Attack on Titan: The Colossal Review

this video is sponsored by people like you without your help this wouldn't have been possible [Music] attack on titan is my favorite story of all time being someone that's made a career out of reviewing great stories from the east today i wanted to celebrate the conclusion of what is in my opinion one of the single most consistent thrilling and engaging stories i've ever read with a special review unlike anything i've ever made instead of giving each individual arc or season its own video like i produced in the past for attack on titan i wanted instead to create one colossal review covering everything spanning every character every gruesome bloody battle and every single arc all in an effort to see what made this story so fantastic and to try to deconstruct some of the ideas author hajime isa yama built this world with from its emphatic beginnings to its masterful conclusion but don't worry while i fully intend on covering material not yet covered by the anime i won't spoil anything concerning that portion of the story until i first cover the first three and a half seasons and once i do i'll be giving any anime onlys a fair warning before i jump into any current manga exclusive material but as you can see by looking down at the timeline that won't be for quite some time i've been waiting to make this video for eight years so cancel all of your appointments grab your maneuvering gear and give up your hearts because today i am reviewing everything in what i consider to be among some of the most impressive stories ever to come out of japan i'm totally not mark and this is my colossal review of hajime isayama's modern manga masterpiece this is the cruel the inspirational and the relentlessly powerful shingeki nokiojian attack on titan [Music] it's commonplace within various online anime communities to hear the phrase this show is awesome but only after x number of episodes attack on titan requires no such forewarning the fall of shin ganshina boasting what is in my opinion one of the strongest and most compelling opening sequences a series of this nature could possibly have while also confined to a run time of roughly 23 minutes attack on titan runs through my must-have narrative checklist with the same speed and efficiency as someone looking to set the next american ninja warrior speed record key character introductions check an exciting inciting incident followed by clearly established motivations for the main cast check a long term hook check compelling and easy to understand premise double check but truthfully these are all elements that are either rudimentary fundamental or won't be paid off until much much later on in the story so what did attack on titan do with its first episode to show people that it's worth sticking around for well by finding a way to demonstrate its best attribute its ability to deliver a twist and find deeper meaning in the most unlikely of places for me attack on titan's strongest elements were always how it adhered to the internal logic of its established world pulling off twist after twist ascribing meaning to the most mundane or trivial of circumstances if you were to look at stories like one punch man one piece or my hero academia these are all tales that through one way or another managed to communicate effectively in their own openings what their respective stories are about and what a potential reader or viewer stands to get out of their material however attack on titan demonstrating a successful long-term subversion of expectations isn't exactly something one can demonstrate within the confines of a single episode or chapter so how did isa yama overcome this he starts his episode with a flash forward to a big cataclysmic event and this is an extremely common technique in storytelling start with something impressive to help garner attention right off the bat however what makes this an exceptionally great choice of impactful moment is that this moment this inciting incident while being paramount to kicking off the events that follow also gets paid off within this same very episode establishing for new viewers a sense that they are in safe hands and that if they go along with isiyama on this gruesome tragic and twisted adventure he will prove to us all that from the very beginning he's known exactly how he wanted to end this story one of the major criticisms lobbed against attack on titan throughout most of its run has been how irritable naive and annoying the character of aaron yeager can be at times while he does have moments where he wields all the natural charisma of a typical shonen protagonist those moments particularly in season 1 are fleeting at best and i believe this to be by design making aaron jaeger in my opinion not only a terrifically written character but a phenomenally composed main protagonist that is tailor-made for this story specifically looking at this opening scene and its aftermath as a whole it's clear to see a number of elements are after being taken care of quite neatly but moreover what really caught my eye was how it communicated aaron yeager's character in a rather unconventional but incredibly engaging way typically speaking in traditional shonen storytelling the main character normally carries with them some attribute that makes them special or gives them agency over the story being told think luffy's devil fruit power or goku saiyan genetics in other words broadly speaking all characters can fall under two broad character types or categories with those categories being reactionary characters and active characters neither one of these categories is better than the other by default they just offer different pros and cons to their respective stories which means choosing which category your protagonist falls into is incredibly important to your series success the perfect examples of exemplary reactionary characters in the protagonistic roles can be observed through characters like saitama from one punch man or gohan from dragon ball z both of these characters are incredibly engaging in their own unique ways but what they share in common is that their wow or interest factors come not necessarily from how they engage with the world or make decisions but instead how they react to and subsequently deal with the stresses