The Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin anime has finally finished. What's the verdict?
I only realized tonight that the second movie from the final season came out a couple weeks ago, and just got done watching it about 20 minutes ago. I didn't find any discussion about it on Tildes, so what's the verdict?
I'm an anime-only pleb. For those who have read the manga, was the final movie disappointing or satisfying? How faithful was the adaptation overall? Did they have to leave out a bunch of stuff to wrap the whole thing up with these last two movies?
For anime-onlies like myself, how'd you feel about how it all concluded?
I didn't foresee exactly how things would end, which is a plus, but I guess it ultimately felt sufficient rather than satisfying. It couldn't have been easy for the original author to come up with a good ending for something that became such a runaway hit in the first place, but I wonder if this was the ending he had in mind from the start... somehow I doubt it. I fully expected more of the final squad to die, honestly. I also don't feel like I got enough resolution from Mikasa. She feels like a big missed opportunity throughout the series, actually. As a character it seemed like she got rather two-dimensional after cutting her hair, and considering how her arc ends, her inner monologue would have been one of the most interesting threads to follow throughout the series but it pretty much just got some footnotes here and there.
The movie basically fixed the biggest and most glaring issue with the manga's ending, which was the awful aftertaste left by the dialogue between Armin and Eren. And I'm not exaggerating, that scene is what soured the ending for many manga fans. 90% of the AoT ending memes come from it.
By adding several lines of dialogue and changing the order in which some things appear, the anime does a way better job and conveying its message and doesn't make Armin sound like an absolute psychopath (we can still argue about Eren's actions being coherent but that's not a debate I want to get into).
If you're curious, check out this video (10 mins) which goes over that scene and you can see how much the anime improves by simply tweaking that one moment.
The adaptation was very faithful outside of that honestly, it improved on every aspect the manga had so you didn't miss out on anything. This is honestly a case where I would 100% recommend the anime over the manga, and I'm a manga fanatic that barely watches anime.
Edit: "but that's not a debate I want to get into" Oops. Well, I'll leave my comment be.
I didn't hate the manga ending but I certainly felt "welmed" by it, so your take is good to hear. I'll have to check out your link after watching it. My biggest issue however, outside the meme dialogue, was as you alluded to: Eren's seemingly incoherent actions which bothered me quite a bit. As someone who was reading issue to issue as it was coming out, the fan theories at the time mostly ended up way more imaginative, creative and consistent with Eren's actions up until the ending battle.
In contrast, when I watched Breaking Bad as it aired, the fan theories were either proven true (the poisoning) or outdone by the actual show (the wheelchair). That led to a vastly more hype experience where it felt like you either figured out the puzzle the showrunners laid out for you or were completely outsmarted by them. It's a shame because for much of AoT's run, it was that quality of story. I'm talking about stuff like the meaning of Erwin's odd question or "you started this". These and others were such great plot points where the community either figured it out or were rewarded with something even better.
I thought it was really good. Made improvements in almost every facet of the manga
I really liked it. It did the single most important thing as a finale and not fuck up the legacy of the show.
Attack on Titan is now a completed story that is consistently good throughout. That is an amazing accomplishment.
The finale managed to wrap everything up fairly nicely, and stayed true to itself.
What more could you ask for?
Ehhhhhhh...?
The animation was wonderful, and the visuals were pretty fantastic overall (who knew that giant rib caterpillar could be such an interesting setting?) But I don't think it was actually worth the wait. The ending was kind of meh overall. I was kind of expecting some grand philosophical conclusion and I simply didn't get it. The whole "future memories" thing really ended up deflating any redemption for Eren.
I read a bit of the manga before it was a huge hit. Mostly here to see if anyone has comments about how it all ended. I stopped around the early arc when they found out what's in the walls.
Curious to see people's thoughts on this series especially compared to something like Sousou No Frieren (At Journey's End): something beautiful to look at, delicately wistful and positively introspective in tone, a warm cozy journey full of humanity and kindness and the high notes of being alive.
Do people feel like we've turned the corner away from Edgey Grim Dark ugly fare like Game of Thrones, Batman and Joker, Rick and Morty et al?
How did AoT end, in terms of what it says about humanity and hope and kindness and beauty?
I'm all in on the introspective and optimistic vibes these days. Freiren has been pretty good (and weirdly it was kind of disappointing that it has been going through those crazy battles lately, no matter how gorgeous the animation is), and I absolutely loved To Your Eternity. I just zoomed through The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent after I realized that it was all about the emotional journey and not the power fantasy that the title implied.
I dipped on the Anime pretty early. Felt it started phenomenally, turned into "mecha in disguise" (which you'd think I'd like but I loved the asymmetry of the problem and disliked when that was taken away), and then had the usual issues with dragging out plots and making up "twists" to extend things.
Oddly, the one thing I keep seeing, is if the writer/show/manga is antisemetic or fascist or something? I guess there's maybe some WWII armbands and things like that and then "concerning" plot implications given how those characters act? This was all after I dipped and I have no idea how much of this is over reading into things.
