Thread by @vincent5126

Attack on Titan: Lost Girls
Three stories written by AoT scriptwriter Hiroshi Seko released on December 9, 2014 with a manga adaptation that ran from August 9, 2015 to May 9, 2016 drawn by Ryōsuke Fuji and OVAs released on 2017-2018 before and during Season 3
Volume 1
#AoTVincent

Ending: Call your name <Gv>
A female cover of the song sung by Gemie and composed by Hiroyuki Sawano
This mostly has shots of Season 1 events from Annie’s perspective, including her entry into the Walls with the Warriors (great shot btw)
#AoTVincent

Episode 16.5A: Wall Sina, Goodbye: Part One
7/10
Great adaptation
Volume 1 is centered around Annie Leonhart, a cool protagonist whose self-control is mixed with exposed vulnerability by this case
Hiroshi Seko sets mystery elements really well here
#AoTVincent

OVA 6 adapts:
Chapter 1: Carly Stratmann
Chapter 2: Wayne Eisner
Just like No Regrets, only a few chapters are adapted for the first one, getting over 80 pages
And while the adaptation is pretty good, it is not as personal as the manga's constant monologuing
#AoTVincent

One thing that impresses me is how Hiroshi Seko exposes more of who Annie is through her dialogue and dynamics while “playing soldier”
This line is key to her and the Warriors and the commentary they hold for the existential themes of the story
#AoTVincent

The “game” became personal as she sees the bond between Carly Stratmann and her father Elliot as familiar
That is because the mission or the task given by the Other so the Self gains purpose, is an experience owned by the Self, no longer separate from themselves
#AoTVincent

However, it is from this experience that anxiety arises. Annie sees the repetition of martial arts as meaningless as it only brings more death and thus leads nowhere, hence her apathy to life and her acceptance of the inevitability of human helplessness
#AoTVincent

So Hitch giving Annie the "choice" is a part of the Walled morality she lived with, the escapism and inability to experience reality and thus she stayed inside the Walls and never moved forward
But Annie does once she owns this experience and not be a bystander
#AoTVincent

Besides the personal struggle of identity, this is a demonstration of AoT's mystery building
The daughter of a rich man is missing and she seems involved in drug dealing
Seko sets up a neat mystery with every element present early on as well as the contradictions
#AoTVincent

Elliot mentions greedy private contractors, implying he had a much shadier deal
We did not even need to suspect these but realize that when we meet them later, every element of the story was important
Even the cigarettes used were highlighted timed to a man's arrival
#AoTVincent

Info card
Stohess was a city for the wealthy but like many big cities IRL, they are poverty-laden peripheries, the setting for Annie’s investigation into the criminal underworld exploited by AoT’s capitalists
Lost Girls and No Regrets are connected by Sina’s shadow
#AoTVincent

The anime does add some changes, such as Marlowe being the one to help Annie instead of a random MP clerk, which makes sense and shows how they regularly interact, minimally
And shortening the exchange with the carriage driver
Not much else to say
#AoTVincent

Episode 16.5B: Wall Sina, Goodbye: Part Two
8/10
Definitive version
We end here as the mystery unfurls, including Annie’s partial transformation meant to scare the swindlers, a reflection on relationships and Annie’s reaffirmation of the certainty of her mission
#AoTVincent

OVA 7 adapts:
Chapter 3: Wald and Lou
Chapter 4: Coderoin
Chapter 5: Annie Leonhart
Carly is just like Annie
Once the full truth of Elliot’s drug business and how the dinners were for business discussions, it was clear that Carly was as empty as Annie herself
#AoTVincent

It ties to the idea that love is a principle of knowledge. The two do not know each other because they do not bother to connect
They have a transactional relationship, with Elliot needing Carly for her chemistry and Carly using the drug trade to fund herself
#AoTVincent

Yet this “mission” was an experience that made her see her emptiness, that this was not living for her
However, at the same time, this need to help her father was the only sense of life she knew after their family went bankrupt, a dependence all must detach someday
#AoTVincent

(Spoilers)
Akin to King Fritz telling Ymir that she was born into this world to serve, so was Annie. Every person has a mission, any mission given by the Other. Even playing soldier can be that. Something to fill the void, a task to give someone meaning
#AoTVincent

Deep down, Mr. Leonhart realized by shaping his daughter into a Helos, he would lose her, sacrificing her for the They/society and thus lose the one love he had gained in his lonely life
While Elliot was greedy, he may have seen Wayne as a threat to his daughter too
#AoTVincent

Funny bit of foreshadowing via an info card
Also another indicator that as technologically behind as the AoT world was, they can produce these plants to purify water
#AoTVincent

This page encapsulates the idea
Seko uses the mystery of Carly and Elliot to show how we don't fully know others' relations and why some even choose such
Almost foreshadowing the experience we would have with Ymir Fritz
Yet at least Carly chose to break off that chain
#AoTVincent

As for Wald, he felt cursed, being unable to complete an action because something was in the way, foreshadowing Annie’s own fate, as she is unable to go home due to other forces
Wald even dies unable to finish his cigarette
Presentation was excellent here
#AoTVincent

Unlike OVA 5, this is paced better but like the former, it changes the ending
In the manga, we see a full reminiscing of how her dynamic with her dad changed and ends with her uncertainty of what is right or true, just like when Reiner broke the Walls in his flashback
#AoTvincent