C&C - Attack on Titan, The Final Chapters Part 1 [9/9/23] and Part 2 [1/6/24]

[Kitschensyngk]

 

[Yojimbo]

What an emotional, sad ending. Followed by a bleak, horrifying epilogue that only Isayama could think of. But I was still happy Mikasa was able to move on and had a big family. Props to Levi for still pwning Zeke.

Despite the stern, world ending stakes, metaphysics, death -- a debate about if that Titan that kidnapped Arnim is a pig or an okapi. LMAO. Or Eren admitting he hopes Mikasa would be hung up on him after his death for awhile. ROFL.

That epilogue. Wut. Society, at least Eldia eventually got blown up back to the Stone Age and the boy that looks Eren-ish finds the tree Eren's head was buried that now looks like the same tree Ymir found the Source of All worm in. Ooo boy. I don't think we need a AOT sequel. Do we? Eh... What is Isayama's message - the world sucks?

 

[shany94a]

Quite an ending. Violent, metaphysical, even moving—yet I'm glad it's finally over. Probably the grimmest anime I've ever viewed. Goodbye, AoT.

 

[Trueblade74]

A first half that's a great action finale that I wish other shonen could manage to pull off so elegantly...and a second half that's just the most hilarious total collapse of themes, morality and motivation I've ever seen. It's amazing for both right and wrong reasons.

I was laughing so hard at Eren's BS that I forgot to even notice Bryce's performance. I really should watch this again tomorrow.

 

[Grenzer]

It is hard to figure out what went wrong with Attack on Titan. Part of me feels that Isayama became very stressed and jaded during the writing of the series and had some sort of burnout. The story was always grim and violent from the start but there was an underlying current of optimism that Eren and his friends were going to break through the overwhelming odds and try to create a better world. The idea that courage, honor, and friendship still mattered even in the face of terrifying monstrosities, government conspiracies, and the terror of being eaten alive. Where this started to sour is up for debate. I would argue it was in the aftermath of Historia/Krista rejecting her father's desire to have her inherit the Founder's Will and choosing to save Eren. That was easily the high mark of the optimistic outlook in the series. Even the period right after that that leads up to Historia's coronation is still tinged with hope, with Eren resolving to find a way to prevent Historia from being made a tool of the new leadership and saving his friends.

It is the 'Return to Shiganshina' arc where things start to take a swing back to favoring pessimism due to the immense losses among the Survey Corps, but if there is one moment that foreshadowed that this story was not going to have a happy ending it was when Eren, Mikasa, and Armin reach the ocean after clearing Paradis of titans. It is when Eren starts crying after realizing that instead of finding a world of freedom like he always imagined, that there were only more enemies awaiting his people. When he wonders if killing all of those enemies would allow for the Eldians to be free, it sets up the concept of the Rumbling.

Regardless, it is not as if the story had to go in that direction. Isayama could have taken the story down a lighter path that would have shown, no the Eldians did not have to kill the rest of the world to live in freedom and peace. However, he set up the rest of humanity and above all the Marleyans as hyper-racist and genocidal warmongers who are hellbent on killing the Eldians of Paradis and will not compromise on their position even in the face of losing millions or billions of their own people's lives in the process. This is played completely cynically since the other nations want to claim military supremacy and then fight one other for control of the world. Even token moderates like Magrath and Onyankopon (and Armin if we want to be honest) have no effect on this narrative because they are totally ineffectual and their ideas never seem to be able to convince other characters to act better. You also have the absurdity of the Tyber family, who are Eldians who turn out to be the true rulers of Marley... and they want all Eldians dead too. Willy Tyber even sets up his own death so that the rest of humanity can be goaded to implement the Final Solution toward Paradis and other Eldians in the ghettos, his only mistake being that Eren was on to it and used the plot to further his own ambition of killing humanity first.

