The human race has a new enemy to fear…the Female Titan has appeared

WARNING! WARNING! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT SPOILERS!

The episode begins with a brief re-cap of the last and then its onto the recon mission. The sqauds have split and the smoke bombs begin to fire off. Everytime a smoke bomb is shot it means its time to either change directions or a titan has been engaged in combat. We see Armin, Reiner and Jean ride together briefly before splitting up and wishing each other well in their own way. Armin shows a hint a fear but pushes it out of his mind to focus on the mission at hand. We also see Sasha encounter a titan that crawls at her like a spider. Her life is saved by two of the Scouting Legions leaders using a quick attack tatic of slicing the titans Achilles heel and slicing its neck while its down. As Sasha heads off to rejoin her group the two leaders start off to their group as well only to hear the footsteps of another titan quick on the approach. As they all approach Armin is able to bear witness to the emergence of a new titan: the Female Titan. The two leaders try their best to slay it but as one of them makes his approach for her neck she quickly bashes him and slams him into the ground, stomping out the other man shortly after. Armin tries to run but the shock of the Female Titans step sends him off his horse and Armin assumes his life is at an end…but to his surprise the titan merely removes his hood to check his identity. She then runs off and Armin begins to follow, Reiner and Jean joining a few moments later. Armin deduces based on the Female Titans reactions that she isnt just a abnormal titan but in fact a human within a titan whose identity is unknown. Jean, being brash and stubborn, tries to go right for her neck but realizes how fast the Female Titan is. Armin also manages to get knocked off his horse again and injured but the injury suddenly sparks him to shout at Jean to encourage him to fight on and to distract the Female Titan. All seems lost for jean until Reiner shoots towards him and takes the hit for Jean. The Female Titan crushes Reiner in her hand…OR DOES SHE?! Reiner quickly spins his blades around and breaks free before he can be squashed. The Female Titan retreats and Armin hints at the possibility that she will head for Erens position. End of episode 17.

Holy moley was this episode really good….for the most part. On the one hand the animation is superb, the fight scenes are great and show that even the side characters are pretty strong, and the pacing for the appearance of the Female Titan is done really well. However I must pull out a small problem I have with this episode…it seems fairly obvious who the female titan is at least from my perspective. Mainly based on the tint on the hair color and the shade of blue in her eyes. Now I will not say who it is because I dont want to spoil it but i felt it was a bit too obvious. Aside from that it was a good episode and my favorite moment award goes to Armin when he starts to shout at Jean. It shows Armin can take some punishment and can be just as tough as a general if pushed hard enough. Armin has received some good development so far and it gets better every episode hes in. Overall this episode is for sure a good one and I cant wait for the next episode…where we see the members of the Scouting Legion try to take this female down.