Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season

If your expectation for Attack on Titan is an anime you can watch on a screen and hear with speakers, then this season will do you well, but if your expectations are a well directed, well organized story brought to life with beautiful animation crafted by a passionate team of talented artists and genius creatives, then you will be sorely disappointed, because unlike previous seasons, this production is so hideously ugly, you’d think Attack on Titan wasn’t the defining masterpiece of our era, which it most certainly is. There seems to be this odd and ignorant consensus pervading the fandom which suggests any and all criticism aimed at a poor product is somehow a direct insult to the workers who made it, and this is a shockingly immature worldview to espouse. Let me get one thing straight: you can say whatever you want about WIT Studio falling victim to Kodansha’s unfair and unreasonable production scheduling in the third season just like MAPPA is now, and how that lead to a double split-cour which ultimately wasn’t even enough to assure consistent quality throughout part two, but you must also admit pointing out these things is nothing more than a diversion from the far greater travesty of animation before you now. Attack on Titan: The Not-So-Final Season is a disgrace to the franchise which came before it on every visual level, and to say so is in no way to deride the overworked animation staff at MAPPA. Am I going to sit here and deny the existence of the throngs of rabid keyboard warriors on social media sending them death threats for producing such appalling CG and embarrassing 2D animation? No, but those people are foolish children with too much time on their hands, and by echoing their indisputably warranted criticisms, I and others like me are not justifying their acts of disrespect and harassment, so I urge you not to feel sorry for saying what you see clearly in front of you and criticizing it for what it is: an ugly, cheap anime. After episode six, I officially became a manga reader, since I simply could not let this atrocity be my first experience of Attack on Titan’s brilliant story, and what I found in the manga was absolutely stellar shot composition which I had previously thought was simply a product of Tetsuro Araki’s adaptation. Obviously, Araki’s heart-stopping visual direction and irreplaceable cinematic instinct made the anime adaptation what it ultimately was, but Hajime Isayama’s knack for framing an iconic single image when it mattered most still shouldn’t be overstated when the final season here has neither directorial flow nor memorable cinematics. The new character designs which pride themselves on their close resemblance to the original artwork found in the manga simply cannot use their adherence to the source material as a defense of their janky anatomy and inferiority to the beautiful artwork of Kyoji Asano, and the new music cannot use its passable composition as a defense of its utter incompatibility with Hiroyuki Sawano’s constantly recycled tracks. I understand this is a somewhat particular distinction to be made, but with the sheer amount of blatant animation shortcuts used throughout this season—not even counting the CG—season three part two looks like a studio trying their hardest while grappling with a ridiculous time table, whereas this looks like a studio using a ridiculous time table as an excuse to not try their hardest. But nevertheless, does the masterful writing save the day and make this thing worth watching? With how much is cut out, rearranged, and left unfinished, I would say no, but that doesn’t make it bad. If anything, the narrative has only gotten better and the themes have only gone deeper. With the basement and its contents finally revealed, the series had to occupy the world it so suddenly established and situate the story as we knew it within that world elegantly, and even with the content from the manga which got butchered in translation, it absolutely achieved this feat. As it demystifies Marleyan society and rationalizes the international bigotry towards the Eldian people, it builds the foundation for one of the most interesting and morally provocative conflicts I've yet to see portrayed in fiction, and it does so with complex characters who never fail to inspire emotion, or inspiration itself. While Attack on Titan: The Not-So-Final season is, indeed, not the final season, it’s still an adaptation of a manga, so it continues the story with more or less the same degree of excellence as the first three seasons did, and while it abruptly ends on a cliffhanger mid-arc, that’s more a testament to the fragile production than the source material, its quality of writing, or the acuteness with which said writing was brought to screen. One thing’s for sure, though, narratives as enthralling as this come once in a generation, and it’s a shame this one is receiving such paltry treatment. This review was originally going to be a lot more sentimental than it turned out to be. To cope with the extreme dejection I felt after watching such a dishonorable end to this once-great adaptation of an unequivocal masterpiece, I was going to try and write this review to examine the final season as a standalone work while simultaneously offering an all-encompassing retrospective on the modern classic that is Attack on Titan, but after WIT Studio dropped it and MAPPA shit it back out in such a visually repulsive and structurally incomplete fashion, I accepted the fact I couldn’t really do that anymore, and my enthusiasm burnt out along with the quality of the show itself. I’ve lost my motivation to even mind it anymore, and if the fact this season is among the highest rated anime on MAL didn’t make this obvious enough already, you all don’t seem to mind Attack on Titan anymore either. The reality that such a magnificently made work of art could receive such a stark downgrade yet still be well received by the exact same fanbase solely because they enjoy entertaining the mere idea of it is not only a sad reflection of the culture surrounding the work, but a cruel insult to the first three seasons which were only able to be the dazzling spectacles they were thanks to the back-breaking work ethic and tremendous talent of the original staff who so naively thought their admirable labor and impressive results weren’t lost on the audience, who’s appetite all can now clearly see as being apparently, totally mindless. Thank you for reading.