the world they dwell within presents them gohan is put into situations he otherwise doesn't want to see and those stresses cause him to become the character people remembered him for in the context of attack on titan mikasa ackerman is a terrific reactionary character however when she tries to enforce her own agency over the narrative in other words tries to be an active protagonist it normally doesn't end well for her [Music] on the other hand an active character doesn't wait for the plot to arrive at their doorstep normally they dictate or make decisions that bring them closer to conflict themselves in other words these characters drive the plot think characters like luffy or vegeta both are very different and offer different functions within their respective stories but both during their runs enact their own agency and will that oftentimes create story progression or conflict within the plot and this would be about the time where i would draw attention to active characters within attack on titan's world but i'm not going to do that and that's primarily because attack on titan doesn't have any active characters really to speak of and the reason why i bring this up at all is because hajime isayama with the main protagonist of aaron yeager elected to write him as an active character in a world that forces him to be reactionary his character structure literally mimics humanity's struggle against the titans throughout the first two episodes aaron's contempt for the lazy the complacent and for the titans is there for all to see clearly with this contempt burns an intense desire to bring forth change the world he feels trapped within however he has no power and these are the circumstances isa yama decides to introduce the inciting incident that will inform the rest of aaron's life with suddenly an abnormally tall titan for the first time in the collective memory of mankind peers over those incubating and now protective walls before smashing an enormous hole through the outer perimeter of shin and china and as a result any sense of control or security in aaron jaeger's life comes quite literally crashing down around him this is one of the most raw and brutal scenes in all of attack on titan forming and while i'm sure not many would agree as there are far more brutal or harrowing circumstances later on this scene was the catalyst that awakens an imbalance and anger within aaron that informs every single action he takes thereafter this is the first of many sobering realizations aaron is confronted by in the series and for me one of the most powerful once again exhibiting his active protagonistic characteristics aaron immediately does everything in his power to free his mother from beneath the debris ignoring all the chaos around him even going as far to instruct the demonstrably stronger mikasa to aid in this effort with all hopes seemingly lost isayama sees fit in this moment to inject a hint of hope to the character of hanes representing thus far in the story security and safety within the walls hanas announces that there's nothing to fear and that he will save aaron his mother carla and mikasa without delay this is the moment attack on titan sets itself apart from most other anime and so with the small injection of hope and optimism the story is now primed to freefall into the anguish and hopelessness isayama has set as its target from the very beginning coming to realize that he's facing certain death hanus takes carla's dying wish in saving both aaron and mikasa against their will as they flee from the approaching titan aaron now with zero agency over even his own actions is forced to bear witness to the horrifying scenes that to this day are still etched vividly onto his mind as aaron is forced to look on he witnesses his mother's struggle yet killed and ultimately devoured by the most dangerous entity in this fictional world in this scene aaron is confronted by the reality that he is not strong enough whether it's through persuasion or physical action no matter how hard he seems to struggle he is a puppet that is forced to dance to the whims of the horrid circumstances that befall them fostering a deep and powerful hatred for these enemies of humanity within aaron to now set his sights on overcoming and in a powerful moment that's encapsulated within the second episode aaron loudly declares and vows that he will slaughter every single last one of them in this first episode we've learned a litany of different facts about this world we've been introduced to and have gotten to know all of the main characters to varying degrees we've been given a strong motivation a grim set of circumstances some terrifying antagonists and a carrot that has been dangled in front of her collective faces before being gently lifted away or has it as an audience we are met with one horrific incident after the next our main characters orphaned hundreds of thousands dead and a massive chunk of land relinquished to the might of the titans now that we are familiar with what needs to be done and the herculean effort it will require to successfully reclaim what was once lost isa yama introduces us to the next section of this epic tale [Music] the 104th training corps the 104th training core arc of attack on titan is for me the most telling and perhaps one of the shortest arcs in the series in this hajime isayama establishes and emphatically demonstrates without any uncertainty what the focus of attack on titan is going to be it's easily recognized that the manga or anime industry enjoys school or training to act as a mainstay backdrop or primary setting for many of its most successful stories right off the top of my head i can think of several that fit that building in effect there's an entire industry built around that very concept due to how successful it is and it is so for good reason it's relatable and as such offers ample opportunity for meaningful characterization in both the main and extended cast making it extremely valuable for a writer to help bond their reader base with their world of colorful characters however as i touched on earlier because the world of attack on titan isn't meant to be comfortable or relatable in this way as a result it seems as though isayama made this training arc as short as he possibly could lasting only two