English Dub Review: Attack on Titan “Close Combat”

What’s more awkward to watch than two naked men wrestling? Two GIANT, naked men wrestling.

Spoilers Below

The Colossal and Armored titans have revealed themselves! Bertholdt, the Colossal Titan throws Ymir and one other scout into his mouth, while Eren turns into his Titan form to duke it out with Reiner’s armored form. Hange orders the scouts to take on the Colossal Titan, using their superior numbers and greater speed to stop him. But, despite his slow speed, Bertholdt has another trick up his sleeve. The Colossal Titan can act like a furnace, burning its own body mass to generate a stream of superhot steam from every inch of its body. This not only destroys any scout foolish enough to get in range, but it also deflects the grappling hooks from their ODM gear. They decide to fall back and wait for him to burn himself out while Mikasa goes to assist Eren. Not that she’s a lot of help. Her blades all break against the Titan’s armor. Eren is similarly meeting defeat. His every strike just destroys his hands, and every hit he takes lays him flat.

Then, he remembers something that happened in training. Annie, the Titan Shifter we were afraid of all last season, showed him and Mikasa a move for handling larger, stronger opponents. After his trip down memory lane, he takes this fight out of Reiner’s comfort zone. While the Armored Titan is used to force against force and relying on his armor, Eren leverages the titan’s own momentum against him, taking him to the ground. Now, applying the berserker strength of the Attack Titan, Eren manages to break off chunks of that armor, including an entire arm! Under advice from his friends, he retreats to the wall, preventing him from getting separated from the group. He continues his titan wrasslin’ attempting to pull of the Armored Titan’s head and reveal Reiner so they can capture him. Even with Mikasa cutting into the titan’s legs, he manages to shove Eren across the ground. But why? He lets out a horrible scream, and the Colossal Titan tilts, falling from its perch to land right on top of Eren!

This episode was very entertaining. Lots of high-impact action and incredible artwork filled with malice and violence. I noticed, however, that some of the shots of the Attack and Armored Titans looked a little off-model as far as shapes and style go, making them either feel out of proportion or lacking in detail at points. Beyond that, though, we’ve got the good stuff for this episode. I love seeing different eye styles being used for the Attack Titan, in order to bring out his berserk mode and his thoughtful mode. We also get to see a bunch of different views of the Colossal Titan, and a sweeping shot across him. They accomplished this with CG, and it was rather obvious. It looked like I was watching something from the Wii U. I don’t blame them for using CGI there, but they needed to give it more than just a human-like model with a musculature skin. It needed depth and viscera, which it lacked.

A few other things I found a bit off-putting in this episode was Mikasa having possession of the “Idiot Ball” and the Attack Titan voice. Bryce Papenbrook played Eren’s titan form with a voice that was so overdone, it bordered on unintelligible. At one point, his lines sounded like he was Yosemite Sam cursing up a storm. As far as Mikasa, well, I take issue with the fact that someone who is such a natural-born fighter doesn’t understand how armor works. She spends the first half of the episode breaking blades against Reiner’s armor. Nevermind the exposed flesh a few feet away that you could slash for real damage. This would be the first thing she should have gone for! No, she has to wait to learn about that from Hange. That’s a DUH moment, really! This could have been handled slightly better. All the same, I feel that this episode’s action and fun makes it worthy of at least seven broken blades out of ten.