Attack on Titan is a modern masterpiece. It’s not just a piece of fiction which has thrown quality season after season, it’s also one of the very few anime to have broken into the mainstream, so much so that people who do not watch anime at all have experienced and loved it. The emergence of the first season of Attack on Titan drove the series’ popularity to levels rarely seen before in the medium. The long wait before the release of season 2 was a major reason (along with certain pacing issues with the manga at the time) for the dying interest in the series at the time. By the time S2 aired, Attack on Titan wasn’t the global phenomenon anymore. One Punch Man had broken the mold in a similar vein to AoT S1 and become the new big anime amongst casuals and non anime watchers. Then came Season 3, and the series was roaring back. The interest in the series had never been higher, and fans flocked back in droves to have their questions answered. Many began viewing the first two seasons in new light once the revelations showcased the intricate planning and immense foreshadowing that had gone under their noses when they’d watched it first. For me, Attack on Titan was always great. Never has an anime made me feel so hopeless if I viewed the world from the perspective of the characters. The absolute mystery surrounding the titans for most of the first season along with stunning animation for fights, memorable OST for almost any scene and emotional dialogue delivered by passionate voice actors made for an unforgettable experience. Season 2 and 3 bring in more revelations, slowly unfolding the mysteries of the world and the titans and shifting the themes of the series. Season 4 has another tonal shift - much greater than previous ones - and it handles it with aplomb. A change in studios has often led anime series to ruin. The aforementioned OPM was one of the recent big victims of it, but other popular series like Seven Deadly Sins have also suffered due to it and never recovered. Fortunately, MAPPA have handled the transition well. They haven’t been perfect (more on that later), but all in all, they’ve done a good job producing a new season of what is probably the most popular anime of the last decade. The start of S4 might have left some people wondering where the original cast went. There’s not just a change of cast in the first few episodes, but also a switch in perspectives. We’re no longer seeing things from the side of Paradis and the Scouts. Instead, we now see it from the view of Marley’s warriors, who’re training to inherit the titans from their predecessors once their time runs out. Gabi and Falco want to inherit the armor but Reiner, i.e. the plot armored titan (Sorry, had to use this once I saw it on Reddit) can’t catch a break. Someone, grant him his wish to die. Eren’s growth as a character is one of the highlights of Attack on Titan as a series. He wasn’t always a fan favorite because of his hotheaded nature, but as time went on, his perspective of the things around him changed, most noticeably multiple times throughout season 3. Come season 4, his character undergoes a paradigm shift; calm and sympathetic, yet ruthless. As his famous quote goes, “I won’t stop moving forward until all my enemies are destroyed.” He’s a lot more distant, not just to everyone else in the show but also to the viewers. Unlike previous seasons, his thoughts are a mystery and the season clearly displays the divide between him and the other old Scouts. The handling of his growth as a person and a titan shifter is outstanding, firstly in the manga and then in the anime. Yuki Kaji, the voice actor, supported this exponential growth by exceeding expectations on character delivery. I especially love how well he’s transitioned seamlessly along with Eren as a character and nailed almost every line. There’s hardly a line Eren has spoken in season 4 that isn’t extremely significant to the story. Oh Gabi! Where do I even begin? She’s supposed to be the female parallel to pre timeskip Eren, but apart from some core traits like being stubborn, she isn’t really that similar to him. Gabi hates the Eldians from Paradis for no other reason other than that she thinks they’re devils and should suffer for the crimes of their ancestors. Eren was stubborn, headed into almost unwinnable battles without a second thought. However, his reasons to hate the titans were justified. His mother was eaten in front of him by a titan, his home destroyed and tens upon hundreds of his comrades butchered by titans in cold blood. He fought for his freedom, and humanity’s. Gabi, on the other hand, hates Eldians without having seen any of them. She kills people for glory, just for some useless praise. And without spoiling anything, I’ll also add that she’s a hypocrite with her iconic line that’s become prevalent in memes now “But did you see it happen?”. In her defence, she’s a twelve-year-old girl who’s been brainwashed so it’s hard to not give her some benefit of the doubt. But boy, is she annoying! She’s actually portrayed a lot better at the start of the Marley arc in the anime than in the manga, so I didn’t dislike her as much. She’s neither a bad character nor a great one, but she serves her purpose. Onto Falco, then. My cute, lovable boy, are you sure you had the same upbringing as Gabi? He’s her polar opposite, able to empathize with his enemies and an antithesis for every one of Gabi’s morals. He views things from a wider angle, often showing maturity way beyond his years. He might not be as naturally gifted as Gabi but he’s a whole lot more likeable. From posting letters for injured people to helping his enemies who shun him instead, this good boy has it all covered. He’s one of the beautiful things in this cruel world. Pieck is the new waifu that every fan seems to be simping over; Reiner and Zeke share the title of best character amongst the Marleyans for me. Their internal struggles and motives, some of which are only seen by viewers, make a significant contrast to their outer persona, and this holds especially true for Zeke. Jean remains the character who makes the viewers question their morals because he questions his own and that’s what I love about him. He’s another one who’s come a long way since the cadet days. Did you think I’d have forgotten Floch? He might’ve been a forgettable side character who didn’t even have a distinct design before S3 P2 (Isayama has himself admitted as much), but he’s one of the stars of season 4, running the show like the chad that he is. He’s an extremist and his actions are brutal; at times, it seems as if he’s doing it to sate his own ego and hate towards those who’ve imprisoned him and his race behind the walls. But despite all this, he’s one of the most entertaining characters post time skip. He’s unpredictable, spunky and has the audacity to pull off stunts that might’ve had your jaws slacking on the floor more times than one. And who can forget the “shh?” King Floch has unquestionably engraved his name as an Attack on Titan legend. There are so many excellent characters in Attack on Titan that the review would be too long if I talked about all of them, so I’ll stop here. The character designs in Season 4 see a distinct change, and that’s not all to do with the timeskip or the change in the studio. It’s a mixture of both. To anyone who’s read the earlier chapters of the Attack on Titan manga, it’s no secret that the art at the start was mediocre. Wit Studio did a great job of enhancing the character designs and the art in general, especially in S1. MAPPA on the other hand have stuck closer to the manga art style for characters (apart from beautifying Armin as compared to the manga, their reasons for which I’d like to know). So there’s a slight change in the art style because they’re following Isayama’s art a lot more closely. The animation of S4 has been the most talked about point, and for good reason. I’ll mince no words: some of t…