episodes in the anime and two chapters in the manga we followed the progression of aaron mikusa armin as well as a litany of new cadets brought into the supporting cast as they train and prepare for the day that they join the military and defend humanity from the titans there are pros and cons to this decision and depending on what you think is more important within a story ironically will dictate what side of this wall you stand one of the major criticisms leveled against attack on titan particularly during season 1 was its lack of meaningful character interactions and development and i think it's easy to see why with its regimented focus on plot progression narrative slate of hand and thematic messaging attack on titan perhaps more so than any other popular japanese story doesn't bask in or enjoy the benefits provided by the relatable settings that seldom present themselves within the story and this narrative decision on top of having obvious upsides for pacing and cliffhanger placement also yields its downsides which really only present themselves in any obvious way when an emotional response is called upon later in the story not having spent any meaningful time with a significant number of these characters really at this point flashbacks to their training days often depict interactions we never saw during this point in the story one clear example of this comes from season 2 wherein jon reflects upon berthold's apparently strange sleeping pose nostalgically this creates a massive dissonance for viewers who want to relate to what jon is saying in that moment but can't because for them this apparent regular occurrence was never shared with us during this brief window into their time spent during the 104th training regiment however in saying that this doesn't mean that meaningful character development isn't present within this section of the story at all in fact some of my favorite developments for characters came from this very section and it all kicks off on day one of the 104th training core despite not having even cleared that alone perfected any of the first obstacles in his training journey when questioned by inquisitive cadets like connie or thomas about the colossal titan and armored titan that destroyed his home perhaps to aaron's surprise he has to hold back his shock and tears before once again brandishing the persona of someone he wants to be however this time someone sees through his act [Music] the first person that takes aaron to task is a confident john kerstein and he's probably my favorite character from this section of the story and perhaps even the entire season his personality is believable pragmatic and above all else realistic making him the perfect foil for aaron's headstrong and possibly dangerously blind optimism however interestingly the initial conflict and subsequent conversations john and aaron share comes across as appreciably different in the manga than it did in its anime adaptation in the anime eren seems to dominate the conversation and sounds the most convincing however the manga boasts a much more nuanced perspective with jon having a lot more to take aaron the task with citing his dangerous mindset possibly leading to the deaths of his friends and impressionable acquaintances unlike aaron jean doesn't have any desire to enlist in the survey core much less fight titans he views the walls as very much a temporary fleeting luxury to enjoy before their inevitable collapse in other words he's defeatist he accepts his circumstances and makes the best of it the exact opposite of aaron and so joining the military police is of paramount importance to jean and this is just the first of a number of significant differences the anime has made to the source material it's difficult conversations like this one with jean that honestly made this section of the story so enjoyable for me having seen what ground zero was like it's interesting getting to see what other perspectives have to offer and how what they heard differs greatly to what actually happened thanks to sensationalism it's a minor aspect to the story that goes a long way in helping create an atmosphere of a more fleshed out and believable world and how they affect our protagonist when reality hits him in the face this shake in his confidence this sudden dip in his belief in himself while fleeting and short-lived grants us a sobering unnecessary look into the mind of who aaron truly is at this time in his life he's now confronted with the question what if he can't do this had this been goku or luffy in the same scenario they wouldn't have let the setback phase them in the slightest they would have just viewed it optimistically as something they need to overcome eventually because that's what their natural mindset is but for aaron this confidence he projects is an act not just to everyone around him but also as we saw when confronted about the fall of shinkanshina is also something he's lying to himself about in other words there's a sprinkling of doubt there the one thing that sets aaron apart from everyone else is his desire to achieve and be the change he wants to see in the world and now after having graduated aaron stands atop the walls of the troths district in his eyes he and his fellow cadets have all transformed from children into competent soldiers ready to enact change onto the world the battle for trust district the battle for trust district is attack on titan's most important arc thematically and what impressed me the most about it isn't so much its continued shouldering of the established narrative from the prior episodes and chapters but more so how it forces all of us to collectively wake up to what the real story being told here actually is in this arc along with the rest of the main cast we experience all the same shock terror and awe that these characters we've come to know do for me the battle of trust isn't so much the continuation of this story but instead the hijacking of a brand new one in the first few episodes hajime isayama focused on establishing his tight-knit cast of characters and with the same loving touch only george r.r martin could enjoy isa yama forced us to watch all of those bright-eyed and optimistic characters face the grim reality of the cruel world he's created though much like life it's not