Attack on Titan Chapter 130, Dawn for Humanity Review: The Devil Brings the Apocalypse.

You know, it’s funny how I keep predicting how the story of Attack on Titan will go only for the next chapter to immediately prove me wrong.
In my predictions post for Chapter 130, “Dawn for Humanity”, I predicted that Historia would not be shown again until the end of the story.
So, imagine my complete surprise and happiness when I saw a spoiler that she would appear in a flashback this chapter.
As soon as I saw that spoiler, I immediately went offline so I wouldn’t accidentally get spoiled again and could experience the chapter for myself.
And boy was it an experience.
“Dawn for Humanity” is definitely in my top 10 favourite chapters of the entire manga, which is surprising considering how short it is.
This shortness is due to the final scene of the chapter that is full of constant glorious, yet horrifying double spread panels of the Rumbling arriving and laying waste to Marley.
My jaw was on the floor throughout this entire scene, with these panels being the best artwork Hajime Isayama has ever delivered.
He certainly has come a long way from his wonky artwork at the start of the manga.
Seriously, these panels just made the Rumbling so much more horrifying, with the Colossal Titans swimming under the best ships in the world’s navy and blowing them apart with steam.
Following this, is the terrifying shot of the Titan’s silhouettes as they emerge from the ocean.
Then, as the Marleyan soldiers flee, Isayama finally gifts us with the visual we have been waiting seven chapters for, a full view of Eren’s gigantic Titan.
And it. Is. Horrifying.
My first thought when I saw Eren like this was that he looked like the devil, which may have more significance later on.
The shot of his monstrous face with a soldier yelling that it’s the Attack Titan is chilling and I cannot wait for it to be animated.
I can already imagine this epic reveal with the cry of, “Shingeki No Kyojin!” when this is adapted.
Although, I do feel sorry for the poor souls who have to animate this moment because it is going to be incredibly time consuming and difficult.
Fingers crossed that Studio Mappa can pull it off.
Another interesting feature is the strings that seem to be holding up part of Eren’s Titan form from the spine.
This makes him look kind of like a marionette, which raises questions about Isayama symbolically portraying Eren as not free.
In any case, I have absolutely no clue how the alliance can even hope to stop Eren at this point.
He is the literal devil and commands millions of Colossal Titans.
He’s practically unbeatable.
Also, there’s no longer any hope of there being a Code Geass ending, not that I wanted one.
The Rumbling has reached Marley and Eren’s genocide has begun.
There is no coming back from this.
Speaking of the alliance though, we get a brief scene of them this chapter, which has some fantastic character development for Annie.
The horrified look on her face when she realizes they can’t save Liberio, and that her father is most likely dead, is striking because it is the most emotion she has ever shown.
Her tearful confession that she doesn’t want to kill the 104th or Eren anymore is just as tragic and her deciding to leave the alliance because of these things makes me wonder what Isayama has planned for her in the future.
From here, we go into Eren’s flashbacks, before the reveal of the Rumbling, and they are filled with tonnes of interesting information.
The most important of these is obviously the Historia flashback because of its implications.
The scene between her and Eren is frustratingly vague but intentionally so.
Historia is revealed to be against Eren’s decision to destroy the world but seems to reach some kind of deal with him by deciding to have a child.
A representation of Historia’s childhood story book where Christa made a deal with the devil perhaps?
Whether this is the case or not, Historia asking Eren what he would think about her having a child practically screams to me that Eren is the father of her baby.
Not only this but when Zeke confirms that Mikasa most likely loves Eren, it is revealed that Eren is thinking of Historia in this moment.
However, despite this seeming to show Eren has a stronger connection to Historia and is most likely the father of her child, there is still evidence for the Eren and Mikasa ship.
As I said, Zeke suspects that Mikasa is in love with Eren, confirming that what Eren said about Mikasa only following him because of her Ackermann instincts is a steaming pile of Titan poop.
This most likely means that everything he told Mikasa and Armin in Chapter 112 was a lie meant to protect them by distancing themselves from him.
So, Mikasa being revealed to possibly be in love with Eren for real does raise the possibility of their ship potential.
Sure, Eren does say he doesn’t have time for anything like that because he only has four years left to live but this is back when he lied to Zeke practically every sentence so we should take what he says here with a pinch of salt.
Therefore, even though I am in favor of Eren being the father of Historia’s child because of its thematic weight, especially if the child turns out to be the reincarnation of Ymir Fritz, I can admit that there are some hints to Mikasa ending up with Eren too.
I think we can all agree though that, if any ship turns out to be canon, the last thing we want is another Tokyo Ghoul situation where people whose ship didn’t become canon send death threats to the author.
No matter what happens, lets be respectful guys.
Back to the chapter, other highlights of Eren’s flashbacks include a memory shard of the fez kid being assaulted, revealing that there will be a future flashback between Eren and him, and a flashback of Floch listening in to Eren’s conversation with Yelena.
This leads to Eren tasking Floch with pretending to support Yelena and Zeke so they can start the Rumbling and destroy the world.
What is particularly interesting about this moment is Floch’s reaction to Eren’s plan.
He looks shocked and maybe even a little horrified.
I would love to know what was going through Floch’s head at this moment.
If he does turn out to be alive then I hope we get a POV moment from him where he reflects on how he got to the cruel point he is now.
However, it is with this Floch flashback that I have to take issue because Eren describes the people he intends to kill as “animals.”
This not only makes him pretty unsympathetic but also makes no sense because he confirms he knows there are innocent people to Historia in the very next scene.
And speaking of that scene, there is another problem with the dialogue because Eren says that the Military Police plan to feed Zeke to Historia now that he is on Paradis.
Yet, going by the timeline, this conversation takes place months before Zeke arrived on the island.
All of that said though, I cannot fault the chapter for these dialogue problems because they are not Hajime Isayama’s problem but the translators’.
Not only do they make a mistake with translating in relation to the timeline but also with the “animals” line because, looking into it, I found that it wasn’t quite an accurate translation and that they most likely went overboard with it.
I hope they can do a better job with the translations next chapter.
Overall though, “Dawn for Humanity” was a phenomenal Attack on Titan chapter.
It delivered some great character development for Annie, finally brought back Historia, and gifted us with one of the most gloriously horrifying moments of the entire manga.