And that is not getting into the issues with time travel, alternate realities, and the revelation that Titans were born out of a girl being fused with a prehistoric life-form that somehow gave her reality bending powers... only to end up in thrall to the barbarian chieftain who murdered her family and cut out her tongue and helped him conquer much of the known world and her soul continued to love him from her pocket dimension for 2000 years despite being fully aware he only saw her as an object. What impresses me so much about how Attack on Titan fell apart is not how bleak it got, but how convoluted the plot had to become to allow that bleak outcome. Isayama introduced a whole slue of Sci-Fi tropes that had no real place in the story to turn it into something almost unrecognizable from its original concept of low-tech humans fighting man-eating giants; and I got the strange feeling when he had Eren says, "I don't know why I did it.", it was an admission from the author how he had lost control of the story.

I personally do not regret being in on this ride for the past decade, but I would not revisit it again except to explore some of the crazier themes introduced towards the end. Attack on Titan is just too inconsistent to be called a great show, but at least it had a lot of great moments and will be seen as a very influential franchise in the years to come.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Hohhhh-kayyy. Won't be forgetting this one anytime soon. I just hope there isn't a sequel.

Well, with apologies to Brad Roberts...

Once there was this kid who
Joined the army at 16 and went to battle Titans
And when he finally came back
He had a deep desire to kill things
He said that it was from when his mom got bitten so hard…

Nom nom nom nom, nom nom nom nom

Once there was this girl who
Got kidnapped by bandits after both her folks were murdered
And when he finally saved her
She had herself put up for adoption
She couldn’t quite explain it
She loved him like a brother…

Nom nom nom nom, nom nom nom nom

If you think they’ve had it bad
Well, just watch, it gets more sad

‘Cause there were these guys who
Sent some Titans ‘round to stomp on other people’s countries
And when they finally quit that
They said, “we’ll all go live on an island
Our walls have Titan siding
So don’t you even go there…”

Nom nom nom nom, nom nom nom nom

 

[Lawren22]

It is hard to figure out what went wrong with Attack on Titan. Part of me feels that Isayama became very stressed and jaded during the writing of the series and had some sort of burnout. The story was always grim and violent from the start but there was an underlying current of optimism that Eren and his friends were going to break through the overwhelming odds and try to create a better world. The idea that courage, honor, and friendship still mattered even in the face of terrifying monstrosities, government conspiracies, and the terror of being eaten alive. Where this started to sour is up for debate. I would argue it was in the aftermath of Historia/Krista rejecting her father's desire to have her inherit the Founder's Will and save Eren. That was easily the high mark of the optimistic outlook in the series. Even the period right after that that leads up to Historia's coronation is still tinged with hope, with Eren resolving to find a way to prevent Historia from being made a tool and saving his friends.

It is the 'Return to Shiganshina' arc where things start to take a swing back to favoring pessimism due to the immense losses among the Survey Corps, but if there is one moment that foreshadowed that this story was not going to have a happy ending it was when Eren, Mikasa, and Armin reach the ocean after clearing Paradis of titans. It is when Eren starts crying after realizing that instead of finding a world of freedom like he always imagined, that there were only more enemies awaiting his people. When he wonders if killing all of those enemies would allow for the Eldians to be free, it sets up the concept of the Rumbling.

Regardless, it is not as if the story had to go in that direction. Isayama could have taken the story in a lighter direction that would have shown, no the Eldians did not have to kill the rest of the world to live in freedom and peace. However, he set up the rest of humanity and above all the Marleyans as hyper-racist and genocidal warmongers who are hellbent on killing the Eldians of Paradis and will not compromise on their position, and then fight each other to control the world. Even token moderates like Magrath and Onyankopon (and Armin if we want to be honest) have no effect on this narrative because because they are totally ineffectual and their ideas never seem to be able to convince other characters to act better. You also have the absurdity of the Tyber family, who are Eldians who turn out to be the true rulers of Marley... and they want all Eldians dead too. Willy Tyber even sets up his own death so that the rest of humanity can be goaded to implement the Final Solution toward Paradis and other Eldians in the ghettos, his only mistake being that Eren was on to it and used the plot to further his own ambition of killing humanity first.

