Musing Over Manga: Attack on Titan Chapter 58--The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I've been laughing for days

This town isn't big enough for the both of them.

(A/N: This post deals with spoilers for the entire manga and contains graphic images. Please do not read unless you are caught up!)


There isn't that much to actually discuss this time, since this chapter was wall-to-wall action. This is probably my favorite chapter to date, not just because of the sheer insanity, but for how great it was to read after seeing the fake spoilers about Levi dying that were circulating in the fandom. And by fake, I mean photoshopped manga panels from previous chapters and a "leaked image" that didn't even try to emulate the style of the manga (although I imagine that Isayama's weird style is hard to mimic). After watching the more gullible members of the fandom lose their minds for a couple days, it was really cool to see Levi take on ten guys with hand cannons and still win.

Am I still in the right series

And now we know where Levi gets his sass from

 
And while the Western-style saloon shootout is pretty awesome, the conversation between Levi and Kenny still makes me hope that we'll still get some kind of flashback moment to cover their past. I would love to see how two people who came from the same place ended up on opposite sides of this conflict thanks to key differences in their ideologies. Kenny glorifies in hunting down people and killing them, while Levi refuses to kill people unless it's his last resort.

Of course, that doesn't stop him from blowing away Kenny with a shotgun blast at point-blank range.





And after he's been pushed to that point, all bets are off. He uses one guy as a human shield and slices through a couple more later with no hesitation. The situation they're in is kill or be killed, and Levi doesn't shy away from that even though he might not like it. "The only way to win is to fight" indeed.


I call BS on Kenny surviving, though. I don't care what kind of armor he was wearing, a shot like that would've left him with some broken ribs at the very least, not have him up within a few seconds. I guess "bulletproof vests that can withstand point-blank range shotgun blasts" also go on the list of technology that the government is keeping from the wider military. I get that the story needs him to be around for a little longer, but come on.

 
But right now, Levi's squad needs to get away from the ambush, and Jean's confronted with his declaration from the last chapter about not wanting to kill other humans. And the results of his hesitation don't look too good. However, I don't think Jean is dead. Attack on Titan does go for the shocking deaths, but not in such an obvious way. Also, the plot has a habit of making the reader feel like they should be concerned for one character and then kills off another. So right now, I think that there are two possibilities. One, that Mikasa took the hit for Jean based off of her trajectory in the above panel and the fact that she's missing from the reaction panels (where we also clearly see Jean). I hope that theory isn't true though, since I don't like to think about an injured--or dead, knock on wood--Mikasa.

The second theory, and the one I like much better, is that Armin shot the person before they could get to Jean. In the top panel, we can see Armin reaching into his cloak for something and then in the reaction panels that same arm is now pointing out. If this ends up being true, it'll mark an interesting progression for Armin's character arc--he has been getting a lot of attention recently. And it would make for a cool example of misdirection in manga panels. However, I'm not willing to buy into either of these theories just yet because they hinge on Isayama's inconsistent art--this is the guy who drew Erwin's right hand in the last chapter after all.


Cliffhangers aside, the ending brings up an idea I honestly hadn't considered before. What if Reiss was never pulling the strings, and didn't agree with any of this in the first place? What if the true royal family was forced into secrecy for another reason? Attack on Titan makes a point of establishing gray morality for all of its characters, even the villains, so it's possible that Reiss does have an understandable reason--I mean, look at Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. They are traitors, but they also believe that they are doing the right thing. This could be true for Reiss as well, although I'm not trusting any declarations of remorse just yet. At the very least, it'll be interesting to hear his reasoning.

It feels like we're about to get some solid answers about what's going on in this arc, although I'm not holding my breath. Whenever I've gotten that feeling in the past, the story shifted to focus on something else. We still have no idea what's going on with Erwin, and now we also have the Jean cliffhanger to cover. I'm optimistic, but the characters still have a big mess to clean up before they can even think about going beyond the wall again.

But if the rest of the series is Levi kicking ass and taking names, you will hear no complaints from me

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