(TLDR Review at the bottom, as always, thanks for reading) 最後の進撃が始まる。 Attack On Titan. But is it an attack on titans now, or maybe a bigger enemy at hand? I'm sure AOT needs no introduction, it is that one anime that has spammed up everyone's YT recommendations with drip memes, Eren table scene memes, 10 hour fuck Gabi videos and her getting beat up,ｔｈｉｃｃｋａｓａ if you dived that deep into the culture. When the first episode of the final season came out, it was so powerful not even telling my dad for the Crunchyroll to work was possible. When I say this anime is something else in terms of internal and external events, I mean that this anime is something else. God knows when we are getting another community and anime like this ever again. I am glad I was here to experience this bit of the trek with others like myself and beyond. I could go on and on about the moments shared. But I must write a review for now. Narrative: I may sound like a hardcore fanboy, but I am going to explain why I think this is a 10/10 narrative. I would also like to believe that people reading this review are aware of the references I will make to previous seasons. Ok cool. Starting off the final season, we get a bit of insight into the enemies on the other side of the sea. From initial impressions, it can be told that this nation, which uses children in warfare, is clearly lost in morale. And that is the slow building of this new true evil enemy of humanity, Marley. How AOT goes around building this empire of Marley is an interesting one. Marley has qualities of a fascist, imperialistic, tyrannical nation that can be converged to past real-life nations in human history. Those qualities don't just exist for the sake of it too, it is part of the long prejudice against Eldians, in which Marley exploits that to grow themselves and their dominance around the world. It is that which starts a whole chain of events. A serious chain. AOT FS story is focused on the cycle of hate, the consequences it has and the action people want to take due to it. Everything that has ever happened so far in the story from start to end (as of now) the cycle of hate continues to prevail in high life, all the while both sides suffer from nothing but losses. That is where the story really shines, the story plays two events on both sides of the spectrum, one we already know and love, Eren's side, and the other we are made to hate Gabi's side, it does a good job at making us hate Gabi's side of the story too, but when you look into it, who is wrong in this mindless loop of destruction? Both sides have given birth to a nation that seeks to exploit and dominate in an imperialistic fashion, the other gives birth to a literal bakemono, a Monster, the devil himself if you really want to go there. The story does a really good job of making those find more important questions. No one here's truly wrong because, in war, both sides believe in what they are doing to be the just cause of action. Both sides are deluded by their beliefs so much so that there isn't a spec of question as to if they might be ever so slightly wrong in their actions. Everyone becomes a victim of their surroundings. It is a fantastic way to really emphasize this world of AOT. From the start, it is clear that the hate got too many characters to the point of joining the army at a young age and leaders making up false stories for the sake of maintaining status. The world is cruel, and it sure as hell shows it here. Characters are really something else in AOT. I want to first get rid of two characters that I found obviously flawed in the anime. Those two being Mikasa and Armin. In simple terms, the former is still a hardcore simp, the latter is still a hardcore weakling. How they don't change after all these years is beyond me. If Eren's drip game can go from 0 to 100, wouldn't it make sense his childhood friends caught on? But in all seriousness, I never quite understood the purpose of Mikasa and Armin. They are annoying, part of the reason I don't like them too much, but I acknowledge that annoying =/= bad character. The bad qualities of them should I say lie in what purpose they serve to the story as of the Final Season in my opinion. Mikasa has some benefit of the doubt given to her, she is starting to open up that Eren's apparent downfall is not one that wishes the best of him in his future, she even goes out of her way to question whether or not he is doing the right thing, but again, for the sake of the story, she needs to brainlessly be there for Eren even when my boy is committing various war crimes in the former Eldian empire. She was going places but easily lost herself due to a static character within her. Her "development", if you can even call it that, is a stretch in my opinion. She makes no effort to do anything she wouldn't normally do for a nice change in character, especially during these god awful times that both sides have faced. To be fair, Mikasa is supposed to be this life devoting girl to Eren because he saved her, but no development is absurd on quite a few levels, making her less of a believable character. Armin is still the same dude he was from the start, I honestly don't know why he too hasn't changed, actually, it would make sense that having the successor of human's greatest leader would feel like a burden, but all that time to train apparently meant nothing, well okay then. No development here to be pleased of. Now, for the real MVPs. Eren. The dude is one of my favourite characters in the series, and not because he does an edgelord moment, but his change from the start to the end whilst still being consistent is quite satisfying and understandable to view. When Eren said he was gonna kill his enemies, he wasn't playing games. He did everything in his power to make that try and this season shows the beginning of such a change of heart. Gabi. The annoying girl? But is she really? I remember when it was very easy to hate on Eren because of quite a similar personality, I was the same in that boat. Everything she does is justifiable despite being executed in a way to annoy the audience. Past the clouds and she isn't really any different from other characters like Eren. Hate grew on her, and she is fighting for the sake of the people she cares about, sounds a little bit like Eren does it not? Overall, I think Gabi is quite an interesting character, though, unlike Eren, she is portrayed on the wrong side of the story, giving her a different experience than Eren's life, the person she is most similar to. Her character plays out quite well if I am honest, the truth which she faces, later on, the reaction of which makes for a tragic life for Gabi honestly. Great writing overall for her. Reiner. Gigachad hella swagger Reiner drip glow up. In seriousness, Reiner is one of the best characters in the series. He understands a lot more about the world and the harsh reality he has to face due to the brainwashing and control of Marley, he is a victim of the situation. A tragic one after what he has had to face during so. I feel quite bad for the dude but it goes to show like Gabi, he was part of the corrupted system which devalued his life so much that he was lost of everything. Zeke is one I want to get a little into too, later on in the story he plays a big role in everything that goes down, but there is more than meets the eye with Zeke. you being to understand his motives a bit more and why he did the things he does, an intriguing monke, to say the least. AOT uses a lot of explicit themes in the story to give it the acclamation it has, like revenge, hate, dystopia, but one of the more implicit themes to be shared is influence. I have noticed that every character in AOT as a child has been influenced in some way. Eren with his past trauma growing into hatred, Gabi the same without the trauma, more like a duty. Reiner the same, but it is based on duty rather than anything else, Zeke would get into spoilers, but you…

I'm just going to say it: This season sucked. I'm not some AoT hater, while the series has had its bumps, I've given every previous season a positive score. I like Attack on Titan, but the hype for this extremely flawed "final" season is absolutely ridiculous. Let's start with the most pervasive problem; this show just isn't fun to watch. The dialog is awkward, the characters shout all the time when it's just not necessary at all, and they beat you over your head with their themes so hard it genuinely made it hard for me to even keep watching at times. Plus there are moments the art shows a character making a reaction face that's just...ugly. Not in a cool, horrifying way that communicates the tone of the scene, in a gross, "I don't even want to look at this" kind of way. Now, if you read my reviews of previous seasons, you'll notice all of these things existed in the series prior to this point. Those seasons made up for it with bombastic action scenes and powerful character moments. This season...doesn't. Okay, that's not completely true, Reiner got fleshed out a bit and it was pretty good, but that's literally it. The action was a major step down from previous seasons, the returning characters all get shoved to the background until the end, and the new characters...oh man do they suck. So if the things that made previous seasons great are missing, surely they replace it with something equally engaging, right? Right? No. We spend a ridiculous amount of time with two brand new characters, Gabi, who is somehow a less interesting and nuanced version of Erin McYells-A-Lot from season 1, and Falco, who's somehow a less interesting and nuanced version of Reiner. To be fair, I actually like what they're trying to do with these two, demonstrate how hate and war are a cycle that will continue from generation to generation...unless individuals each choose the hard path to not seek revenge and stop the violence. This is actually beautifully demonstrated when a father chooses not to kill the soldier who murdered his daughter in order to set a good example for his other children. It is then immediately ruined when one of his children immediately tries to exact revenge themselves, rendering his noble action meaningless. Gabi and Falco are equally confusing, you can make the case Gabi is only the way she is because of the environment she was raised in, but Falco was raised in the same environment and came out completely different, so she really doesn't have an excuse, she just sucks as a human being. Is that the point the series? Some people just suck? I guess that's a valid idea, but is it an entertaining one? No. And this is all just the surface level stuff I've been complaining about. The more you think about this season, the more it falls apart. Like how the 5 year time skip, and subsequent radical changes in personality, robs us of any connection we had to these characters, or how, at the end of the day, this whole season was almost completely pointless because they're still in the exact same situation they were in at the end of last season, except now the main character is an unlikable douchebag. So...if this season isn't fun to watch on a superficial level, and it's not engaging on a deeper level, what's good about it exactly? I genuinely can't tell.

