The Other Side of the Ocean

The year is 854. Marley's conflict against the Mid-East Allied Forces has dragged into its fourth year, freezing the operation to take back the Founder held on Paradis Island, and its armies of Eldian soldiers under Marleyan officers now aim to seize Fort Slava, the key to destroying the enemy fleet in port. A wounded Warrior candidate named Falco is dragged off the field by his brother Colt and patched up in a trench, where fellow candidate Gabi reminds him what the battle really is: an audition. The standout among them earns the Armored Titan currently carried by Reiner Braun. Udo and Zofia assume Gabi's scores make her the favorite, but she insists conviction will decide it. She means to wipe out the island devils and prove that Marley's Eldians are the good ones, worthy of freedom from the internment zone.

Commander Magath rejects Colt's proposal to unleash Galliard's Jaw Titan and Pieck's Cart Titan once the enemy rolls out its new weapon: anti-Titan artillery mounted on an armored train, a 100mm cannon capable of killing even one of the Nine Titans with a single shot. Having already lost the Colossus and Female Titans, Magath refuses to gamble two more. Gabi then pitches her own solution, arguing it will spare hundreds of soldiers, and strips off her uniform to approach the fort in civilian clothes with a bomb strapped to her ankle. Colt objects that plainclothes combatants violate international law; Magath replies that laws go unreported when no enemy survives to testify.

The sentries spot the unarmed girl and hesitate, and Gabi sells the act by collapsing in the open. She waits until the armored train draws near, then hurls her bomb onto the tracks and derails the artillery in a single stroke. Machine-gun fire chases her as she sprints back, and Falco bolts from the trench to shield her, but Galliard's Jaw Titan lands between the children and the bullets before charging on to demolish the enemy bunker line and the fort's defenses.

The story jumps to the year 854 and relocates to Marley's war against the Mid-East Allied Forces, four years on from the fighting at Shiganshina.

Warrior candidates Falco, Gabi, Udo, and Zofia are introduced, competing to inherit the Armored Titan.

The anti-Titan artillery debuts, a weapon capable of one-shotting any of the Nine Titans.

Gabi destroys the armored train with a concealed bomb while posing as a civilian.

Porco Galliard's Jaw Titan shields the candidates and razes Fort Slava's outer defenses.

The Other Side of the Ocean opens volume 23 as the 91st chapter overall, by Hajime Isayama, published in Japan on March 9, 2017, one day after the English simulpub. It launches the Marley arc, following To the Other Side of the Wall and preceding Marley's Soldiers; the anime adapts it as The Other Side of the Sea. A colored version later appeared in the Japanese Full Color Edition and the American Best of Attack on Titan: In Color collections.

Isayama has said the battle scenes here were the most fun he ever had drawing the series, and this is the first chapter without a single line of dialogue from previously established characters. He unveiled Gabi's name and design on his blog days before publication, from a sketch drawn while watching UFC. The chapter also contains inconsistencies in how the Eldian armband badges are drawn, including panels where Magath wears one.