Attack on Titan: Junior High

Episode 5

An entire episode about test results might seem sparse for another show's plot, but when it comes to Attack on Titan: Junior High, simpler is better. A half-hour centering on the most mundane of middle school drama fades into the background, allowing the show's cast of characters to take center stage with wacky reactions and interactions. There's still a fair amount of repetition, but this is one of the more original episodes the show has given us so far.

In the world of Attack on Titan, characters are measured by their ability to survive. Even so, some of them are certainly more book smart than others. It shouldn't be a surprise that Attack on Titan: Junior High frames Sasha as the class dunce and Armin, with his tactical mind, as the valedictorian. Sasha asks Armin to help her study for make-up tests, and Armin kindly obliges. He suggests that she imagine the variables in math problems as pieces of food, which instantly sets her on a gluttonous flight of fancy. The tactic backfires when Sasha becomes so obsessed with food possibilities that she can't think of anything else. In the Attack on Titan manga, we learn that Sasha is like this because of a childhood where meals was uncertain, but none of that darkness bleeds into this episode, just Sasha being a food-obsessed idiot. Meanwhile, she returns the favor to Armin when she finds out that, for all his smarts, he's afraid of the dark. Both portrayals are silly exaggerations of the wackiest part of each personality, and not all the humor works, but at least they're new riffs on these characters instead of the same old jokes.

The one-on-one dynamic between Sasha and Armin is repeated through this episode with Oluo and Petra, followed by Levi and Hanji. In both cases, it's an example of one character stealing the show while the other acts as the straight man. We don't learn very much about Petra here, but Oluo is even more over-the-top obsessed with mimicking Levi than he was in the original show. His struggle to look effortlessly cool is transferred to a middle-school setting with lowered stakes, as his friends find out that he actually studies extremely hard to do well on exams (and the portrait of Levi in his bedroom is a nice touch). Petra is only in this scene to nettle Oluo into becoming more boisterous. During this scene, other members of the scouts are playing the Attack on Titan DS game and reading the manga. Some of these little easter eggs are funnier than the actual dialogue.

The same goes for Levi and Hanji; Levi fades into the background while Hanji runs rampant. Hanji was made for Attack on Titan: Junior High. In the original show, Hanji was always the wackiest. Now the character is always in their element, settling in perfectly to this bizarre show without any personality exaggerations. The Sonny and Bean titan joke is recreated almost exactly here, which is a bit bizarre since the titans still try to eat Hanji—that's the first indication that the titans of Junior High have anything like a taste for human flesh. It seems that the rules of this universe are subject to change in the interest of comedy.

This episode of Attack on Titan: Junior High kept it simple, and it worked. The best episodes so far have been the ones that treat the school setting like a background for the characters to play out their strange personalities and bizarre interactions. This is never going to be my favorite show, but this episode was at least okay.

Rating: B

Attack on Titan: Junior High is currently streaming on Funimation.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.