Shingeki no Kyojin 06 — Survival of the Fittest

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The world is hell, as Armin observes. Eat or be eaten. This is the theme of the episode, which is beaten into us over and over again. Fight or the titans will eat you. Fight or your parents will be killed and you’ll be kidnapped. The strong eat the weak. Praying mantises eat butterflies. Humans eat chickens. Titans eat humans. Humans kill other humans.

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Yet despite this depressing theme, I think the takeaway message from the episode was a more optimistic look on human nature. Sure, it’s fight or die. But no one has to fight alone. Armin’s friend offers him a hand up. Armin is there when Hannah’s boyfriend dies. Eren is there to save Mikasa. Mikasa is there to save Eren. Mikasa saves the villagers from the greedy merchant. Even the kidnappers have each other. No one needs to fight alone.

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Up until this episode, I thought that in the past Mikasa was some badass and Eren was kind of a wimp. This episode’s most shocking twist, of course, is to reveal that Eren was actually even more badass than Mikasa. He went and assaulted three murderers’ stronghold single-handedly, murdering two of them? When he was what, eight years old?! Shit. I hope he isn’t really dead.

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And to think it was actually Eren that turned Mikasa into this crazy fighter. It’s interesting how her muscles suddenly seemed to lose their limits and her toes became strong enough to break the floorboards. Her run to stab the guy in the back reminds me a lot of how that armored titan attacked the gate in the beginning. I wonder if Mikasa’s sudden burst in strength has something to do with the nature of the titans?

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After this episode I’m much more sold on Mikasa and Eren’s relationship as well. An eternal friendship born out of a joint killing spree. Suddenly everything between the two of them is magically a hundred times more interesting. This is one instance of incest I could actually ship. (Although I am perfectly happy with a platonic relationship.)

8 thoughts on “Shingeki no Kyojin 06 — Survival of the Fittest

    1. Hahahaha this is brilliant. Seriously the giants in this show are an endless source of win.

    2. Hahaha that late for class one and the Armin one are hilarious.

      Resuscitating half a body seems pretty hopeless indeed…

  1. is it still incest when a pair who lived in the same household are not related and one side is genuinely in love(aka romantic) with the other side yet that side simply doesnt realize it 😉 not to spoil anime only viewers….but the actual extent of mikasas feelings run deeper than anyone can imagine…

    1. If they consider themselves siblings I’d say it’s incest. I guess it depends on how long they grew up together though. If the parents married when they were already grown (like 16 or 18) then I wouldn’t consider it incest. But if they’d treated each other as siblings since they were six or so I would consider it incest. In between it gets a bit more blurry.

  2. Best episode yet of an awesome series imo. Eren is not only badass, though, he’s almost a psychopath. There was no need to kill the kidnappers instead of calling his father.

    I like how they have capitalism even in a supposedly highly militaristic society like this one. This is also part of human nature, I guess. Of course I do not approve of the greedy merchant’s behaviour, though! In any case I think in a RL scenario people would have panicked and simply overrun that cart.

    1. Oh I’m pretty sure that to be a badass you have to be a psychopath. Attempting to kill the kidnappers himself was completely insane.

      I appreciate the different classes in the society as well, although it is a bit too heavy-handed for my liking. I mean the rich guy is pretty comically evil, blocking the gate with his wagon and preventing anyone from escaping. You’d think he’d want to escape too rather than worry about the wagon…

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