And that is not getting into the issues with time travel, alternate realities, and the revelation that Titans were born out of a girl being fused with a prehistoric life-form that somehow gave her reality bending powers... and she ends up in thrall to the barbarian chieftain who murdered her family and cut out her tongue and helped him conquer much of the known world and her soul continued to love him from her pocket dimension for 2000 years despite her being fully aware he only saw her as an object. What impresses me so much about how Attack on Titan fell apart is not how bleak it got, but how convoluted the plot had to become to allow that bleak outcome. Isayama introduced a whole slue of Sci-fi tropes that had no real place in the story to turn it into something almost unrecognizable from its original concept of low-tech humans fight man-eating giants; and I got the strange feeling when he had Eren say, "I don't know why I did it" it was an admission from the author how he had lost control of the story.

I personally do not regret being in on this ride for the past decade, but I would not revisit it again except to explore some of the crazier themes introduced towards the end. Attack on Titan is just too inconsistent to be called a great show, but at least it had a lot of great moments and will be seen as a very influential franchise in the years to come.

Well acroding to Isayama he did changed the ending to an extant but he's been said that first in 2017( when the post-time skip started in the manga acually) and he claimed that the changed happened back in 2014 after the anime came out and blew up. He said he was insprised to change it to a more happy ending for the genral fanbase. So the ending we got is the " happier one" to him make of that what you will. In later interviews he says he never really changed the ending but just the tone and how it was protrayed( some people don't belive him ).


Now what Eren he acuallly did allude to this turn with him in that 2017 interview as well and in recent interview with the new york times after the anime he ended he talked about him more. He said in 2017 that the ending of Aot was influnced by a manga he read called Himeanole. The manga is about serial killer who was just born with a need a murder. He had the tragic backstory and enviorment for it but none of that really mattered because in the end he was just born this way. The serial killer dosent even like this and wants to be stopped but he can't stop on his own.Isayama had said he wanted the ending to of Aot to be like this and asked the reader if a person like this is truly at fault when its just their born nature. Eren is ment to have just been born with this desire for freedom at all cost and to Eren. Eren dreamed of the outside world being a fresh empty clean state with nobody and nothing(this is what real freedom is to him)but he found the real outside world to be too like world he already knew inside the walls full of people,conflict and opression. He was disppointed and wanted to turn it to his ideal "free" world with the rumbling( he talked about this in the recent NYT interview). The" I don't know why but I wanted that" refers to him not understaning why he even wanted this "freedom" so much because he's ment to just be born with the desire and urge.

This isn't really me trying to make anybody like or dislike the ending more but to explain what I've gathered Isayama's intent here was after looking into it after being a bit confused by the manga ending in 2021. The idea Isayama had is maybe one that sounded better in his head but it just dosen't fit the series or he just didn't excute it well enough with Eren and how he was written beforehand. The ending also did have other problems as well. The anime version of the ending did make some changes thoughy by Isayama request mainly to Eren and Armin's last conversion which is even more confusing and badly paced in the manga.

 

[Space Cadet]

I didn't watch it last night(I don't get CN/AS anymore) but I watched it when it premiered on Crunchyroll over a month ago and here were my brief thoughts:

1. Even at the end, Levi is still The Man. Zeke is forever owned by him.

2. I felt bad for Ymir, still loving that trash man even after all he did to her. Please give her a Mary J. Blige album to listen to.

3. Action was fantastic as usual. Kept me of the edge of my seat(or bed in this case).

4. Even more than Ymir, I really felt bad for Mikasa. She really got a bittersweet ending. I shed some tears at her final outcome.