Attack on Titan: The Final Season is an ambitious project. Here we have the culmination of years worth of meticulous planning, foreshadowing and build-up. The narrative apex of what started out as a fairly straightforward survival story, now an intricate weaving of political drama, social commentary and grandiose action setpieces, with the best yet to come. To pull off a story of such epic scale on animation is not an easy task. Adaptations of the sort often struggle with several difficulties even getting off the ground, let alone actually doing justice to the source material. AOT has been blessed in this regard by an adaptation that while not the most technically accomplished or smooth in terms of production, has remained consistently great thanks to its commitment to a strong artistic vision, incredible soundtrack and a genuine attempt at adhering to and properly conveying the events of its source material as well as it can. Not only did it do the manga justice, it often elevated scenes to another level thanks to the sheer strenght of its presentation. Shingeki fans are luckier than most. Momentum seemed to be in AOT's favor as we entered the most hyped up season of the show since its heyday back in season 1. Many fans were worried about the studio change at first, but also optimistic when it was revealed that MAPPA would be Wit’s replacement. 16 episodes later, I can confidently say that we got another strong adaptation on our hands, but not one without compromises or a fair share of vocal detractors and controversies. With a change of creative leads comes a different vision, so even if this season was produced under ideal circumstances, which it definitively was not, the difference in flair alone would’ve been enough to divide opinions. So in order to understand the full breadth of the situation, I will attempt to assess the oft-discussed schism between MAPPA and Wit, how their approaches differ, and then give my own thoughts on this season as a whole. As such, we need to first contextualize the circumstances surrounding the final season. ==THE PRODUCTION== AOT S1 was an effort of showmanship by then newcomer Wit Studio. Director Tetsuro Araki of Death Note fame, coming fresh off the heels of Highschool of the Dead and Guilty Crown, sought to form a team that would be up to the task of delivering the most bombastic and impressive action show they could make. From the gound up, it was meant to be Wit’s bold proclamation to the anime industry and fans around the world: we’re here and this is what we can do. Numerous as their production issues would end up being, and the staff nearly did almost collapse under the workload, they undeniably delivered a final product that all parties involved could be proud of. Season 4, on the other hand, is a bit of a different beast on a conceptual and philosophical level. It’s no industry secret that it had to deal with a tumultuous schedule. The team was hastily put together by getting everyone who was available at the time, which is the reason this season was particularly low on star animators and action directors when compared to previous outings. Not by the fault of director Yuuichirou Hayashi either, who’s just as capable at his job as Araki, but simply because the cimrcunstances surrounding the production wouldn’t allow for anything better. Rather than a showcase of the team’s full capabilities or a passion project, this was more about finishing off the job of another studio while trying to please the fans. I don’t mean this as a knock on the team at all, one can only imagine how daunting the pressure must’ve been, but it’s important to point out these distinctions. The fact that the final product turned out as good as it did, warts and all, is nothing short of a testament to the staff's incredible ability of making the best out of an awful situation. Nevertheless, the cracks do show and they only become more apparent the further we get into the final season. To take over the work of an accomplished team is a difficult proposition in itself, even moreso when said work is already extremely difficult to translate to an animated medium *and* has a history of hellish production cycles. To do so under turbulent circumstances, while needing to start from scratch, was bound to cause controversies. Though impressively enough, things started out pretty well for S4. There were the usual complaints about CGI and cut content here and there, but for the most part people seemed excited. That wouldn’t last when we got the first batch of episodes to “not live up” to expectations, resulting in assholes harassing the staff at social media. Sometimes even directors and animators who had nothing to do with the episodes said assholes had a gripe with in the first place. It was an embarassing situation all around. This eventually led to a state of affairs where fans of the season became perhaps too defensive at any criticism aimed at it while the more vocal detractors used it as an opportunity to lash out at the series in general. Amidst the harassment, the terrible schedule, the hyperbolic negativity masquerading as critique, insane amounts of trolling, and the fans and haters shouting at each other increasingly louder… Well, it became somewhat difficult to discuss this season's shortcomings in a level headed manner. To make matters worse, well intentioned fans pivoted to singing praises to MAPPA (#thankyoumappa trended on twitter) when they shouldn’t have. Praise the hard working staff, absolutely, they deserve it, but don’t validate MAPPA’s recklessness. Hardheaded as AOT's production committee may be, at the end of the day it was MAPPA who decided to take on such a huge project at the expense of their employees' wellbeing. When literally every other studio was sane enough to decline the absurd schedule imposed by Kodansha, even WIT Studio themselves, it was MAPPA who chose to throw their artists under the bus over prestige. It’s not the first time they’ve commited to more projects than they can reasonably handle either. Sure, they couldn’t have predicted the pandemic, but the schedule was already terrible even when not accounting for that. To defend them is to defend the anime industry's worst practices against its creators. Acknowledge their guilt if you want better for everyone involved. As a result, this season was a mixed bag in technical terms. A lot of attention has been drawn to the CGI titans which are, quite frankly, the one aspect the show handled the best. Most of them look very good and are well integrated within the anime’s visual style. They move well during action scenes and are animated in a way so as to mimick 2D movement, implementing techniques like frame skipping. Even the weaker ones like the Beast Titan are still considerably better than WIT Studio's attempts at CGI titans during seasons 2 and 3, which always looked jarring and out of place. This is one of the more frustrating aspects about the anime community: no matter how sensible their implementation or how good they look, people will still shit on 3D animation by the simple virtue that it isn’t 2D animation. What concerns me more is how bad the show can look some of the time. This season just isn’t as aesthetically beautiful as the previous ones, and it does not animate more fluidly to compensate either. There is an overreliance on bloom, chromatic aberration and other postprocessing effects, likely as a crutch to maintain a sense of visual consistency throughout the season. While that works well enough most of the time, it can just as often look like a blurry mess, specially during the latter half of the show. Flashbacks to previous seasons are smeared with effects to mask the shift in art style. Some of the compositing looks ugly. The colors either feel too muted or too overblown depending on the lighting. This is not to say the show can't look beautiful at times, and it does rely on good storyboarding to carry itself, but it never…

To me, aot ended at the last episode of season 3. After that point, it just wasn’t attack on titan anymore. Let me start by getting something straight. The plot for this season was not bad. In fact, it was actually good. However, the transition from season 3 to final season took away most of what I loved about aot. Most of the things I loved about aot was the whole tone, with people dying left and right, and humanity fighting a losing battle against titans. I also enjoyed the reveals of when a trusted ally was actually a titan all along. It’s these moments that I enjoy of aot, as well as the hype. Another problem might have been the fact that season 3 part 2 was the peak of the show. The problem when a show has their peak a lot earlier than the end of the show is that everything after that peak just seems so stale. Everything that came after s3p2 felt like it didn’t hit as hard as it, and wasn’t a proper successor. I couldn’t help but compare every episode to those pure hype and emotional and mind blowing moments from s3p2. Which is why I think that if aot would have ended there, I might have liked this anime a lot more. Now ik that a lot of things were unresolved at the end of s3p2, but if the story was written differently, the anime definitely could have ended when they saw the ocean for the first time. As I said, this season had a good plot, but just because it had a good plot doesn’t mean I found it entertaining. The amount of politics felt like a bit too much, and the whole Marley arc felt pretty dumb to me. The entire theme of the show changed, which put me off. Now, I might have liked this season if everything that came before it didn’t exist. I went into the season preset in my mind everything I like about aot, and none of that was present here. I enjoy different shows for different things. If a traumatizing anime like re zero were to turn into a comedy, I wouldn’t like it. I’m not saying I don’t like comedy, but I just don’t enjoy it in a show like re zero. Same thing here for aot. I enjoyed them fighting titans and the big reveals and that pure hype, none of which was present here. There were a few episodes that were actually good, which prevented me from rating this season lower. When I think of aot, I think of s1-3, because I know for a fact that this is not aot.

