Review: Newest SnK and Ao no Exorcist

Because we’re on hiatus next week due to a family trip, I thought I’d write up a quick review of Shingeki no Kyojin 60 and Ao no Exorcist 59.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Shingeki no Kyojin 60 picks up with Squad Levi of the Survey Corps, still on the run.

I have to admit, I’ve mostly forgotten what they were initially outlawed for, though I think they were framed for the murder of that one company they hired.

Murder charges being only amazingly ironic since pretty much everything they’ve done SINCE going on the lam is torture and kill boatloads of other human beings.

And… the torturing continues, as Levi beats the snot out of yet another ‘enemy.’

I sort of understand that Levi does the things he does because his soul is already tarnished and he’s taking on the burden of evil so no one else has to.  However, he’s becoming really fairly unsympathetic to me, particularly because their ‘plans’ don’t seem smart or, far more importantly, worth it.  They’re no closer to finding Erin and Historia and, apparently, Zoe Hange seems to think that threatening newspaper men to ‘interview’ the ‘good’ guys is at all morally okay.  Honestly, if the point is that the monarchy is so evil that they bully the free press into becoming a propaganda machine, it really isn’t the moral high ground to bully them into writing propaganda for YOUR SIDE.

The other thing that happens is that Zoe Hange sets up a kind of sting  operation, in which the son of the guy who was murdered (of that one company) is cornered by a group of military police in an abandoned section of town.  The military police are about to kill him when he says, “Just tell me why you did it!  Why did you kill my father?”  The villains outline their villainy and, surprise-surprise, the building wasn’t abandoned at all, and now the populace of whatever town they were in all know the truth.

This scene, however, only worked because the mangaka told me it did.  Honestly, if I’d been in the crowd watching I’d wonder what exactly the bonus of trading thugs with unicorns for thugs with wings was.  The son of the guy is really very… gross in this scene, sitting his gigantic butt on the main MP’s head and demanding that the crowd shout his name louder….

Yeah….no, not sure about these new developments at all.

In other news, Erwin is a moron:

 

He’s been arrested, probably because he went to his superior officer and told him that he’s planning a coup.  “Uh, sir?  I’d like to report I’m a traitor…. What?  You’re arresting me?  WIERD.”

On the other hand, as my friend Josey pointed out, he’s quite a bit closer to the king than he’s ever been.  So, we can all hope that there’s something up that empty sleeve besides air.

So, I left this chapter with a fairly huge feeling of WTF and really rather wishing that the mangaka would return to the story of the shifters…

…or whatever is in Eren’s basement.

In Ao no Exorcist 59, our heroes are all gathered in the industrial wherever, having had escaped from their various zombie traps in the last chapter.  This chapter opens with an explanation of the Japanese word “gedou” which means ‘outsider,’ though specifically someone so off that they’re unable to join any group.  This is apparently origin of the name of the creepy scientist, toad-faced person, called “Gedouin Michael” who has made all the zombies, fawns over Lucifer, and who is trying to get Izumo (eyebrow girl) to accept the nine-tail fox spirit.

Traitorous pink-haired dude, Shima, is unimpressed with Gedouin’s plan, until Gedouin explains that he doesn’t actually expect Izumo to be able to do it.  He’s actually hoping she’ll die and our heroes will  be forced to crossover to rescue her.  At that point Gedouin expects things to “get interesting.”

To keep out heroes occupied until then Gedouin does some magic/science-y thing to make all the scattered bits of zombie that Rin exploded everywhere with his blue fire smoosh together into one giant, gross ball of  zombified monster.  They’re forced to fight it, and, just so that they get distracted, Gedouin marches Izumo past them.

Rin, because he’s nothing if not 100% heart, jumps into the air at the sight of her and demands that she let him rescue her.  She tells him to stuff it, this is something she needs to do for herself.  He tries to rescue her anyway, and pink-haired Shima jumps in and there is much magical fighting and how-can-you-do-this-you-were-our-friend Feels.

The final scene is Izumo toughing out the experiment/transformation in hopes of actually controlling the nine-tail:

For myself, I’m thinking she’s going to be able to do it, despite never really being able to control her familiar foxes in the past.

This seems to be the place for power-ups, because flower girl was able to get back her plant/earth familiar and other people had similar breakthroughs.

Fingers crossed or we’re out one of the ensemble cast!