5. The ending....I liked it and it made sense. Makes me wonder if the cycle was going to start again.


Overall, I liked the series. I had a good time, but it definitely has its flaws in the story. Still, I would recommend the show to others if they're into this kind of story.

 

[PicardMan]

Thus ends Attack on Titan, the anime that kick started Toonami's Renaissance and really revived the the Western anime fandom in general after the late 00s-early 10s dark ages. I would say that the ending prevents it from dethroning Fullmetal Alchemist as the best action-based shonen series of all time. The bulk of the ending being crying over Eren when he transformed into someone so despicable made this ending not sit well with me. The action and spectacle were there. Okay, Attack on Titan was the big dog once upon a time, but now it's been surpassed in popularity by Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia. At least those shows have nicer, easier to like main protagonists. Say what you want about Zenitsu, but he isn't a psychopath like Eren. Thus has the sun set on Attack on Titan's Toonami run, with mixed results.

 

[Grenzer]

Well acroding to Isayama he did changed the ending to an extant but he's been said that first in 2017( when the post-time skip started in the manga acually) and he claimed that the changed happened back in 2014 after the anime came out and blew up. He said he was insprised to change it to a more happy ending for the genral fanbase. So the ending we got is the " happier one" to him make of that what you will. In later interviews he says he never really changed the ending but just the tone and how it was protrayed( some people don't belive him ).


Now what Eren he acuallly did allude to this turn with him in that 2017 interview as well and in recent interview with the new york times after the anime he ended he talked about him more. He said in 2017 that the ending of Aot was influnced by a manga he read called Himeanole. The manga is about serial killer who was just born with a need a murder. He had the tragic backstory and enviorment for it but none of that really mattered because in the end he was just born this way. The serial killer dosent even like this and wants to be stopped but he can't stop on his own.Isayama had said he wanted the ending to of Aot to be like this and asked the reader if a person like this is truly at fault when its just their born nature. Eren is ment to have just been born with this desire for freedom at all cost and to Eren. Eren dreamed of the outside world being a fresh empty clean state with nobody and nothing(this is what real freedom is to him)but he found the real outside world to be too like world he already knew inside the walls full of people,conflict and opression. He was disppointed and wanted to turn it to his ideal "free" world with the rumbling( he talked about this in the recent NYT interview). The" I don't know why but I wanted that" refers to him not understaning why he even wanted this "freedom" so much because he's ment to just be born with the desire and urge.

This isn't really me trying to make anybody like or dislike the ending more but to explain what I've gathered Isayama's intent here was after looking into it after being a bit confused by the manga ending in 2021. The idea Isayama had is maybe one that sounded better in his head but it just dosen't fit the series or he just didn't excute it well enough with Eren and how he was written beforehand. The ending also did have other problems as well. The anime version of the ending did make some changes thoughy by Isayama request mainly to Eren and Armin's last conversion which is even more confusing and badly paced in the manga.

I decided to look into this manga that Isayama cited as his inspiration for Eren's character, and it seems to be a very well-regarded short run series that was turned into a live action film years after the original manga was was finished. What I got out of it was that Morita, the sociopath who is 'born to kill' is also a very marginal figure who has failed in just about every aspect of his life except being a serial killer. He is frustrated, lonely, painfully aware he is seen as a creep and wants to change but is unable due to his mental issues. And that is fine, because his story is set in contemporary Tokyo among blue collar young people who are struggling to make a living and find happiness. A villain like Morita who slowly and increasingly menaces the protagonist is very fitting within the context of the narrative being told and is why that manga was so well regarded by those who read it.

Isayama's problem is that he takes a good idea from another story and grafts it onto Attack on Titan with no thought as to how odd and off-putting it is. I never got the feeling that Eren is a mentally ill sociopath when watching the early seasons of the anime, and would argue it is impossible to see him that way even in hindsight. Eren had anger issues and was deeply traumatized by his experiences with the titans but was capable of forming strong friendships with many different people and not possessed of a detached or manipulative personality. Isayama wrote a very accurate portrait of a semi-functional sociopath in the form of Kenny Ackerman and you will not convince me that he and Eren demonstrated any strong parallels to one other. It makes me wonder what Isayama really wanted from the story or if there is something else about the creative process he has left out and cannot/will not speak about.