Shingeki no Kyojin,a title with many hidden meanings, is a series where a mystery box is slowly unveiled as the characters get developed and the viewer gets more interested in the story as a whole. It isn't the kind of story where one can predict what can happen next. Marley? Eldia? Rumbling? I'd consider you crazy if you told me about these during the first 5 episodes of season 3 part 2. It should also be mentioned that it is a story that can make one question their own morality as the characters come into dilemmas, as there's no black and white, just shades of gray, every character is a villain to another character, no matter who they are. This creates questions on who's right and wrong on viewer's minds, and I'm a sucker for such stories. Now, time to get to rating individually. Story: 10/10 I feel like crying from joy and get pumped with adrenaline each time i think about the story of Shingeki of Kyojin as a whole. A story that has made me cry, made my heart race, and made my mind blow with all the plot twists and original story writing methods. Not only that, but the story as a whole changed my whole perspective as a human, to the better. From the edgy shitty little piece of shit I was, admiring to be ooo very cool dark and all, it has transformed me into a being thirsting for truth, thirtsing for discussion regarding freedom,peace history and all. So, for that, from my depths of my heart, I wanna thank the author, Mr.Hajime Isayama. Art: 10/10. I really really really like the more realistic approach to the human characteristics of the characters, makes them feel more relatable and also the colours convey the feelings that the viewer should be feeling. People keep complaining about the blur tho, which in my opinion is something that adds more realism and i enjoy it alot. Sound:10/10 Flawless, part of appleseed played in the end of the episode 4. I expect more reused and news from Hiroyuki sawano, and Kohta yamamoto is really splendid with both aciton themes and chill themes. I should also praise the opening, ''Boku no Sensou'', it is a visual horror which describes war, as war cannot be described exactly with words, the singer sung ''Ba-ba-ri-as-ras-ti-ti-ti-ras-ti-ba...'', and it's up to us to get the meaning of the song, just like the story. Character:10/10 Lord praise the realism in these characters- From Marco to Marlo, the unforgettable total side characters. We felt them as real people, Marco, if he was alive for longer could have become my favourite character of all fiction instead of Armin. All of the characters interact nicely and realistically, not to mention that everyone has developed from season 1. Eren overcame his feelings of anger taking over Mikasa overcame her feelings of love taking over Armin overcame his feelings of fear taking over Jean overcame his cockiness Erwin was explored emotionally more, unlike other tryhard stoic failed commander type characters. Levi is the seemingly perfect guy but has an endless ammounts of failures and flaws that aren't seen etc etc. Enjoyment: 10/10 How can you not enjoy a series where each episode expands it's world and progressess its plot as characters get developed and gets more build up that will lead into a really great episode? Attack on titan isn't the kind of anime to waste it's time on filler episodes. It never ever had an episode which never progressed the story. I never felt bored watching it nor rewatching it and nor will i ever be, for i happen to re-watch 2-3 episodes of specific arcs oftenly just for the enjoyment. Overall: 10/10 Thank you so much, Mr.Hajime Isayama. This has inspired me to draw, write, and apply poets into poetry contests at my school, Shingeki no Kyojin holds a very special place into my heart, and I'll probably be re-watching it on a yearly basis, as i'm also looking forward to buying the manga, the games and the blu-rays. Thank you so much once again, Mr.Hajime Isayama

Alright I'll be talking about the final season, the manga and will also be acknowledging other anime like FMAB. First, let me talk about this season. The episodes were insane with the soundtrack, animation and the only drawback was the CG, which was pretty good too. So I'd give it a 9.5/10. Now let me address the manga and the hype around it. I've read every single chapter and it is honestly an incredibly well written piece of fiction with every single piece of the puzzle connecting. The characters are top tier and a few have had amazing development over the years. This season's change in perspective and showing that not everything is black or white and is just a spectrum is exceptional. A lot of anime just show the villain being a bad character and might show why they are doing so but not much. Whereas in AOT, you start to question whether the "bad" character is "bad" at all. After S3, I thought how could anyone push beyond this and boy did Isayama show me how. The story of S4 is phenomenal and it just gets better from here. S4P1 isn't even the pieck of AOT. So believe in the hype and just see how this goes, even if you don't like it now. Now, let me address other anime like FMAB. After finishing AOT(my 4th or 5th anime), it became my favorite and a lot of anime could have dethroned it from the #1 spot and I was waiting to see such an anime. I watched Code Geass and it was so good that it came close to being my favorite but I had to put it at #2 because of a few flaws. Then I saw the #1 anime on every anime list, FMAB and it being my 30th-ish anime, I had my expectations low because of all the trashy anime I had seen before it and it had a huge shot at being my favorite. After watching it, I saw why people call it a masterpiece and it was an incredible anime BUT it still wasn't good enough to beat AOT. It had a few flaws here and there, which is not that much because the overall story was phenomenal. But when I compare it to AOT, which I believe to be flawless (or at least having the least amount of flaws I have seen), it couldn't dethrone it. In my eyes, all 3 are masterpieces but AOT has proven itself to be #1 by having 3 of its episodes in the top 10 of IMDb and the only anime series in the top 10. So that was all I wanted to address in the review and again, this season is going to be amazing and I hope people can see why it deserves the top spot. Can't wait for part 2!!! (Btw this is coming from someone who once was not going to see the show, let alone make it his favorite)

I got motion sick watching one of the episodes, I think it was Ep 4, and it was like watching a slideshow it was really bad. I normally love MAPPA but I think they did not do a good job on this one, can't recommend watching it. The story went off the rails and I just got annoyed with the show by the end of it. The first 3 seasons were absolute peak fiction and this just left me feeling pretty let down I guess. I think it's too dissimilar in style and story for it to be enjoyable for someone who liked the first three seasons.

Oh boy. Possibly the most over-rated series this season by a long shot. As someone who has enjoyed the Shingeki series quite a bit I was so disappointed by this final season, and I really don't understand why it's receiving such raving reviews. #2 of all time? Really? It's going to be a sad day when this inevitably overtakes FMA Brotherhood in the #1 spot that's for sure. Where to begin... there's so many things I dislike about this season. The majority of this season follows the story of side characters we've never seen before and honestly don't care about at all. Most them are extremely one-dimensional and very dislikeable with few redeeming qualities. What little screen time the main characters get is super underwhelming and none of them are even remotely the same people from the previous seasons. This season may as well have been a totally separate cast from a different point in time. The story is a mess and really uninteresting. The exciting action between humans and titans is basically non-existent and is replaced by boring politics. Perhaps reading the manga makes the story good, but if your anime requires the viewer to go out of their way to do extra research on the side then honestly it's just bad writing. The art is pretty bad in comparison to the previous season. This is largely due to a different studio handling this final season. Shingeki already suffered terribly from character individuality and MAPPA really haven't done a good job making characters unique. Everyone has the exact same face. The sound is fine I suppose. The theme songs suck though. All in all very disappointing. Give it a watch so you can add it to your list but it's far from the masterpiece the fans are making it out to be.

