S01.E23: Smile: Raid on Stohess District, Part 1

[PrincessEnnui]

And now for someone(s) completely different. Annie remembers her training sessions with her father, as her work with the MP causes her former training squad comrades to seek out her aide with helping Eren escape.

 

Annie is revealed as the Female Titan! When and how is what I wanna know. 

 

Side note about Annie's squad mates for the curious. The girl is said to have gotten into the MPs on her back... Given that she's probably a year or two older than Mikasa, small wonder Toonami edited this.

 

The righteous do gooder was an obvious Marco call back. I do wonder how Marco and Jean and Connie would have turned out as MPs. Probably like the two (leader and male heckler) we saw with Annie. Though I think Marcoh was a bit stronger than what we saw from the do gooder. I can't imagine Marco being beaten down like that. He seemed confident and savvy, plus Connie and Jean probably would have backed him up. So many things to ponder.

Edited October 19, 2014 by PrincessEnnui

[lathspel]

Only Armin would use a putative escape attempt as a trap. Beautiful!

I had totally forgotten about Annie, so it was a good reveal. Although I did figure it out in the first couple minutes of this episode - she has a distinctive nose and eye shape that I can't believe I missed before.

Sadly, the significance of "I can't go underground" was lost on me as well, at least for a minute.

[ZoqFotPik]

Given that she's probably a year or two older than Mikasa, small wonder Toonami edited this.

Do have a source? I can't find anything about edits.

 

The righteous do gooder was an obvious Marco call back. I do wonder how Marco and Jean and Connie would have turned out as MPs. Probably like the two (leader and male heckler) we saw with Annie. Though I think Marcoh was a bit stronger than what we saw from the do gooder. I can't imagine Marco being beaten down like that. He seemed confident and savvy, plus Connie and Jean probably would have backed him up. So many things to ponder.

Marlo, the do gooder, is MP Eren. That's who Annie was thinking of anyway. I think Hitch, the girl, would be closer to Jean. They both wanted into the MPs so they could have the easy life in the interior. Connie was looking for the respect of people from his village, so I imagine he would not want to make waves and would just go with the flow. Marco, would probably closer to Marlo. Typing out their names I just noticed how similar they are. That said, I don't think we go to know him well enough to say one way or the other. 

 

Regarding the reveal, I've posted about this in previous threads, but I thought it was fairly obvious. Strictly from a narrative perspective, it wouldn't make sense for the Female Titan to not be a character we haven't met. This is also why I believe we've met the Colossal and Armored Titans, but that is an entirely separate discussion. So out of the, by my count, 13 female characters introduced at the time of the first appearance of the Female Titan, 4 were dead: Eren's mom, Mikasa's mom, Mina, and Hannah, 6 were with the Survey Corps: Mikasa, Sasha, Krista, Ymir, Zoe (I'm aware of the, IMHO stupid, controversy about her gender, but in the show she's female.), and Petra, and so that only left Annie, Rico, and Pixis's Aide. Out of those three Annie received the most screen time and development. Plus, she's in both opening credits and the second closing credits. 

[Mr. Simpatico]

Maybe it's the dub but I had more problems with this episode this time around than I did when I saw it subbed. Perhaps its because I didn't start reading the manga until after I watched it the first time around and notice the big character development plot hole. One of the great flaws in the anime (which is a puzzler given they gave more screen time to red shirts who didn't have it in the manga) is that Annie is not fleshed out enough to make the big reveal a kicker to the viewer in the way it is for Eren and Armin within the show.  We saw most of her character development in the very episode where it is revealed she is the female Titan (which wasn't that big a secret for any viewer who had remembered what she looked like). In the manga, Annie served as a mentor to Eren during training (reduced to one fight on the show) and admired him to an extent (which is why she sees Erin in Marlow the idealist and even tells Marlow that if he makes a move she might help him), she was also known to talk to Armin (which is a big deal since she is so anti-social). So this is why Eren and Armin who have led Annie into this trap still have a tough time believing it and desperately want it not to be true, while Mkasa could care less.