entirely devoid of hope entirely soldiers like sasha after having been established in the prior chapters provide the comedic relief amidst a sea of tension and anger for me she represents joy in this series instead of droning on about the plight of the world she often in scenes focuses on what excites her or what she's looking forward to most she believes in a future that's realistic and this scene right at the top of the trost arc is my favorite sasha scene from season one many including myself upon seeing this scene for the very first time notice it as aaron's defining coming-of-age standoff against the enemy of mankind and the one responsible for bringing his world to ruin and this is quite standard for anime and as people we always try to search for commonalities as well as patterns of behavior that might help us make sense of new situations it's for this very reason popular media is scared to do anything too experimental why risk doing something creative if you have something that works right now and so when i watched this scene on my very first time going around aaron both impressed me and filled me with excitement as he rated himself to face off against this world's most dangerous opponent the colossal titan however now looking back at it i love it for an entirely different reason because it highlights that there's no one right way to approach something and that just because he's the main character it doesn't mean that the decisions that he ultimately makes will lead him in the right direction for after the colossal titan arrives on the scene instead of being in the mindset to look after his friends or to save samuel from falling to his death aaron instead much like everyone else is in shock leaving sasha as the only one to save her fellow cadet from his meeting with the pavement and what's aaron's first move when he snaps out of it accompanied by a fittingly cinematic and emphatic musical track aaron attempts to rally his comrades and charge the colossal titan alone and it's that attention to detail and conflict that i adore about attacking titan it feels as though when i'm reading or watching this story that there's a tremendous amount of effort after going into communicating every aspect of the story to me for instance unlike the other new recruits that brandish their military shirts aaron maintains wearing the shirts synonymous with his hometown of shigen china reflecting the very reality of this scene itself and as a subtle visual indicator of isayama's morally complicated approach moving forward with the rest of this mini arc in trust reminding me of one of my favorite writers from hollywood pete docter he's one of the writers behind films like toy story inside out and up and in 2015 pete sat down to discuss his process and approach to creative writing and in doing so said something that i thought captured the spirit of isiah's approach to writing attack on titan perfectly monsters started at about the same time the kid did as i was working on the film i was like this is great and then my wife would say he smiled for the first time and you missed it i want to be in both places but i can't and that really is what became the story the sort of emotional backbone of monsters you know it's that impossible struggle with no answer that i think makes for good stories the more particular and specific you are in the storytelling the more generally it applies right if you try to generalize then nobody really gets anything but if you're very specific and personal about it it seems to resonate more there are no straightforward answers things do not go according to plan and even if you work hard to achieve your dreams it doesn't make you entitled to achieving those dreams having spent the last four episodes establishing a tragic backstory for its main character a compelling antagonistic force to fight against and has shown a team of young likeable characters work hard training for a better tomorrow in the battle for trust we learned that attack on titan isn't concerned with adhering to tradition or cliche i am now looking at this scene for what feels like the 10th time in a row now and i can't help but recall the sheer shock and awe i felt during my very first viewing of it however looking at it now while my familiarity with the material has disarmed its shock value it instead for me at the very least hammers homes something much more important for us as viewers and readers to take away having spent years training going through hell and back after having convinced all of his closest friends in the military to give up their lives of safety in the name of freedom aaron yeager watches his entire unit get taken out one by one and eaten before his very eyes and even though aaron manages to save armin in one of the most stunning and tenacious sequences in the first season he too crumbles to the weight of the task being asked of him is he a hero well there's a little more to it those of you that have seen this whether you're a fan or not of this moment are no doubt thinking at this time yeah this moment was sort of cool but it gets completely undervalued by the fact that he comes back a couple episodes later thanks to a newly discovered mysterious ability i can absolutely see this point of view and if i'm being completely honest these talking points were certainly shared between myself and friends of the series back in 2013 when we were discussing it however 2021 mark has to strongly disagree because whether or not aaron came back aaron tried his best and he lost and not just that but he specifically ignored the warnings everyone around him offered in favor of believing that he had some insight that no one else had when in reality in the end he wasn't even remotely enough to change a single thing beyond saving his one friend and no amount of getting a second chance can take away from that fact of the moment those characters are gone and they're gone forever he tried his best and wasn't even remotely enough because of him a large number of his friends died and even more have joined the survey corps putting their own lives at great risk for the cause he was so confident he could reach in this moment aaron is shown to be the dangerous delusional child jean so accurately labeled him earlier in the story a fair distance from the