AOT OVA Ilse's Notebook (Full version)

A few weeks late but I made an account for the chance to clear things up. 1.) The person in the back of Levi's squad who seemingly died did not die, that was Oruo. Because of the slew of characters, the show tends to give the characters a quirk to remember them by. Whether it is Sasha being the potato girl, Miche having a good sense of smell, or in this case Oluo was the guy who always accidentally bit his tongue. So in that scene no one actually died, it was just continuing the silly bit of Oluo biting his tongue on accident. 2.) Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but most if not all titans we see in the first 3 seasons we have seen in the background / understand where they came from. Dina Fritz and the Eldian restorationists are all seen in titan form like the Santa looking titan who initially ate eren in S1E5. The titan in this episode is the same person from a flashback of Historia's Ymir in her origin episode. Ymir was some kid who people labelled as Ymir and as someone to worship. Ilse's Notebook titan was one of the worshippers that we saw. Ilse bears resemblance to our friend Ymir. My own understanding is that titans eat for the primal desire that they eat a titan shifter (also alluding to Founder Ymir's daughters eating Ymir), therefore being able to return to being a human. Depending on the individuals willpower / resolve, it can determine if they are an abnormal titan and if they exhibit certain behaviors. Whether it is Ilse's titan worshipping who it thinks is Ymir or Dina promising to find Grisha only to find Eren and Carla (although that gets slightly more complicated with finale episode and Eren making it ignore Bertholdt). Sorry I am not writing this coherently I am just riffing off of memory. 3.) But also little tidbit, but this episode being episode 3.25 or whatever it was the first time hearing about "Subjects of Ymir." I can't remember the context but in Season 2 we had to go find Krista/Christa Lenz and she was described as always hanging out with Ymir. This was the first time Hange and Levi heard the name Ymir since this episode so you see a specific shot of them shocked and looking at each other. I am just obsessed with the storytelling and foreshadowing in this show so. TL;DR - 1.) Oruo was the one in the back of the squad and bit his tongue / no one died. 2.) The titan mistook Ilse for our friend Ymir as the titan was a worshipper of Ymir back in the day. 3.) Hange/Levi hear the name Ymir first in this episode, and next in season 2 when trying to find Krista/Christa (Historia)

The titans eat people because of the slight chance someone they eat could be a titan shifter that makes them turn back into a human

Hello! New on the patron, how can I watch the AOT reactions from the start? Can't seem to find anything earlier than S4E4.

I'm like you, I do not watch dub over sub for the very reason you described. I feel like it takes me out of the "world" of anime, if that makes sense since it's a Japanese medium. That's not to say some dubs are decent or well done, and I know some people actually need to watch dub for accommodating purposes. I just personally do not prefer to watch my anime characters speaking English versus speaking Japanese, the same way I would not want to watch them speaking any other language even if I also speak it.

So in answer to one of your questions: Does she look like Ymir? Not the original Ymir, but she does look similar to jaw titan Ymir. This came out before season 2, so her secret wasn’t out at this point, and if you do rewatch it all and you get to her backstory episode where they take her off the street and make her a false deity, that titan was one of her worshippers before the church was raided and they all got turned, which is why he was bowing to Ilse.

you do have all the information but instead of in a recipe format its more like a detective web board. Subjects of ymir or eldians are ppl who are descendants of Ymir's bloodline and thus have the capability of turning into a titan when they ingest spinal fluid. Eldians caught 'misbehaving' in Marley are injected with titan spinal fluid and kicked off the wall by the harbour. an act of 'misbehaving' includes being an 'eldian restorationist' aka someone who is patriotic? about their eldian identity . as we saw in modern Ymirs backstory she was an orphan taken in to pretend to be the reincarnation of original ymir and she had some followers. When they were caught they were tossed off the wall and turned. Simple titans eat people as an instinct to ingest spinal fluid to hopefully consume one of the nine/intelligent titans(colossal, jaw, attack etc) to regain their humanity. This case as well as connies mother show us that they can maintain the tiniest sliver of their humanity. This titan saw ilse and mistook her for modern Ymir who he likely worshipped back in Marley. We see it struggle between its humanity/worship of Ymir and its titan instincts to devour humans, When she runs and her resemblance to Ymir is out of sight and the instincts win and it eats her but once it got it out of its system it was able to honour her body.

we never get a definitive answer on why titans act the way they do but it's implied + a popular theory given what info we have that they subconsciously eat humans in hopes of turning back to human. pure titans have no higher brain function, they operate entirely on a primal drive. since the only way their biology can ever revert to human is by taking a shifters spine, their instinct forces them to compulsively devour humans, "gambling" that the next bite will contain the shifter fluid that sets them free it also has something to do with the cannibalisation of founder ymir by her daughters, aka king fritz's will was for his children to go on and eat founder ymir to become titan shifters, and then have their children eat them, and for her bloodline+ability to go on, and ymir was so devoted to him after death that she carried out his will in the creation of the titans which manifested in the titans behaviours but one can only speculate

the animation is the same as S1-S3 (wit studio) you probably got used to the animation from S4 (mappa) so that's why it looks off now -- totally normal reaction!

No worries! Just know that 4 x uploads a week is actually a lot in the world of reactors, lol. Take your time!