Attack On Titan Episode 78: Every Easter Egg & Reference Explained

Warning: Contains spoilers for Attack on Titan.

Attack on Titan episode 78 is now streaming, and it contains several easter eggs and references to both future events and the franchise, as a whole. Attack on Titan usually isn’t the kind of story to be self-referential, especially when it comes to material outside of the main story. As such, the latest episode doing just that is quite surprising, especially with the specific material being referenced.

In Attack on Titan episode 78, Eren is shot by Gabi moments before he can make contact with Zeke and unleash the full power of the Founding Titan. Before he can completely die, however, Zeke manages to catch Eren’s head, resulting in both of their consciousnesses being sent to the Paths dimension. Before Eren fully awakens in the Paths dimension, however, the audience is shown flashes of a variety of scenes, all of them relating to Eren in some way.

The scenes in question contain several easter eggs and references to Attack on Titan. Most are either references to past events or bits of foreshadowing, but a few are references to material from the wider franchise outside of the main story. It’s unclear why those sorts of references are being made, but even if it doesn’t end up amounting to anything big, it’s still nice to see them.

Eren’s Past

Many of the images shown are images of people like Armin, Mikasa, Levi, and Reiner that could only be from Eren’s point of view. Additionally, the audience is shown an image of Historia that hadn’t appeared before then and an image of a young boy. The image of Historia is from when Historia is asking Eren about his thoughts on her having a child, and the boy is Ramzi, an immigrant whom Eren vented his regrets about the Rumbling to when he first came to Marley. Both scenes get fully explored in flashbacks that will happen later in the season.

Grisha’s Past

In addition to Eren’s past, scenes of Grisha Yeager’s past are also shown, since Grisha also possessed the Attack Titan. An image of his dead sister Faye is briefly shown, as are his key and the Reiss family at the time of him going to them to ask for their help against the Titans. Not much of Grisha’s past was shown compared to Eren’s, but the conflict between Grisha and the Reiss family is likely to be further explored in the coming weeks, which is probably why it was referenced here.

Attack On School Castes

One notable easter egg in the episode is a reference to Attack on School Castes, a high school parody of the series featured in every volume from volume 21 onward. The corresponding chapter 120 also had a reference to that, but the anime makes it much more apparent that alternate versions of Mikasa and Armin are being shown. A popular theory about Attack on Titan posits that alternate universes and timelines are in effect to varying degrees, and the high school parody being shown could give credence to that idea.

Mikasa’s Original Black Scarf

Both Attack on Titan season 4, episode 19 and chapter 120 start with an image of a young Mikasa, and while it’s not completely clear, it looks like Mikasa’s scarf is black in the image. Black is the color the scarf was originally given in the manga before the anime made it red, so it’s quite peculiar that that would be referenced here. As previously stated, there are many theories about Attack on Titan involving alternate timelines, so Mikasa Ackerman’s scarf being black could be part of that.

The Male Characters At A Sauna

Probably the oddest easter egg shown is a flash of Reiner at a sauna, referencing a magazine cover that featured all of the male characters at a bathhouse. Many of Attack on Titan’s magazine covers are jokey images that don’t relate to anything, with this one being no different. At best, the cover references Hajime Isayama saying that he’d like to open a sauna one day, and it’s probably the easter egg that has the fewest implications for the show going forward, its inclusion little more than a clever reference.

Attack on Titan releases new episodes Sundays on Hulu.