Attack on Titan: The Final Season

Attack on Titan: The Final Season

Attack on Titan: The Final Season anime series cover art
Attack on Titan: The Final Season

Season Overview

Attack on Titan: The Final Season (Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season / 進撃の巨人 The Final Season) is, surprisingly, not the final season of the Attack on Titan anime series. I’ll explain that later on in this review, but just know this is the fourth season.

So, what does this season cover? Well, for starters, there’s a four-year time skip between the end of Season 3 Part 2 and the start of this season. It then begins with the Marley arc before moving into the War for Paradis arc.

Now, one of the best and worst things about this season of the series is that the majority of the main characters have new character designs. That’s great because they all look fantastic (except Mikasa, honestly). But, this also causes some issues.

The primary issue with these new designs is that the two arcs this season cover also introduce a lot of new characters. So for the first few episodes, it can be difficult to tell who’s who. Specifically, I know a lot of people got Armin and Yelena mixed up.

I should also point out that this isn’t just an issue in the anime. I read the manga before this season aired, and it was difficult to differentiate between characters in that at first too.

Another thing to keep in mind about this season is that it does have a significant tonal shift from what came before. That’s nothing new for this series though. Each season of the anime does this. But, I think this season is the most different from the earlier seasons because both the story and characters change drastically.

I’m not sure if this season is my favorite from a story perspective. However, I think the characters in this season are the best they’ve ever been.

Source Material vs. Anime Execution

I don’t really want to get into the debate surrounding whether the anime or manga is better. Normally, I prefer anime adaptations rather than manga. But with Attack on Titan, I think both mediums have their pros and cons.

I think that some of the use of CGI wasn’t the best at the start of the season, but it gets phased out later on. The real issue I had with the anime visuals actually came from a really strange use of rotoscoping for some scenes that didn’t need to be dynamic.

And so, this brings us into what I actually want to discuss in this section, which is how the anime makes use of the source material. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that it’s the source material that really carries this series, especially later on.

Gabi Braun from the anime series Attack on Titan: The Final Season
Gabi Braun

Questionable use of rotoscoping aside, I think the anime adapted the content it covered in this season quite well. I was a little disappointed in the adaptation of the War Hammer Titan. But at the same time, I’m not really sure what they could have done to improve it because it was just like the manga.

My biggest issue with the anime is actually a relatively minor detail. If you read my weekly episode reviews, you may recall that I complained about the color of Eren’s eyes being green — especially when they glow green due to his control over the Founding Titan.

Yes, I know that Eren’s eyes have normally been green. And yes, I know the manga is in black and white. However, the manga covers are in full color. And in the manga covers, we see Eren with silver eyes to represent the Founding Titan just as we’ve seen with all the other Founding Titan wielders.

I think the silver eyes look way better and more intimidating than the alien, glowing green ones. Check out the alternate cover for Volume 30 to see what I mean.

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What Comes Next?

I touched on this a bit in my review of the final episode of this season, but there’s a lot of confusion surrounding the future of this series — mostly from the anime-only community. Luckily, it’s not really that difficult to understand once you have all the information.

First of all, these 16 episodes of this season covered chapters 91 – 115, so 25 chapters. The final chapter, 139, comes out in just a few days as of the posting of this review. So, there are another 24 chapters that still need to be adapted.

Because the next part of the season (this is why I said this isn’t really the final season) was only revealed as “episode 76,” people are assuming that we’re only getting one more episode. That makes absolutely no sense.

Eren Yeager from the anime series Attack on Titan: The Final Season
Eren Yeager

Now, while we don’t actually know how the rest of the series is going to be adapted, there are two ways that make sense. Either we’re going to have another roughly 16 episode season, or we’re going to have an 8 – 10 episode season followed by a movie.

As I said, we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. However, I think the shorter season followed by a movie makes a lot of sense within the context of this “final” season.

So, what is that context? Well, you may recall that this season was actually delayed by two months and therefore didn’t begin airing until December 7th. Two months is the same as 8 episodes, so we can assume that this season was originally supposed to have an additional 8 episodes.

My guess is that this second part of the season will be those 8, 9, or 10 episodes that had to be delayed. And if we consider those, then a movie would be the perfect length to finish out the final few chapters of the manga. Also, the end of the manga is like 100% action, so it would work well as a movie.

Conclusion

Attack on Titan: The Final Season definitely isn’t my favorite season of the anime despite covering some of my favorite content. I’d have to give it an 8/10, which places it squarely in the middle of the series as far as I’m concerned.

If you enjoyed this review, or if I cleared up how the rest of the anime adaptation is likely to go, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of The Final Season Part 2 is available now.

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