Attack on Titan is back in a chilling episode that centers on Ymir and her back story.  Here are my thoughts on episode 35 (episode 10 of the second season) named Children.

With the past two episodes being necessary breathers and plot and character development episodes, this episode came back with a punch as the action starts to ramp up into the last few episodes of the season.  This episode opens with the joint formation made up of the Survey Corp, Garrison regiment and the Military Police as they close in on the forest.  The flares given off by the formation push Reiner and Bertholdt to abandon their original plan of escaping from the forest at night.  They know they have to leave now if they want to escape the Survey Corp.  Even Reiner comments on how Erwin Smith was a worthy opponent and the only reason why the Survey Corp was hot on their heels.

Eren, like Hannes predicted, is not going to make it easy for them. Even without any hands, Eren manages to knock Reiner down and starts to hit him with his forearms.  He is quickly put into a headlock as Reiner and Eren wrestle about.  Meanwhile, Ymir and Bertholdt are having a conversation about Ymir’s time as a titan, which she does not remember very well, and whether or not she remembers eating their friend Marcel which she does not.

As Eren is starting to fade into unconsciousness from Reiner’s headlock, he hears Ymir tell Bertholdt that she had been wandering for 60 years as a titan before she ate their friend.  Now for non-manga readers, this part really puts into question about a lot of issues in Attack on Titan especially with Ymir.  It gives non-manga fans food for thought as to the time line and Ymir’s mysterious past.

Eren is now tied up, gagged and knocked out.  Reiner has him strapped to his back and the strange quartet start to flee the forest.  Ymir is holding onto Bertholdt as Reiner and Bertholdt are the only ones who have ODM gear.

As they flee the titans and the incoming Survey Corp, Ymir can see the flares of the Survey Corp and knows that Christa is more than likely nearby.  She pleads for Reiner and Bertholdt that this is their chance to take Christa as well.  She knows that Christa will be nearby, and Reiner has often said that Christa was always on their list of people to take with her connection with the church.  It seemed to suggest that they were not completely sure if Eren had what they have been after the entire time, which was the coordinate, and that Christa was the next best bet.  With Ymir and Reiner both quite enamored of Christa or Historia, there was a high possibility that no great harm would come to her if she were taken, but with so little known about where they come from, the fans are worried for both Eren and Historia.

Reiner and Bertholdt, at first, are not on board with going after Historia even though they do plan on getting her eventually.  And they had used Historia as leverage to get Ymir on their side, but Reiner can see that, with the Survey Corp closing in, the chances of success in escaping with both Eren and Historia are not high.

Ymir, on the other hand, does not want to leave Historia behind.  As she is thinking of this, Ymir has a flashback about her past and this part is really the gem of this episode.  The flashback starts with Ymir as a young child.  She is a part of a group of a orphaned kids that are rounded up and Ymir is picked out and taken by a man.  The man is a member of a church organization that is going to set up Ymir as a blood descendent of Ymir.  In a way, he set her up as the head of a cult and a false goddess.  In return for worshipping her, the cult followers are promised immortal life.

Now Ymir is very young when she is set up as this false goddess, and she is not to blame for wanting to live a better life even if it is a lie.  This lie though comes crashing down when a military unit, wearing uniforms unlike anything we have seen yet, storms the secret meeting of this cult.  At this point Ymir is a young teenager, around the age we have known her as.  The soldiers start arresting the followers and things look dire as they violently start to round them up with guns.  The man, who had found her and made her who she was, tells the soldiers that Ymir is responsible for tricking everyone into believing that she is a descendent of Ymir.

The guns then turn on Ymir.  Ymir is about to tell the truth on how she was not the one who was responsible for the forming of this cult until she sees one of her followers shake her head at her.  Ymir then does the heroic thing and takes the blame for it all in hopes of sparing her followers from a terrible fate.

Unfortunately, this does not spare her or her followers from a terrible fate.  They are chained and led through streets where people throw rocks at them.