Look how they massacred my boy Everything got worse in this season. I'm just really sad with happened with this anime. You can barrely notice that the music is there. It's absolutelly meh. The animation is awful. It seems that the dialogue scenes received more attention than the fights. The story got worse but it's bearable at least. The worst part is the pace of the anime, it's almost frozen, nothing happens on the epsodes. My gf sometimes couln't watch and I was able to condense everything that happened in 1 or 2 sentences. There is nothing more to say about this, so here goes MAL rules

When it comes to anime there's a group of people that seems to take pride in the fact that they will actively enjoy a story more if it's animated poorly. I respect people who can completely ignore surface level qualities as if they were reading a book, but I'm not one of them. To me, an anime can't be good without at least a passable level of animation quality. Unfortunately, despite this being my favourite arc in the entire manga, this is one of those anime that is produced so poorly that no amount of writing can save it. CGI is everywhere, and it's jarring. Characters using their ODM gear have been reduced to still PNGs zipping across the screen. Long gone are the days of Eren doing six backflips over the Trost district before transforming into a titan with a beautiful flash of lightning and a massive roar that shook your speakers. This season's production is a mess. From the art quality, to the sound design, to the general storyboarding. Mappa was clearly rushed and I can't take anyone who genuinely compares this to any of the show's prior seasons seriously. In terms of its story this is actually my favourite arc in the entire manga, but it's more or less impossible to enjoy because the animation (especially during action scenes) is that poor. So my advice would be to just read the manga instead, to save yourself from that whiplash when you transition from Wit's beautiful artwork into whatever this is.

(I apologize in advance for my poor English)This season of AOT was really overhyped by the fandom and any criticism of it just means that people say you are too dumb to understand it OR "you should be grateful for what you have got ". Animation - Hands down the worst it has been in the 4 seasons of AOT. Very choppy animation at some places (for example the forest fight), along with hideous CGI for ALL the titan shifters this time, the camera angles and the editing all feels so amateur and like it is done with no passion at all. Still frames for most of the dialogue scenes with that boring brown filter ... I thought we were done with that. If you look at the various shots and camera angles that WIT gave us, along with the audiovisuals they were absolutely stunning, but MAPPA is just a step-down. And it's not that they can't do it, just look at the CGI of dorohedoro and the animation of jujutsu kaizen. The war hammer titan fight was an absolute joke, I was laughing my ass off during the fight. They hyped us up with the trailer only to completely under deliver. I will definitely not be trusting the trailer of S4 part 2. Soundtrack- Soundtracks have always been one of the strongest areas of AOT, but this season the same soundtrack that was revealed in the S4 trailer is SPAMMED FOR EVERY SINGLE ACTION SCENE (maybe with a few small changes ). It feels really weird and lazy. Not only did MAPPA come up with no new tracks for this season but they don't even use the full arsenal available from previous seasons. K21 during the forest fight and the piano soundtrack before the war declaration were the only fitting soundtrack moments this season. Kohta Yamamoto and Hiroyuki Sawanos partnership obviously didn't work out this time. Character- In this season we are introduced to many new characters who are basically like mirror images of the ones we knew from Seasons 1 to 3.Gabi especially is supposed to be like a younger Eren hotheaded, brainwashed and ANNOYING. I understand the intention from Isayama but it all feels very heavy-handed and not subtle at all. Characters are now just info-dumping machines and have a grim face 24/7 (Eren I am talking about you ). Zeke is supposed to be the smartest character in the AOT universe but the number of times he has gotten his ass handed to him by an amathophobic Beyblade (ya I think Levi is really an average character) now is ridiculous. The author has obviously dumbed down a LOT of the characters for certain others to take the spotlight. Mikasa has to be one of the worst female characters I have ever seen. She is like a pokemon whose only cry is "Ereh". After 3 seasons I still know nothing about her character. Historia is now just sidelined and her only job left in the story is to give birth. Annie is irrelevant, still in that crystal just waiting for the final battle so she can make a comeback. Reiner is the only redeeming character in this mess, his development and perspective that we get to see from both sides are brilliant although the plot armour Isayama has given him is pretty ridiculous. All in all the bland new characters we are introduced to along with a drastic change of the ones we already knew without really seeing much of it doesn't make me very happy. Story- I never really like the barebones politics in AOT. The story just feels like a mash of Norse mythology, Nazi-Jew racism, code geass(you'll know what I mean), Gender Blue etc. The world-building is so shallow. 3/4 seasons we spend on an island that we are made to believe is the only part of the world with life and after the basement reveal everything changes so drastically that I am sure anime-only watchers must have found it jarring. TBH I don't even care about the rest of this "world". Isayama must have a good story in his mind but the way that it is told in this convoluted mess is not fun to watch at all. The flashbacks have also increased tenfold in this season. The biggest problem I have with AOT is the concept of PATHS. Every single asspull is conveniently explained away using PATHS. This gets worse and worse as the story progresses. Eren is the GOD of this world now with the attack titan, war hammer titan and founding titan and there is absolutely no sense of danger at all. The only way he can be beaten is if he does something stupid himself since he already knows how everything is going to end. I just want to ask Isayama - how many more times will we see Eren vs Reiner, with Eren beating his ass and then Reiner being saved by plot armour ?? But one thing I have to give Isayama credit for is the foreshadowing . Enjoyment / Overall - Considering all the other mediocre anime this season, I thought AOT would be a ray of hope but the obvious step down in animation and soundtrack, along with the completely different cast of bland characters, info-dumping and flashbacks galore - it felt like i was reading a boring history book and finished it just for the sake of it. This anime doesn't deserve to be #1 on MAL. Season 3 part 2 was better in almost every single aspect - animation, soundtrack, character moments, dialogue, story etc

Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 1 represents a significant low point for the series. The persistent issue of low-quality CGI, which has plagued the show since its inception, is more pronounced than ever, remaining visually unappealing and disappointing given the series' stature. The dynamic action sequences that defined the previous season have been notably stripped down, diminishing their impact. Critical plot points are often conveyed through flashbacks, disrupting the season's pacing and coherence. Following the time skip, character motivations undergo drastic changes that are inadequately explained within the season. The captivating sense of mystery and intrigue that characterized earlier seasons is conspicuously absent, replaced by a less compelling focus on political intrigue that fails to engage. Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Part 1 falls short of expectations. It presents disappointments across several fronts. While it briefly touches upon themes of sacrifice and the ethical implications of warfare, highlighting how individuals can be dehumanized and transformed into 'monsters' through the cycle of violence, the overall experience leaves one questioning the series' future direction and whether it merits continued investment.

