Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

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Damn. He's gone. Not only is he merely dead, he's truly most sincerely dead. You don't come back from that. I gotta say, killing Armin is a move I wasn't expecting, but he's gone now. Nothing much to do about it.

I call Armin and Erwin winning. Isayama has shown time and time again that no one important can die. Reiner survives his head being blown to bits by a power out of no where. Hange is alive somehow despite being hit by nuclear titan bomb.

Eren will probably just cut Bertolt's head off and have Armin drink the fluid from his spine. That might be why he didn't just kill him.

Doubtful. Those powers are not infinite and it's been pointed out time and again that both Reiner and Bertholt - and any other Shifter, really - can be worn out.

Hanji, if you recall, is the sole survivor of her group and still looks pretty roughed up. While Levi survives just about everything thanks to his massive skill and Erwin + that one random guy might survive since, well, Levi is with them plus there's the whole serum thing, Armin is dead as dreams. No Shifter powers, no Ackerman bullshit, no nothing.

Hell, Sasha and Jean could possibly survive their damage - however I doubt the former - but Armin? Armin got obliterated.

And, well, they still need to squeeze the info out of either of the warriors. Reiner is out of the picture and Monkey Trouble is busy having an offscreen fight with Levi, so it has to be Bert.

edited 10th Jun '16 10:58:55 AM by FergardStratoavis

Isayama doesn't even need to spit out bullshit for Armin. People have survived what he just went through. And he will probably spit out bullshit anyways. The manga has been running since 2009 without a main character death anywhere. Isayama has no guts.

Lets see how things go with Armin before we say that.

Huh, no, no one has survived being roasted to the bone yet.

…But I don't exclude Armin will survive one way or another. It's still a shonen manga, any bullshit is possible. I just don't see what it could be in this case. As said above, he has no titan power, and I doubt Isayama's gonna tell us that Armin is a secret member of a fallen clan à la Ackerman. There's still the titan serum, but that would doom Erwin's chances of survival.

The policy is usually "you can drop the spoiler tags 5 posts after the release of the chapter", if I'm not mistaken.

edited 10th Jun '16 11:28:28 AM by Lyendith

It would be polite for you to put up spoilers some more.

Like this: Armin is pretty dead or, at the very least, about to die. I don't think he can even drink anything now.

The assumption that a main character will not die so late into the story is IMO doubtful.

Uh, unless we drop the spoilers at this point. >.>

Not to the bone, but all of his upper body's skin came off, complete with hair, eyes, face, you name it.

Also, fair enough. I figured that the revelation is big enough to warrant holding spoilers some more, but that's fine too.

edited 10th Jun '16 11:29:17 AM by FergardStratoavis

Personally, I think there's a small, diminutive chance that Armin will remain alive, but crippled and unable to move, maybe in a coma. Eren's reaction at the end seems inappropriate for his death - unless he's so shocked that he can't even emote grief.

I think he's just in shock. The waterworks are probably next chapter.

My thoughts: Armin looks pretty fucking dead, but there's nothing stopping Isayama from saving him if that's what he's planning. There's already stuff around that could conceivably save him, like the titan serum.

I don't think that he will be saved due to the condition he's in and the importance of his sacrifice, but then Hange showed up again out of nowhere and it would be quite unusual for someone that important to die. I really hope this sticks.

Armin dying here doesn't really seem all that fitting for his character, but I think Titan Armin would be even less so. I reckon if he were to survive, it'd be through something else.

Anyway, on the actual chapter itself: this was a really good chapter, the best we've had in a while. The survey corps really needed to have a win here, with how much shit they've been through recently (including Levi missing his capture last chapter). To have both titans go down to an impressive strategy is really fulfilling right now. I particularly enjoyed how simple the decoy was, and how Eren ultimately succeeded using his 3 DMG skills.

I was getting a bit uninterested in the past few chapters, but last chapter was good, this was great.

He is probably dead though. I mean, he was burned and dropped from high height, maybe anime characters are immune to fall damage, but I think he is dead at least whether writer makes him come back to life somehow or not

Well Done Armin.

Not sure why you guys expect him ( Armin ) to stay dead.

Levi's got a Titan injection right there and they've just captured two different Titan Shifters.

I'm really rooting for Bert to make it out of this okay and Reiner too but mostly Bert.

edit:

Armin's new look even looks like Titan Bert so I imagine Bert is fed to Armin which kinda irritates me because Bert's my favorite character and I dislike Armin so then it goes from my favorite character kills my least favorite character to my favorite character is fed to my least favorite character to keep him alive.

edited 16th Jun '16 12:25:39 AM by MadSkillz

Because ginormous asspull if that character doesn't stay dead. I think it would be like that mass resurrection thing in Naruto.

It was also, imho, a well-written death scene + a very meaningful sacrifice for that character. It just made a lot of sense that he would finally provide the key to bring down the Colossal Titan.

That aside, this chapter has increased my annoyance-dislike of Bert. ( I'm still unhappy about how Marco died. ) On the other hand, I think my annoyance with Reiner lessened because this chapter reminded me that Reiner had a mental breakdown over Marco's death.

It's kinda funny that Shingeki has began to show teeth when it comes to killing off main characters while Game of Thrones has been relatively merciful in the latest season.

It wouldn't be an asspull. It'd just being annoying and not a character direction that people would enjoy.

Why didn't Bert just swat him like a fly.

Even if Eren poured Bert's spinal fluid down his throat Armin shouldn't be able to transform in the staate he's in.

He moves pretty slow, so he might have figured the steam would get to Armin more easily (which it did).

I think he actually tried that, but Armin latched onto his teeth and refused to let go.

Not sure if it's specific to the translations I read, but there's actually a line where Armin realises Bert can't move while he's burning off the muscles to release heat.

Also, I'm not sure why there seems to be the impression that a shifter's spinal fluids can be used to transfer the shifter power? As far as I understand, the shifter power is entirely to do with the serums; whereas the thing about the spinal fluids is only used to transfer the Coordinate power.

I can't really tell how serious Sasha's wounds are, but it looks like it could be survivable...as far as I could tell from the panels, she got hit by wood shrapnel?

The serums are made out of spinal fluid, I guess.

Yeah. Hange said that the titan serum came from a human spine. So it might be able to act as a titan serum on its own.

edit: and titans eat shifters to become shifters

edited 20th Jun '16 10:57:17 AM by higurashimerlin

Also Eren and Ymir were mindless titans until they ate a shifter.

And really Armin's not fatally burned. His skin is a little melted and he would need a lot of skin grafts, but it is still there and people have survived far worst burns.

What? His muscles are showing…◊ That's not "a little"…