They are then taken, bound, to the top of a wall by soldiers.  The follower who shook her head is right next to Ymir.  We see the soldier shove something into the follower’s neck before kicking her off the side of the wall.  Fans see a flash of the familiar golden light that comes when someone turns into a titan.  This process is then used on Ymir.  We don’t see what is shoved into her neck, presumably an injection of some sort, before we see her get kicked off the wall.

We then see the long 60 years Ymir talked about with Bertholdt running around in her familiar titan form.  At one point, Ymir goes into a hibernating sleep where nature and the ground form around her sleeping body.  She is awaken by Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, and their friend Marcel as they are traveling to the wall to take it down (the attack on Shiganshina). Ymir awakens and immediately comes after Reiner.  Reiner is shoved out of the way by his friend Marcel and Marcel is eaten by Ymir.  We now know that Annie, Reiner, Bertholdt, and Marcel are titan shifters and that Ymir has eaten a titan shifter.

Ymir then awakens again except this time she is a human again and, in a really moving scene, we see her enjoy her new found freedom.  We then see her life of stealing inside the walls and how she came to find out about Historia, and how much Historia really means to her.

The flashback then ends and we see that Ymir is clearly distressed by the idea of leaving Historia behind.  She feels that there is no hope or safety left in the walls, and that Historia will not be safe.  She forces Reiner and Bertholdt to reconsider taking Historia as they are fleeing through the woods.  They finally agree to go after Historia to which Ymir has a plan.

Meanwhile, the Survey Corp is closing in on the forest with Mikasa, Armin and Hannes in the lead.  They see a lightening strike and hear a boom, and they immediately recognize it for someone turning into a titan.  They also hear a scream in the woods.  Mikasa, Armin, Conny, Jean, and Hannes head straight to the source of the noise and find Ymir by herself.   Conny stops some survey corp members from killing her as he asks her where Reiner and Bertholdt are, and what is going on.  Ymir is acting strange, as Armin quickly realizes, as she is looking at each individual person.  Armin realizes that she is looking for someone.

And we soon find out who that someone is as Historia comes up on the group, and is calling out to Ymir.  Ymir then leaps off the tree and swallows a shocked Historia.  Holding Historia captive in her mouth, she then takes off through the woods.  Mikasa, Armin and their unit chase after her using ODM gear and the trees while Hannes’ men are below with the horses.

Ymir gets to the edge of the forest where Reiner is waiting.  When he sees her coming, he leaps down from a tree and transforms.  He starts running away from the forest and the Survey Corp. Bertholdt, holding a captured Eren, uses his ODM gear to get on Reiner’s shoulder and Ymir leaps on his back as well.

Mikasa, Armin and the rest of their crew watch in despair as Reiner runs away from them.  Without any trees or horses, they can not give chase.  That is, of course, until Hannes comes up from behind and tells them to get on the horses that his men had brought with them.  As a united unit, they chase after Reiner and Bertholdt and that is how the episode ends.

This episode was action packed, emotional and has a very impactful and important back story put into it.  I really enjoyed this episode very much and thought it was a good lead into what will be a very exciting next episode.

Interesting points:

-The girl who was Ymir’s follower who was kicked off the wall next to Ymir looked like the titan that could talk in the OVA Isle’s Notebook.  The titan even talked about how Isle was apart of Ymir’s people.  I think it was that follower in her titan form.

-Another point to remember is that Erwin is leading a separate unit around the forest that is comprised of Military Police, Scouts and Garrison regiments while Mikasa and her unit are chasing Ymir and Reiner through the forest.  This will play in later in the next episode.

-Levi is not in this episode or this part of the story arc because he is injured from his fight with the female titan and he is watching over a still silent Pastor Nick.

-A thing to remember in Ymir’s back story is that the soldiers that attacked her followers were not wearing the soldier’s uniforms as seen in the walls.  And she had been outside the walls for 60 years as a titan which suggests that she was a human outside the walls, turned into a titan and then came into the walls when she ate Marcel and became human again.  It even stated in the intermission part of the episode that she was not from inside the walls.  I have read the manga so I do know the importance of all this, but all of these things are important to the storyline.