I finally got round to catching up to this anime after the part finished, and let me say it was disappointing. the characters are mediocre at best but i cant get emotionally attached to a women who hasn't done anything since season 2 (Sasha) Gabi on the other hand is the most well written character in S4 and you can care for a 12 year old girl only doing what she was told do, also all her friends DIE in front of her and grown ass men want to beat her up think of someone else's point of view for once in there lives I was really hoping the levi would die in that explosion with that stupid fucking monkey, he only in the series to show the "TrAgIc FiGhTiNg BaCkStOrY" to the audience his fighting style is to become a Beyblade Reiner has more plot amour than goku on steroids, he should of died like 8 times he is so trash he has amour then get it punched off of him immediately it is literally cardboard man-kasa the worst tom boy of the 21st century she isn't even hot she simps over eren like 40 yr old hogs that watch this show simp over v-tubers eren is the single most annoying person in this dumpster fire of a show he is so replaceable it isn't even funny there nothing special about his goofy ass the fandom is even worse than the show. there isn't even a point to be so angry that a good studio had to animate this trash show i'm surprised they even decided to animate this god awful show, how dose it feel that you get angry at hard working people drawing day after day to then serve you beautifully presented shit on a plate overall a 3/10 the fandom, the plot, the characters and every thing else is just so bad. this is overrated as all fuck

Seasons from 1 to 3 were one of the best anime i have ever watched. I had highs hopes, that final season will be better or as good as the previous seasons. However after watch all 16 episodes i have to say that it was a big disappointment. This season can be a separate anime. There aren't any significant between season 4 and the previous one. You meet old characters but they behave completely different than they used to and we don't know why. New characters are boring. They have one feature and that's all, they doesn't change at all during the whole season. On top of that every hero behave very stupid and only stupidity push plot forward. When it comes to animation is ok but nothing more. In season 1-3 animation was masterpiece and one of the reason why Attack on titan was so popular. It provides a lot of enjoyment to watch like characters fight, everting looked like a dream. Nevertheless the biggest problem of this season is story. Plot is just far-fetched, problems that appears beacasue of stupid characters, perfect timing of every action and some magic story armor for some of the heroes. In the past due to story we had fights, now due to fights we have story. To sum it up i can only say that big expectacions met big disapoinmened.

Review for both part 1 and part 2: I'm genuinely surprised by how much of a step up this season is compared to the earlier ones. For the first time in the series, there's a clear sense of narrative causality and coherence. Characters act according to their personalities, knowledge, and circumstances. Most events feel motivated, grounded in logic and built upon prior developments, rather than emerging randomly at the writer's whim. It almost feels like a different writer took over. The first two arcs in particular enter a territory I can confidently call great. They’re well-constructed, narratively driven, and offer a sense of logical progression that’s been sorely missing in past seasons. The non-linear time jumps can be a bit confusing at times. They're not incomprehensible, but they occasionally disrupt the flow and require the viewer to piece things together more actively. The biggest improvement, without question, is the characters. They finally display agency. They're no longer just tools (literal or metaphorical) but individuals with goals, doubts, and actual thought processes. The season isn’t flawless, though. The final episodes unfortunately drop the ball. The story slips back into predictability, culminating in possibly the most underwhelming fight sequence I've ever seen. The characters' plans are either nonexistent or so impractical that it becomes hard to care. They don’t win through strategy or strength, but seemingly through the writer’s will alone. When a viewer can pause and sketch out a staggeringly more coherent plan in three minutes, that's not a good sign. Still, the good far outweighs the bad, especially since these issues only surface in the last tenth of the season. 7.6/10

SPOILERS for Attack on Titan seasons 1-3 (and Claymore, for comparison's sake)! I can see that many of the negative reviews for AOT season 4 are awfully nitpicky. I'm not gonna engage in nitpicking and I am not going to latch on to the show's plot holes either. I feel like there are broader and more important elements for me to critique than the minute details. If stuff like the physics of the 3D Maneuver Gear bother you, I don't know how you made it this far with the show. What happened to Attack on Titan reminds me a lot of what happened to Claymore (manga) many years ago. The entire setting you knew, the one you thought you should care about, turns out to be just a small island in a larger world. A fly in an evil empire's militaristic soup. The monsters that you remember once sending shivers down your spine are revealed to be just weapons of war - things that can be created and even controlled. The lens, through which you observe the story, is now zoomed so far out, that all the struggles, drama and horror you went through with the show's characters before, now seems terribly small and insignificant. But. Claymore at least had the decency to brush aside it's awful attempt at a shocking plot twist after it didn't really land for anybody. It wrapped up the story in the confines of the setting it had already established. The damage had been done and the twist had made everything worse, but at least it remained a concise story. Attack on Titan on the other hand doubles down on it's twist hard. While I kinda want to commend it for sticking to it's guns, the fact is that this is not even the same story anymore. This is an entirely new setting with new stakes and rules. Even new cast, really. There are enough new characters that get introduced during season 4 to fill up the entire character roster of an average anime series. I got nothing against expanding the scope of a series. It can keep things fresh and interesting. But this isn't expanding. There is a difference between expanding and just throwing the original premise in the trash. Ever since season 1 ended, almost every new detail we have learned about the world has made the once cool and compelling setting less and less interesting. Was the Colossal Titan something that caught your attention back in the day? Thought it was menacing? In the endless cycle of the series trying to one-up itself, not only have we already seen bigger titans, but now we hear that there are literal millions of Colossal Titans. Millions. Did you happen to enjoy the main characters' struggle in the cool walled-off world of fascism, cruelty and cover-ups? Too bad. You were just watching bunch of recluses on an island - a society, held together by memory altering magic powers. Thought the silent terror of the unintelligent, man-eating titans was really horrific? Did you get invested in the fight against them? They are just killed off-screen. All of them. The great threat to mankind done and dusted, without so much as a montage sequence to commemorate the oocasion. We still get the transforming super titans... But those turn out to be nothing more than glorified mecha suits by the end. In a way, it's actually worse than just having mecha suits, because at least a vehicle could be lost or irreparably broken, so there might be some tension related to losing one. But with the titans, you can just keep conjuring them up as long as the "pilot" stays alive. Here, there are no lasting physical consequences to either the pilot or the vehicle outside of death. Let's talk about the utilization of Eren in this. I don't know if it was the call of the writer(s), the director or the voice actor, but being "jaded" is translated to being "boring and monotone". No matter what you thought about Eren as a character in the previous seasons, it was actually kinda fun seeing him get agitated - spitting out (often hollow) threats and making bold claims. Screaming in rage or in terror. Crying his eyes out. Whether you thought he was oblivious, stupid or annoying, the character had some energy to him. Almost every single line of Eren, as delivered during season 4, sounds like he is one second away from falling asleep. You might call it character development - I call it yet another thing ruined. Not all development is good development and a stagnant character is better than a boring, passionless edgelord. I think I can just barely swallow the shift in Eren's morality, but not in his behavior. As a direction to take Eren towards, this could have worked, but it's pushed way too far. The most frustrating thing about Season 4 is that, in a vacuum, there are still some neat things going on. The presentation is still more than fine and some of the dramatic peaks were undeniably effective and decently set up. There are even some deeper themes being explored than what we are used to in the show's previous seasons. As a detached, individual anime story, this could have been all right. But because this exists in the Attack on Titan "universe", it is hard for me to pay attention to anything that is going on beyond a once-so-awesome series that has systematically driven itself into the ground.

