The third episode is upon us finally.  Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are training to become soldiers in the king’s army. However they must over come something equally as threatening as a Titan. But to find out what it is your gonna have to hit the link.
Two years have passed since the Colossal Titan appeared and destroyed Wall Maria allowing Titans to invade and feast on the village on Shiganshina. Since that time Eren, Mikasa, and Armin have joined the king’s army and are now going through boot camp.  It is here we meet Drill Instructor Keith Shadis  who like all drill instructors are inspecting the new recruits by verbally insulting and intimidating the weak ones. And like any real drill instructor he is probably the scariest thing these children have ever seen.

It is also here we meet Sasha Blouse. Sasha is my favorite character thus far in the series and the manga rather than explain why I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

So after everyone else sees Sasha running for a bit they head in to eat for the night, but not before witnessing a carriage and buggy leaving full of recruits that have been rejected or dropped out on the first day.  The recruits hound Eren after hearing he is from Shiganshina wanting to know more about the Colossal Titan. After further probing by recruits Eren has a flash back of his mother being eaten has chokes causing the recruits to finally relent. However Eren merely states it just went down the wrong pipe and declares his dream of destroying the Titans.  However a near by recruit Jean Kirschtein calls it a pipe dream, Eren retorts that Jean is a coward since he only joined to get into the Military Police which works in the inner cities far away from the titans. This of course prompts a rivalry between the two but it is quickly broken up before a fight ensues by the Bell calling for bedtime. Finally we get back to Sasha who heads back into camp after night fall and collapses from exhaustion. However the smell of food awakens her animal instincts and she pounces the source of the smell and finding out it’s bread downs it then passes right back out. She is taken back to her bunk by two other female recruits Ymir and Christa Renz.

The next day the recruits are practicing on the 3d Maneuver Gear test set. Everyone passes, but Eren who is seen hanging upside down and unable to right himself.  Seeing this Shadis tells Eren that he may not be suitable for the army let alone the Recon Troops. This prompts Eren to go ask various recruits for advice finally ending at Reiner Braun and Bertholt Fubar for help. As Reiner and Bertholt gives advice to Eren both of them reveal they came from a town that wasn’t warned about the Titan’s attack and despite surviving, Reiner wants to go back to their hometown while Bertholt, traumatized due to the Titans, wants to join the police much like Jean to stay away from them.

The following day everyone tries again and at first it seems that after some hard work and advice Eren has success, then immediately face plants into the ground. However much to everyone’s surprising, Keith finds that Eren has been using faulty gear.  Impressed that he was able to maintain his balance even if only for a little while despite the faulty equipment. Allowing Eren to try once more with working gear he gives Eren the passing grade. The next day the training continues with fully operational 3D maneuver gear as Shadis rides horse back through a forrest with the recruits zipping passed him on their gear.

Overall this was a introduction episode to give us a whose who of the cast. However with the tone of the series, I can probably bet that most of these people save for Eren and Mikasa will have the mortality rate of some one in a Gundam Series erratic and tragically short.  The comedy was very well done thanks to Sasha Blouse and we got to see some character development for Eren. The 3D maneuver gear is really cool, it reminds me of waist mounted webshooters as the recruits the speed through the forest like Spider-Man.  For those unaware this episode is out of place in the manga, however it works better for cast introduction as previous mentioned. While originally it served as a back story and we were introduced to the cast in a much more rushed manner in the midst of combat.  Here it’s better done as we get a feel for these people and get to see who they are when they are out of combat.