 

[PicardMan]

Isayama's problem is that he takes a good idea from another manga and grafts it onto Attack on Titan with no thought as to how odd and off-putting it is. I never got the feeling that Eren is a mentally ill sociopath when watching the early seasons of the anime, and would argue it is impossible to see him that way even in hindsight.

Yeah, in episode 1, nobody thought that Eren was destined to become an omnicidal psycho. I don't remember anything in seasons 1-3 foreshadowing such an occurrence. I still think the bigger problem is that Eren became so depraved that it's hard to sympathize with anybody who would sympathize with him and the scene of Mikasa being weepy for him by the grave rang pretty hollow. Here is my reaction to Eren's death:

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

This was a weird ending in a lot of ways. They had the main character’s head get cut off then kissed… and then went into a commercial break with a Craig of the Creek Movie commercial.

I see some Lelouch comparisons were made but the way Eren developed reminds me of Shinn Asuka from Gundam Seed Destiny. After his family died, he went down a path that begins with joining the military to fight the invaders. But by using violence to solve violence, they end up creating the same results they wanted to avenge. By the end of Destiny, Shinn is willing to destroy Orb to create a utopian future where everyone’s lives are perfectly planned to avoid the eternal cycle of violence and tragedy.

Another comparison that came to mind, especially watching this next to Shippuden, is the tragedies of Naruto that motivated the villains of the series. The Akatsuki, and even Sasuke, accept a darker path is necessary in order to create a new world. It is only through Naruto himself suffering discrimination and tragedy in his own life, while still treading a path of hope and optimism, that the villains of Naruto are redeemed. Without a positive moral center like Naruto, the world of Attack on Titan didn’t have a guiding light to lead them into a new and better world after Eren’s death.

Eren takes things even further by incorporating the strange twist that he somehow sent Titans back in time to eat his mother. I don’t fully understand all of that part of the story, and I don’t think the sci-fi elements worked that well here. The shift in Eden’s characterization did seem sudden and confusing. I think the above posts are correct in citing the shift in focus from Titans vs Humanity to Eldians vs Marleyans is the moment when the series began going in a new direction.

 

[wonderfly]

Our own PicardMan on the News Team recently posted his review for the Series Finale for "Attack on Titan" on the AnimeSuperhero.com website:

"Review: “Attack on Titan”: The Final Chapters (Part 2): The Divisive Ending for a Generation-Defining Hit"​

"Nobody can deny the significance and impact that Attack on Titan has had on the American anime fandom. After the disastrous Anime Crash of 2008, the cancellation of Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, and Adult Swim Action’s dramatic decline in popularity and relevance, the state of the American anime fandom looked pretty dire. Enter Attack on Titan in 2013, the biggest anime hit in America since Naruto and the title that helped kickstart the 2010’s Anime Renaissance in the United States. Yes, there were titles that preceded it that helped revive the fandom, such as 2012’s Sword Art Online, but for a major chunk of the 2010’s, Attack on Titan dominated online discussion, cosplay at conventions, and merchandise on store shelves. It was the king of the anime empire and the definitive gateway anime of the 2010s. Attack on Titan was responsible for bringing Adult Swim’s newly-revived version of the Toonami block, to ratings it had never seen before and caused a renaissance for the Toonami block as well as anime in general. The series ran a full decade, although with several long gaps between seasons, finally ending in 2023, and finally airing on Toonami in January 2024. Although several series have challenged its status as the most popular anime of the decade in the late 2010s, the ending of this series was undeniably a milestone, must see event for the anime fandom."

Read the full article here.