reiner ( I think thats how you spell it) and he is training to be a Marleyan(???). The problem is he’s not very good at being a soldier, and least likely to be picked to get his own titan. I regret doing this already.

The scene then cuts to Eren and Armin calling out for him, before the OP plays. Happy to see familiar faces. Next, we cut to what is shown as a female titan, who is destroying things. A voice is describing her, as if she’s a weapon that was made. It’s called an armored titan. And a person is assigned to these armored titans.

So this far into the show, we know that these things can be used as weapons and can be controlled I guess. Each child that was shown earlier in the episode, is assigned an armored titan including Reiner. They are to use these titans to defeat the founding titan (this is all guessing guys). Also one thing to note, is that the last armored titan we saw, literally looks EXACTLY like the one that was shown breaking the wall in the first episode.

Reiner and his squad head off to go fight the “island devils”, whatever those are. They keep talking about reaching the wall, and somehow I really think this might be some sort of time skip episode, and those kids are going to use the titans to break the wall—where Eren and his family lived. I wonder if this is like a flashback scene?

Anyways Reiner has this intense hatred of the island devils and wants to kill them–very badly. One of his squadmates breaks down, and reveals that Reiner was never meant to get an armored titan. His friend convinced the higher ups to let Reiner take the place of his brother. Talk about a hit to the ego. The next moment, a titan attacks the small group, and Reiner is the only survivor. Or so he thought, until he sees two of his friends. This child is a punk lol. They opt to find one of their friends and then abort the mission. One of the kids talks about turning back into human, and I found that odd. Is it possible to grow to titan size and then return back to your regular size?

Okay so pause, imma just stop right there, because once I saw the wall, I realized this entire time I was right. I’m not sure how much time has passed between the first episode and this one. And if this is some sort of flashback episode where we see how Eren’s city was attacked, just not from his perspective. But how ironic that I just watched the first episode of the city getting attacked, and this latest episode is showing the events that led up to it…..my mind.

I have hella questions now

I asked a friend this, but the most obvious questions is, where the hell did titans even come from? It’s looking like they can somehow be created by humans, and that humans can sort of control the armored ones. But like how??? Also in the latest episode, it looks as if Reiner did own an armored titan and also participated in attacking the city Eren lives in. Another time skip occurs and we see an older Reiner. Is he a spy? He seems like a spy, and it looks as if he’s also training scouts as well. I’m still very much confused, and I guess the only way to get these answers, would be to watch all the episodes in between.

The first and last episodes were pretty good. I will admit, the sound of flesh eating humanoid creatures actually was not intriguing to me at all at first. But I love a good mystery, and things coming together. I want to learn more about Reiner, so I will continue watching. I’d say both episodes were 10/10 although, if you don’t know the story it would be smart to simply watch from the beginning, and not do what I just did.

I think I’m going to really enjoy doing this, its kind of fun guessing plots, and trying to piece together characters. I think I’m gonna like this show…

Anyways, until next post! Stay safe guys!