10 Second Anime - Shingeki no Kyojin S3 - Episode 53

As the Beast Titan and Colossal Titan unleash devastating debris-based attacks from both sides of the Wall, both Armin and Erwin face difficult choices as leaders.

Episode 53 - "Perfect Game"

Hmm.

I saw three major themes at play in this week's episode. The first one is size or scale. If you heard your enemy was going to throw rocks at you, or kick up some burning wood piles, would you be concerned? Well, what if your enemies were really, really big, could crush big boulders into smaller boulders, were made of fire and kicked around burning buildings? Now, what would you say? I would say, "Run away!" It is really interesting at how the Titans use their environments around them as if they were walking cannons and they just needed to find something to load them up with. It also makes me think about why this "evil race" is so hated and feared. They make little things with their little hands to counter walking weapons of mass destruction. The intelligent Titan weapons were supposed to be strategic and used as deterrents. People were supposed to surrender before they even got anywhere. But these little people flying around? Charge!

The second theme I saw was a crisis of leadership. We had a dichotomy between Armin stuck inside the Walls and Erwin on the outside. Armin needed to defer to a tactical leader in Jean, because he didn't know what to do against the Colossal Titan. Erwin deferred the final orders to his tactical leader Levi, because he knew exactly what he had to do, but he just didn't want to do them. Armin wanted to lead, but he didn't know what to order. Erwin didn't want to lead, because he knew exactly what to order. It was a good situation to contrast the two nominal leaders for the missions inside and outside the Walls.

The third theme was more philosophical. It took on the big question of finding meaning in life and it showcased a philosophy of living for the future of others so they can imbue meaning into your meaningless life after you're dead. There are many sentiments that are similar. Like not finding any sense in your life until after you find the perspective of age, and retroactively making sense of your life's journey. Or doing certain things in the moment that you know you will not be able to appreciate, but those who come after you can. Or even the concept that consciousness lives a few milliseconds in the past, because it only assembles meaning of sensory input after they have become memories.

Here, in what Erwin calls his "exceptional conman pack of lies," he asks his greenhorn Scouts to do something totally meaningless in sacrificing their lives so that others will find meaning in their actions. This assumes that one can only appreciate the meaning of an action, or a life, after that thing has become past tense. That's a bit nihilistic in the present, but approaches the ancient Greek idea of immortality of one's words being written down and sung or read by someone else in the future. Erwin sounds just like a prophet in asking his followers to die now so that they may live forever in the hearts and souls of those who come after them. Let's just skip over the fact that he thinks of himself as a conman, because that whole speech sounded pretty good.

Heh.

Conny told a really bad joke. I laughed so hard! The translators did a good job of choosing "Eren's house is eavesdropping," to capture the Japanese homophone pun between home and falling.

Armin is good at strategy, but not tactics. He needs Jean as his sergeant.

Levi sees the Beast Titan's next salvo, a scattershot of projectiles.

The title of the episode is literally "perfect game," in English and in Japanese 完全試合 (kanzenshiai).

So these people of Zeke, Bertholdt, Reiner, and Annie have coffee and baseball. Basically, they're Americans. Figures.

Guh. You can see red clouds of blood from people getting obliterated.

The little Transport Titan is like the Beast Titan's caddie.

Erwin recognized how smart the Beast Titan was. He sent the smaller Titans to attack first so the Scouts would clump around them, so he could shotgun blast all of them together. Only the rookies by the horses are left with Levi and Erwin.

Levi asks if Erwin has a plan, and Erwin looks like he does, but he doesn't like it.

Ha! Yell at him, Eren! Notice me, senpai! Senpai will never notice you...

Bertholdt noticed Eren, and immediately dismissed him. So cold!

Ouch! Eren tried to trip Bertholdt up, but he just got punted into the Wall. Is it lucky or unlucky he smacked the Wall? I'm going with lucky, because at least he's still nearby instead of landing with striking distance of War Chief Zeke.

Jean is level-headed enough to put Armin somewhere safe to observe so he could eventually come up with a plan.

Get Bertholdt's attention so Mikasa can strike his neck! "You big idiot!" yells Conny. "Pervert King!" shouts Sasha. I don't even know what she's talking about here.

That steam defense of the Colossal Titan is tough. It even blew back the rocket powered Thunder Spears.

Armin is still at a loss.

Argh. The eye catch talked about the steam defense having finite fuel from the muscles of the Colossal Titan. Way to spoil what Armin is going to come up with next episode.

Erwin needs to give the usual rousing speech his conman self always gives when he's going to order people to die.

Erwin has a counterattack plan, but Levi isn't going to like it.

Erwin and the recruits will die to create an opening for Levi to kill the Beast Titan. Yeah.

Erwin can admit to his friend that he doesn't want to do this, because he still has his personal goal of proving his father right about the world by finding what Grisha Jaeger has in his basement.

Most of Erwin's path converged with the military goals, but now that he's so close to that basement, he doesn't want to die.

Levi gives it to him straight. "Give up on your dreams and die. Lead the recruits into Hell." Erwin accepted the order, as we all knew he would.

Nice detail with the recruit throwing up when Erwin ordered them to charge the Beast Titan. It's a death sentence.

Charge! Erwin already lost his arm, but can he survive losing his guts?

Next time, Levi and Armin do some hero things.