 

The dub for Annie didn't help either. There are many ways her lines about being a weak girl could have come off instead of the mocking way it was delivered (if you were paying attention to her remarks to Marlow, she really does view herself psychologically this way, she thinks of herself to be merely "average", which is why she admires idealist men like Eren and Marlow and followed Armin even knowing it was a trap - hence the ring - because he said he would view her as a "bad person"). And Annie's laughter and blushing came off as insane rather than the catharsis and relief at finally being revealed it was supposed to be (apparently the author of the manga actually wanted this change - in the manga she just smiled when revealed), it came off as extremely out of character to the Annie who was both the anti-social loner as a trainee and then as a MP, and also the most methodically cold-blooded Titan (she took a certain pleasure in killing people - remember the guy she used for a yo-yo). Even her insane voice at the end didn't match the monotone she used throughout the rest of the episode.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Mr. Simpatico

[lathspel]

You put that better than I could have - from the way this episode was acted, it almost seemed like Annie was deranged, which didn't really jibe with her demeanor as a Titan.

[Sandman87]

Side note about Annie's squad mates for the curious. The girl is said to have gotten into the MPs on her back... Given that she's probably a year or two older than Mikasa, small wonder Toonami edited this.

Doubtful. [as] didn't have any problem with references to children being raped back when they ran Blood+, nor was there any problem with that sort of thing in the Toonami runs of Deadman Wonderland and Black Lagoon.

 

I looked up a fansub of the show, and the only related reference that could have been edited was a catty "there's only one way an idiot like you could have gotten into the MPs" while they were hanging around at the bottom of the stairs. I don't recall what the line was in the Toonami telecast.

[PrincessEnnui]

What he said in the English version was far more couched (that she [Annie] actually earned her place there) than the subtitles IIRC. As for the implication the line carries, if it wasn't true on some level, she would have flatly denied it. Instead, she just shrugged it off.

 

I also think that Hitch's case is different due to the fact its implied she used it to her advantage,

which neither Riku, Revy, and the vampire twins did. I am not familiar enough with Deadman Wonderland, the only sexual assault I know of (the girl who used her hair as apart of her attack) may have been fabricated.

Edited October 22, 2014 by PrincessEnnui

[the fresh maker]

Unless I'm misremembering, I'm pretty sure there was a not-insignificant moment edited out of the dub (or the Toonami version). I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case it shows up later (although that wouldn't make sense):

 

When Eren is still trying to deny that Annie is the Female Titan, Mikasa asks him to think back to fighting Annie in titan form. There's a flashback to the memory where the Female Titan gets into her "ready" fighting stance, raising up her arms. This is a callback to their training, when Annie got into the same stance and whooped Eren. It's important because it proves to Eren that Annie's the Female Titan--and it's a memory from Eren's titan form. Before this, he's had difficulty recalling his actions in titan form.

 

 

And Annie's laughter and blushing came off as insane rather than the catharsis and relief at finally being revealed it was supposed to be (apparently the author of the manga actually wanted this change - in the manga she just smiled when revealed), it came off as extremely out of character to the Annie who was both the anti-social loner as a trainee and then as a MP, and also the most methodically cold-blooded Titan (she took a certain pleasure in killing people - remember the guy she used for a yo-yo). Even her insane voice at the end didn't match the monotone she used throughout the rest of the episode.

 

 

Yes, the psycho laugh was a huge misstep. There's a good reason why the manga editors cut it. It was completely out of character for Annie, and it clashed with the tension and atmosphere of that scene. Plus, I think it also goes against the portrayal of the psychological complexities these characters have demonstrated, Annie included. The laugh reduced her to simply being crazed, and it's a bit more complicated than that.

[ZoqFotPik]

Unless I'm misremembering, I'm pretty sure there was a not-insignificant moment edited out of the dub (or the Toonami version). I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case it shows up later (although that wouldn't make sense):

 

 Spoiler

Based on the episode preview and description, that scene might be in this weeks episode. I can't imagine as editing out a scene like that.