A Sudden Visitor: The Torturous Curse of Adolescence

During a mock defense drill that brings the 104th Cadet Corps to Trost, Jean's arrogance boils over. He drags his practice team, Armin and Annie, past their assigned post to impress the watching Commander Pyxis, only for Mikasa, Conny, Sasha, and Reiner to snatch every Titan target he finds. The bickering afterward nearly turns into a brawl, and Pyxis, amused by the spectacle, decrees that Jean and Sasha will settle it with a cooking contest he will judge himself.

Both teams chase the same prize, a giant boar said to roam the local forest. Sasha's hunting instincts win out; her arrow drops the beast while Jean's group wanders in circles. Desperate, Jean schemes to raid the officers' meat storeroom, a plan that costs him both helpers when Armin panics, tumbles down a staircase, and hurts his legs, and Annie decides the risk is pointless. Before Jean can steal anything, a superior hands him a delivery: a homemade omelet from his mother, who had come to Trost looking for him and been publicly shooed away by her embarrassed son. The gift reminds Jean of everything she has done for him, and he pours that feeling into his cooking.

At the contest, Sasha's pork steak sends the intoxicated Pyxis into a rapturous hallucination of meat-fueled Titan combat. Jean counters with the humble omelet, and after long deliberation Pyxis names him the winner, reminding a devastated Sasha that meat alone is just meat. The rivals reconcile, and Jean resolves at last to visit his mother, who has left an apple and a letter waiting on his bed.

The episode opens in the year 849 with Jean, then still at home, yelling his mother out of his room and vowing to join the Military Police for a comfortable life in the interior. Two years later the cadets arrive in Trost for their drill, where his showboating and the stolen targets ignite the feud with Sasha and Conny.

Pyxis announces the cook-off; Sasha's team tracks and kills the Colossal Boar after she browbeats a frightened Reiner into staying; Armin injures both legs fleeing Jean's storeroom heist; and the omelet delivery triggers Jean's change of heart. Pyxis judges both dishes, declares Jean the victor, and Jean and Sasha make peace as he decides to go see his mother.

Wit Studio and Production I.G produced the OVA, directed by Hiroyuki Tanaka from a script by Hiroshi Seko. Japan received it on April 9, 2014 bundled with the special edition of manga Volume 13; the English side got a subtitled DVD in December 2016 and a dub in May 2022, under the alternate title The Sudden Visitor: The Torturous Curse of Youth.

Five of Hajime Isayama's joke volume previews are animated here, including the fake Titan forms Pyxis imagines for Mikasa, Jean, Armin, Christa, and Conny. It is also the lone Attack on Titan episode without a Current Publicly Available Information segment.