Ight bro I'm not saying this season is bad, its just that thus season pales in comparison to the other seasons. I was never to big of a fan of AOT in the first place(I think the show is good I rated the other season an 8). This season is worse. in everyway, the animation, story, animation, art, its all a step down. People be giving this shit a 10 an it isn't even close to a 10. Those people fucking tripping' n shit. But in all this season is straight ass, fucking boring, doesn't even compare to great anime's like SAO.

Attack on Titan will be probably go down in history as an anime “classic”. As much as some will dislike the show and this Season in particular there is no denying it. At this point it surpassed Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood as the highest rated show on this website (yikes this didn't age well), maybe partially because of the euphoria and hype for the next Season, but even with that taken into consideration it's a show loved by so many people. And while I enjoy the show I would not claim it to be "peak fiction" or even an extraordinary show. There are some spoilers in this review, you have been warned. This Season is a great shift in every sense of the word. At first, we don't even follow the main cast we knew up to that point, then this season is more dialogue heavy than the previous ones and characters take turns that many did not expect. When looking at how much changed this Season and will in the next one I think its remarkable how little Mikasa and Armin changed, who both are or at least were part of the main cast of this show. Mikasa still being one of the characters I dislike the most. Her whole character arc revolves around Eren, given that she is an Ackerman that also somewhat makes sense in the series, however that does not make it a good character arc. Its also not even given that much attention, we see a glimpse of what might go on with her, but that's it. Her connection to Hizuru is mentioned but not really plays any role in the story or with her character. Armin's only character trait at this point is that he ate Berthold and his connection to Anni, who still is frozen in that crystal. Everything that happened before this season is either forgotten or already taken as a "finished" character arc. With those two characters that stayed more or less the same i will now go into the real meat of this Season. Starting with the new characters and the world building of this season as a whole. We have 16 episodes that try to grasp a world that is multiple times bigger than what we knew up to that point. Given how many manga chapters are left to adapt there also is not much more after this season that could be done. I won't go into great detail on the worldbuilding, but I think it more or less does the "bare minimum" to not be considered bad or boring/generic. The concept introduced with the relationship between Eldia and Marley is interesting, its also conveyed somewhat believable. Aside from that however the world feels shallow. The war between Marley and the Mid-East Allied Forces exists I guess, Hizuru that seems to be influenced by Japanese History also exists. And aside from its relationship to Eldia and their hate for them, we also know barely anything about Marley. Instead of crafting an amazing world with great detail and rich cultures Isayama uses the world as a tool for his themes. The new characters introduced with Marley are all not bad, but also far from revolutionary. Gabi is very stereotypical, which is not bad (as we will see with Eren later on) and can get turned into something interesting. But Gabi until the very end of this season pretty much has a predictable arc. She was brainwashed and now slowly learns that not all Eldians are monsters. Also, only changing because she now knows what her hateful actions do to people (killing Sasha) seems like an easy way out, slowly developing her into noticing something is wrong with her ideology without using the death of Sasha would be far more interesting in my opinion. How its resolved now feels believable and is also not bad. Falco is basically her counterpart, not being completely brainwashed but still being the victim in the end. I dont really have a strong opinion on him, i guess he is a fine character but due to a lack of development nothing special. The other new characters all are similar. Reiner is by far the in my opinion well realized character in the entire series, from all the characters with internal conflicts his gets attention to the point his character feels pretty well-rounded. His character arc is not perfect by any means and also feels a little short at some point. However, the first four episodes and all the things we know up to now make for an understandable character. He almost feels like the embodiment of the central conflict of the show, knowing the good and bad of both sides and being conflicted. Eren is what many claim to be the best character this season. And while i agree that what happened is interesting, i would not say its due to him now being a fleshed and less shounen like protagonist. His change is very in your face, he now has longer hair and is much more reserved. What makes all of what happened to his character a little underwhelming, is that we never really saw all those changes happen. We can suspect the reasons and theorize about them, not much more. What makes a great character in my opinion, is actually SEEING a change over the course of multiple episodes and seasons, slowly getting to know reasons for change. We saw more about Reiners reasons for change then we saw about Erens, even Reiners are not what, at least for me, would make a well fleshed out character but still more than Eren. When it comes to the Audiovisuals this Season is below Attack on Titan standards, but still pretty well-made overall. The more moody color pallet and lighting might fit the overall feeling of the current season but compared to what we had before this season it, to me, feels inferior. Its just not as crisp. The CGI Titans are not much worse than the ones we had in the second part of Season three, they just appear more often. The OST is not as enthralling as it was the last seasons, which makes sense given the change in tone, but still is pretty disappointing. The voice acting in general is superb, especially the ones of the old cast are really living their role. Attack on Titan started pretty battle shounen like and in this season tries to move forward, beyond those classic character tropes and unremarkable themes. That alone is remarkable. It does not follow the classic Shounen story and more or less subverts our expectations that were set with the first season. I genuinely hope there are Manga artists getting inspired by Attack on Titan that will produce Shounen with a similar level of ambition in the Future, I would take something like this over the next My hero academia any day. The biggest problems with this Season is the pacing or how this entire conflict was handled. The show introduces a big unknown world, tries to deliver intriguing politics and a very morally ambiguous story with even more characters. In the end however every single one of those aspects gets insufficient attention throughout this Season. The whole conflict between Eldia and Marley gets explained through a history lesson, every other reason and aspect to that conflict that may be there either is not mentioned or not noteworthy. Character change, as with Eren for example, get explained very vaguely and without much backstory. Trying many things, but not actually going in depth in any of them is the reason for this season being not as good as it could've been for me. Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed this season. It's still like a fast-paced action movie, that now also tries to be a political drama without taking the time to make said drama believable and engaging. This political drama seems more like a tool to use when its necessary to progress with the story, it's not about the politics or about the world. What it truly is about we will see in the final final season when its core themes will hopefully get a satisfying conclusion that makes all this lackluster worldbuilding, character development and political drama worth it, and even if it's not worth for the themes at least we will still see bombastic fights (I mean that ending cliffhanger was nasty :). Attack on Titan could have been better, with at least 2 or 3 Seasons more on top of those 2 final ones. …