Eren, Mikasa and Armin's military training finally begins. Along the way, they met new people and learned that some of them decided to join the military because they want a comfortable life inside the walls. Oh, and we learned how the 3D Maneuver Gear works, which is kinda cool actually.
The first few minutes of this episode showed us the opening rites for new recruits. What's interesting about it is that not all of them performed the rites because of their look in their eyes. According to one of the officials observing, they don't need it because they have witnessed the terror of the Titans in front of their eyes. Aside from those who were skipped in the ceremonies, those who weren't skipped gave us an idea on why they joined the military. Some of them wanted to serve the King, others want a comfortable life inside the walls and lastly, some of them have the same objectives like that of Eren.
Since this is a military school, it is no surprise that there are drop outs, and thankfully, Eren is not part of those said drop outs. After the opening ceremony, it is time to test if the cadets can use the 3D Maneuver Gear, the device the humans use to fly around to fight the Titans. The test is something that I have anticipated, it is a balance test. Seeing the Gear with the attachments in the opening credits gives you an idea that these babies are kinda heavy and that maneuvering with those items might be difficult. In short, the user must know how to balance him or herself so that she can have fewer injuries while flying around with that thing.
Since this is a shonen anime and since we have a genius archetype character in the form of Mikasa, it is expected that Eren will fail in this test. So yeah, his first attempt in balancing failed. But that didn't stop him as he decides to practice one more time only to fail at the end. In short, he is big trouble once he fails his retake of the test the next day. This is when Mikasa comes in, even if Eren is supposed to be a young adult by the time they started training, Mikasa still treats him like a child. Like every kind guardian, she even offers Eren to quit! But this is Eren we are talking about; he is quite stubborn and will not stop till he learns how to balance himself!
And thus, he starts asking others for help. Even though he didn't get any tips from those people he asked, at least he made some friends along the way. The next day, thanks to his sheer determination and luck, he managed to balance himself, only to fail at the end. As it turns out, his equipment is defective and he managed to balance with the said equipment! With that in mind, it is obvious that he can balance himself and is worthy to use the 3D Maneuver Gear.