Other than that the main things i've heard is "looked pretty good, story was eh, but hey they at least finished and didn't pull a bleach. Maybe pulled a naruto"
There's many things you can say about AoT, but I don't think the work is pro fascism. Eren, the ubermensch, ends up as the final antagonist of the series. Armin, the peacenik, ends up as the protagonist trying to stop Eren. The descent of Eldia into fascism is portrayed as a bad thing, and indeed, the implication is that Eldia ends up being destroyed. The last we see if the heroes is them going back to Paradis to attempt to give the peace process one final try.
I didn't get any antisemitic vibes from it. I can see why some people might get that conclusion since Eldians become Titans, but... It's more complex.
One thing that's incredibly important: Attack on Titan is a war story disguised as a survival horror story. Took me a long time to realize since the Titans are massive monsters, but it became truly obvious once we saw the world outside the walls. There's definitely heavy parallels between the Eldians and how the Jewish people were treated during WWII, and it ties into the overall theme of the harm of war.
War is rarely for good or bad reasons, it's most often fueled by selfish motivations. It's destruction on a massive scale that makes everyone suffer, including those who aren't directly in the line of fire. This is definitely noticeable in the final parts as The Rumbling happens.
So overall, it's not about fascism or antisemitism. Nor is it pro-military. It's all about the absolute horrors of war.
That's... rather charitable. My impression was that all the suffering and loss was rendered rather inconsequential by the ending. I mean, they barely spared a thought in the last 20 minutes for the 80% of humanity that was killed. The emphasis seemed much more along the lines of, humanity is selfish and imperfect, and conflict is inevitable; therefore, pacifism is naïvete, you have to be willing and able to fight in order to establish peace.
I will admit that I might be the wrong person for this convo though. The immaturity of the show makes the notion of any intent to drive home deeper points really difficult for me to take seriously, and personally I have that issue with A LOT of popular media. The themes may be there but clarity of vision (or execution) behind them often isn't IMO.
I'd generally agree with you. I dropped the show a bit after they went outside the island and Eren became the antagonist. I became numb to the deaths and reveals, and I didn't feel like there was anything the show could hit me with that would truly surprise me or keep me engaged. Reading through the remaining plot and seeing the final ending, my suspicions were confirmed.
Up to that point, the series was incredibly engaging. Erwin's last charge, and the serum bowl afterwards, were riveting. The officer's speech, standing on the fourth wall, calling out the audience for enjoying senseless violence. My love/hate relationship with Eren as a protagonist. The flashes of agency from interesting side characters.
My controversial opinion is AoT/SnK ultimately got too big for its own good, and the series steadily got worse with the finer details that made for such captivating drama. In comparison, I absolutely love One Piece. Over 1000 chapters in, and everything I love has continuously compounded into something that's always improving in ways I can never predict.
I would push hard against the idea that the show thinks peace is naive. The protagonist of the series is ultimately Armin, who is the person who stops Eren from killing every non Eldian. The very last look we get into the lives of the characters is Armin leading the team back to the island to give peace one last shot. That is ultimately the ideology of the series. No matters how many atrocities or deaths, it's always worth to try to achieve peace. Whether it sticks or not is not up to us.
Pacifism and peace are related but different concepts.
Armin was essentially a pacifist (as much as you could consider him to be one while in a military unit, I guess), but he was ultimately forced to realize he had to get his own hands bloody even in the pursuit of peace.
I don't think fighting necessarily entails violence. The series ends with them going back to Paradis on a peace mission. Not to fight, but to talk. I suspect Armin will continue to fight for peace, but with words, not titans. Like he tells the group, it's a testament that they, who did so much damage to each other (they're responsible for ending each other's families and homes) are banding together to back to the island and just... talk.
Reading this thread a bit I feel like a bit of an outlier. I messed up and re-watched Pt 1 of Season 4 Part 2, and was in tears nearly the whole time. The way they did everything seemed to hit right for me. I had to put of Pt 2/2 until today because it was just too much for me.
Not as a callout, but @culturedleftfoot's point about the 80% of humanity being destroyed, I think it was revealed when it was because it wouldn't have made sense for Eren to just come out and say it, especially if he was basically trying to manipulate everybody to resist him at the end. From a meta-perspective, this would've only been relevant when the author realized the story was ending this way. I'm not sure he necessarily planned the arc from the beginning, since it seems to shift violently from Season 2 onward.
At the end of it, I was grateful it was over, and satisfied with the ending. Everything seemed to land right for me, and the story made sense. Maybe I'm just too good at handwaving things, but I didn't really see many holes or issues with the plot that I can remember.
I don't know how the manga did things and where the differences are. I'm also fine not revisiting AoT because of how fucking dark it got, but I I enjoyed it and liked everything it did.
I don't especially have issue with when the death toll reveal was made. I was just saying that it had no real impact beyond that immediate mention. I can't agree that exposing the horrors of war were a primary motivation if they didn't include anything to force the viewer to come to grips with killings of that magnitude. It was reduced to an abstraction, not even an actual number.
I think they tried to convey the violence with relatable characters, then show the global scale. It worked on me in the anime, but I can also see how it could fall flat for somebody else.
Assuming "it was reduced to an abstraction" is about the 80% figure, I agree, it's an odd way of conveying the scale in a number.
You're not alone, I absolutely loved the manga ending when it came out. I felt people's read too much into Armin's lines. He was just trying to give comfort to a dying friend.