10 Second Anime - Shingeki no Kyojin S2 - Episode 34

Reiner and Bertholdt let Eren and Ymir heal in a tree as Erwin's Scouts try to catch up with them.

Episode 34 - "Opening"

Heh.

The title of the episode "Opening" is translated from 開口 (kaikou) which does mean opening, like an aperture, but it also means "opening one's mouth; beginning to speak." That's pretty apt considering that almost the entire show was just four kids hanging out in a tree talking. Also apt is how certain things Reiner and Ymir said speak to many things behind the Titans which Eren just doesn't know about.

Reiner was so nonchalant about biting Eren's arms off. "Oh, you're missing your arms. My bad."

Ha! Eren immediately bit his stump after everyone looked at him expecting him to blow up.

Reiner and Bertholdt obviously know more about Titan powers, but Eren doesn't trust them.

Reiner is so confident about the Titans gathering around the copse can't move at night. He was just bitten the night before by Titans... moving around at night! How can he be so sure?

Biggest revelation of the episode is that Eren can actually be quiet and calm when he wants to be. Plot twist and character development!

Reiner said some crazy stuff about being in the Scouts later on. Bertholdt looked at him with his usual incredulous eyes on the verge of freaking out while Eren did a slow burn, eh maybe not so slow, before yelling at him to realize the current situation: he can never go back.

Reiner has obviously been undercover for too long. Bertholdt has it together much better. He snapped Reiner out of his delusion by telling him "we're not soldiers. We're warriors." There's something about the way he said "warriors" that makes it sound like a rank or title from their hometown.

Eren may be slow, but he's not stupid. Well, he's a little stupid, but he had the wherewithal to actually ask the Colossal Titan how he felt when he heard from Eren when they first met that he was directly responsible for his mother's death. Bertholdt felt "sorry for him." That's all.

Eren called Reiner and Bertholdt not soldiers, not warriors, but murderers. That falls into the age old argument of how responsible individual troops are for killing civilians. Bertholdt's and Reiner's actions on that first day definitely felt like weapons of mass destruction being dropped on an unsuspecting population center preemptively. With this "beginning to speak" episode, we're going to learn a lot more about the different Titan factions.

Ymir asked whether Reiner and Bertholdt were in league with the Beast Titan, the "Monkey" as they call it. Both those guys definitely had weird looks on their faces the first time they saw it walking around.

Eren asked Ymir who the enemy was. That's a great question, because there might be more than one!

It always comes down to Christa. Reiner wants to marry her (nice legs). Ymir wants to protect her (smile or something). She's related to some noble family, so Christa stands as a plot element able to open up a huge block of backstory.

Reiner left a lot of things unsaid behind the words he used to cajole Ymir into helping Berholdt and him escape. Stuff like being able to protect Christa back home, but not necessarily Ymir. Probably because Ymir is the wrong kind of Titan, but we'll have to see about that.

And through all this opening conversation, Eren still has no idea what or what the Monkey is. He arrived late to the party, rescuing Ymir from the pile of Titans attacking her. Hange's crew never saw the Beast Titan.

Whatever is going to happen, Eren and Ymir are going to have decide something because Commander Erwin's crew is getting close enough to attack or capture them. Ymir just got finished healing, so she's got options, but what will she decide?

Next time, it looks like we'll delve into Ymir's past before all hell breaks loose again with attacking Titans.