I've been watching Attack on Titan for the last six years, and was hooked from the very beginning. The conflict between man and monster, the incredible fights, beautiful animation, mystery of the world author Hajime Isayama created, and story that constantly twists and turns to remain fresh. I cannot think of any other show that compares to it, and consider it a modern masterpiece that defines this era of storytelling. But, the end has finally come. The second of the two special movie-length episodes that concluded the show was released yesterday, and I couldn't miss giving my thoughts - so here they are.
From then to now... (spoilers for the series up to the final episode)
Here's a quick summary of the show prior to this point - naturally, there will be spoilers:
Attack on Titan began with an abnormally large titan breaking down the walls of Eren's hometown and the outer wall that guards the remainders of humanity against the creatures - his already freedom-driven, titan hating attitude reached a boiling point, and he developed a self-destructive vow to kill all the titans. Then, when they attack once more, it is revealed that he himself as the ability to become one, using that ability to aid humanity against others like him, attacking from beyond their walls, who are revealed to be other recruits in his regiment.
By the end of the third season, it is revealed that there is an entire world beyond their walls populated by people led by the Marleyans - and that they have a deep-rooted hatred for them, the eldians, for their ability to turn into titans, and how that was used to oppress them centuries ago. They bested the titans on their island, eldian victims of the Marleyan government, but now they have a whole world with advanced technology to contend with.
Four years later, and Eren is distant, ruthless, and has a plan - launching an attack on Marley that serves to retrieve his half-brother, Zeke, who has royal blood and a titan form of his own, which allows him and Eren to have the founding titan power, to manipulate eldian and titan physiology at will, and agree to use this to sterilise all eldians to ensure they won't be oppressed for any more generations. Eren launches a violent military coup within the walls and Zeke escapes Levi, and as Marley launches a last-ditch counter-attack, the two come into contact - accessing the power - the paths, an ethereal place without time, where the first titan-shifter, Ymir Fritz, resides, slaving away to make each new titan body by hand. Eren betrays Zeke and convinces her to side with him, and a more destructive plan is initiated - the Rumbling, an apocalypse where the titans that make up the walls are let loose and commanded to trample on everything outside of the island of Paradis, leaving none left alive.
A small group of Marleyans and Eldians unite to stop Eren, and we leave off with them landing onto the monstrous skeletal titan Eren has become. Every battle, loss, death and moment has led to this concluding battle, deciding the fate of humanity, or what now remains of it. Will Eren's path of destruction reach its end, or can he be stopped, and what will be left of the world if he is? All of these questions have been left to us since March, but now, they are answered.
Here it is... (spoilers for The Final Chapters: Part 2)
This episode has everything - the spectacular battles we've known to expect from Attack on Titan, but also the most profound and poignant scenes from a character perspective. Nobody gets left out as we see what truly motivates them, and what they have to sacrifice when faced with the end of all they hold dear. A key theme from the show is the cycle of war and peace, hatred passing from generation to generation and the difficulty of stopping it. This cycle led to the persecution of the eldians, Paradis island, and Eren's path of destruction. But, it also led to the alliance, sworn enemies who each shed the blood of the other, coming together to stop him, setting the example for the world.
In the past few years, I have, I think with good reason, criticised the computer animated titans of the final season, the battle of Liberio in particular having a few issues as a result. This is no problem at all in the finale, where it is so well integrated it is hard to tell between hand-drawn and computer generated. The animation is slick, beautiful and fluid, more than ever before - perfect for the most action-packed sequences of the entire show.
Armin is determined to activate the explosive colossal titan power to destroy Eren's body while Pieck wraps explosives around his neck to separate Eren's head, but both are stopped when the past titans appear in a quite creepy moment - thousands of white figures just watching, before attacking mindlessly. Mindless they might be, but the episode suggests that the dead titan shifters are sort of being puppeteered by Ymir, forced to fight beyond the grave against their will.
That is the setup for the battle - Pieck and Armin out of the picture at either end of the giant skeletal titan, both with the means to bring down Eren. The alliance has to free both to bring him down, and to separate Zeke and Eren, or kill one of them, to stop the rumbling. Meanwhile, Ymir's titan army stands in their way, as the rumbling survivors at Fort Saltz watch helplessly, hoping that Eren can be defeated before the rumbling reaches them.
And, as the rumbling tramples millions of lives, we also see the grace of humanity in spite of the suffering - when caught between a sheer drop and the oncoming titans, an enormous crowd of terrified people clammer together, dozens falling to their deaths. One is a mother holding her baby, but the closest man saves the child, and the crowd holds it up, ensuring his safety, in one of the most haunting yet beautiful scenes of the whole show. This is what makes Attack on Titan so special. Not simply spectacle, but an incredible story and reasoning behind it.
Armin is captured, and manages to communicate with Zeke in the paths, where he and the dead titan shifters of years past reside, slaves to Ymir's will. The two philosophise on the meaning of life and the value of living. Zeke considers it meaningless, simple animal procreation with no higher goal. Armin instead declares that the simple things, chasing Eren and Mikasa up a hill when they were children, gave his life meaning, and that if it was all he ever did, he would have been happy. This opens Zeke's mind, and he remembers playing catch with Mr Ksaver and feeling the same, which in turn frees some of the titan shifter's wills, like Ksaver's, Bertholdt's and Grisha's, who fight the other past titans for the alliance. It is a little odd how quickly Zeke's perspective shifts, but him finally enjoying the simple pleasures of life for the brief moments before his death is a perfect end for his character, and calls back the Armin's character, showing Eren the book of what natural beauty lies beyond the walls back in the first season.
Zeke emerges out of the skeletal titan, and Levi kills him immediately, bringing the rumbling to a stop, and Eren's titan body is destroyed by Armin and Jean, which separates Eren and the founding entity. Eren continues his warpath though, as an enormous titan to rival Armin's colossal titan, and the entity disperses titan mist, transforming all eldians, save the Ackermans and titan-shifters, into pure titans. This is the final fight, as if Eren and the entity reunite, an unstoppable creature capable of wiping out humanity would remain at large, finishing the rumbling's work. Annie and Reiner hold back the titans, Armin fights Eren in a battle of gigantic monsters, and Levi and Mikasa make a run for Eren's mouth where his human head remains. Levi is severely injured, but Mikasa makes it, and decapitates him.
Not only is this final fight incredibly visually, but it is very poignant as well. As far as we know, the characters turned into titans are gone for good, while Mikasa, the one to unconditionally defend Eren, is the one who must ultimately kill him, breaking free and setting an example to Ymir, who slaved away these 2000 years as a result of her love for King Fritz. Because of this, she brings the titan powers to an end, leaving the world without a reason to hate eldians and giving the titan shifters normal lives and lifespans. With one final goodbye from the dead of the series, the world is left without titans, just as Eren had vowed as a boy, and his friends are left to live long, peaceful lives, but at the cost of eighty percent of the world's population, and Paradis becoming a hostile military force poised against the survivors. Mikasa returns to Paradis to bury Eren and mourn him, while the others either settle and help to rebuild, or become ambassadors for peace, representing the world in their talks with Paradis. Mikasa cries by the familiar childhood tree, but a bird wraps her scarf around her neck, and flies off into the horizon.
Not without a handful of shortcomings...
A criticism with this ending, which I think is certainly valid, is that it packs a lot into it, and without the thorough explanation the series was known for in its slow but sure way of unravelling mysteries. Things like Ymir's love for King Fritz, Eren's confusion of motivations between his own pursuit of freedom and destiny forcing his hand, and the entity's actual abilities are comparatively ill-defined compared to prior story points, which puts the finale in an unfortunate situation as the threaded end of a immaculately woven tapestry.
To be fair, most character arcs and plot threads were already brought to their conclusions in the season prior, and all that was left was for a desperate suicide mission to stop Eren, with anyone or everyone risking death, and an outlook on the world after the battle.
Well, few major characters died this episode (only Zeke), while everyone else, be they Marleyan or Paradis warriors, saw it through to the end. I honestly thought Jean would be one to die, as well as a few of the Marleyans like Reiner or Pieck, though I'm unsure if that would have improved the story, or simply made it more realistic as a conclusion. The world afterwards is somewhat bleak, but offers a serenity of appreciating the simplicity of nature once more after major cities and means of war are destroyed, but a conflict between Paradis and the world would continue - human nature was separate from the titans, so it only makes sense, and I think this as a bittersweet conclusion is perfect.
A subplot I found redundant was the conflict between the Marleyans and Eldians at Fort Saltz, which seemed already resolved in the past episode with a speech by the commander, but here a similar sentiment is presented when the two groups draw weapons at each other, and he fires his gun into the air to stop them, though again, it shows the constant cycle between war and peace that the show, this finale especially, emphasises.
There is also a sequence at the beginning of the final part, where Armin and Eren have a conversation in the paths, that while very heartfelt, adds even more to convolute the story after the fact, like Eren's mind being a muddle of past and present, making him perhaps unable to influence events by his own will, yet he says he would have completed the rumbling had his friends not directly stopped him, implying some level of choice beyond fate and the future he could see, and that he had to influence Dina Fritz's titan to go after his mother instead of going for a vulnerable Bertholdt when he broke the wall to Shiganshia, which, while being ironic, doesn't add much more of value, only convoluting the events of that day.
In the credits, we see the view from the tree Eren was buried at, where Mikasa eventually passes away from old age and is buried there beside him, Paradis develops into a sprawling, technologically advanced city, and is then obliterated by a missile bombardment centuries in the future, where a young boy and his dog walk through the ancient ruins, and find a tree with an opening, just like Ymir did thousands of years before...
Again, a fantastic way to conclude the series - bittersweet, with some hope, some despair at humanity's self-destructiveness, and the ominous warning that the titan powers may in fact return to this new world thousands of years later.
Final thoughts...
Is it a perfect conclusion? No, I don't think so. But I don't think there is one that could exist. It gives us an ending that is ambiguous enough for the heroes, tragic for Mikasa and Eren, and doesn't try to break the cycle of conflict that has become an intrinsic part of this final season. Any complaints I think could be just as much down to personal preference - should the ending have been darker, where Eren's plan is successful and his friends die attempting to stop him, uniting only when it is too late? It would have been an oppressive tragedy, and not a bad one too, showing the folly of generational prejudices, and that war with ever-escalating powers can only lead to mutually assured destruction. Should more of the main cast have died? If it were being brutally realistic, then yes. But at the end of the day, these were not the creative choices done by the author, and the ones that were done were executed brilliantly, and very much still worthy being considered a masterpiece. I give this finale a 9 out of 10
9 OUT OF 10
This show has been with going for ten years, I've followed it for six of them, and it is sad to see it go. But it certainly went out on a high, and as my favourite show of all time.
What did you think of Attack on Titan's finale? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, and thank you for reading! This review has meant more than most, I can assure you!
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