triumphant hero he was depicted as seconds prior somewhat interestingly now that aaron the main driving force behind the narrative takes a back seat the supporting cast gets to explore their role and in many ways get to lead the charge in scenes that eventually today among to some of my absolute favorites within this very story particularly with the characters of mikasa john and armin these three characters more than any other are explored in great detail within this section again initially upon first viewing i was excited and interested by the prospect of aaron acting as a distraction to the true main character i suspected in mikasa and when it was revealed that aaron was to in fact return i couldn't help but feel concerned with how the story would handle the addition of further exploration into the supporting cast know that they had to share time with erin and on top of that distinguish themselves while participating in a set of almost identical problems or circumstances and so the question became how do you make these people stand out well with three characters isa yama decided to individualize or identify the three characters by creating very different emotional problems for them to overcome rooted respectively in their past present and future concerns in what i originally believed to be mikasa's main character moment revealing her backstory instead became a portal into the day she met aaron for the very first time illuminating for us these past scars that inform the person she is today bringing to the forefront of the narrative this struggle she engages with to find meaning in her life not replacing aaron but reaching out to find resolve and purpose in a world without him the only family she had left and held on to fondly it's a telling set of circumstances and one that speaks largely into the psyche of mikasa's character jean on the other hand isn't haunted by any scars from something that happened to him long ago but instead is faced with figuring out who he is in the here and now having been initially headstrong in his decision to join the military police john is forced to contend with the dangers of the front lines is tasked with leading his comrades to safety and made to provide answers in impossible situations to an ever dwindling group of trainee cadets beneath him jean's development is honestly this arc's shining achievement in terms of arc progression i believe taking a once apathetic soldier and through trial by fire transforming him into a sympathetic leader that sees the true value he can provide to the people in his command that otherwise would have almost certainly lost their lives that day without his ability to make quick and pragmatic decisions in this battle for trust jean learns that he's not destined for a cushy life in the interior but instead is needed in the survey corps and it's this struggle or standing in the face of terrifying reality and ultimately a decision that makes jon one of the most relatable and well-handled characters in the first season of this story for me with the scene he forces himself to stay when called upon by airwin acting as one of my favorites not just in this section not just in this arc but the entire story as a whole and finally we have aaron who much like jean shines like few others all the while playing up to the strengths of his character ever since being introduced at the very beginning alongside characters like eren and mikasa armin has very much struggled with his sense of self-worth and during this intense battle armin grapples with his perception of himself and who he ultimately wants to be in the future up until this point in the story we've dealt with primarily our established caste and their conflict against the titan threat thus far in the series titans have provided a fantastic antagonistic foil to battle against allowing isayama to establish and introduce the main characters and elements within the story however now after having familiarized ourselves with all the necessary trainee characters and after demonstrating that the enemy is far greater than we could have possibly prepared for we finally get a glimpse at the nuance politics and fear that lurk within the minds of the broader military within this world all the while placing a tremendous amount of pressure on armin's intellect and on top of this being a phenomenally directed episode in the anime that is just as exciting as any action sequence with it just being a conversation it also acts as another terrific example of world building within attack on titan which i think is one of its biggest strengths whether it be learning how the military operates getting to know the higher-ups or seeing people chit-chat on the streets the battle for trust more than anything else introduces us to the real story being told here this is a series that once it establishes a rule it adheres to them under real world logic it doesn't matter who you are or who you think you are you still need to convince the minds around you if you want their help or understanding upon re-watching this section of the story i was struck not just by the amazing dialogue from the main characters but also from the background characters episode 6 has a really touching scene wherein we get a peek into the perspective of a mother and daughter saved by mikasa mutterings like the mother's words comforting her daughter like papa will shoot all the titans with his cannons is small but it does an immense amount of leg work when it comes to building up the world attack on titan is set reinforcing that there are children and families behind every single life lost due to the invading titan threat and while the battle for trust yielded many casualties humiliations and took from aaron his expectation to say the least it also offers another element a chess piece that no one has ever had on their side of the board has suddenly made itself visible to them aaron can now wield the power of a titan however as i've just shown it's easy to empathize with the fear every soldier here is demonstrating they all have families or something worth living for why risk something so valuable one of the many themes explored during this portion of the series at large is that of fear and how people choose to deal with it for better or worse and an aspect to the story i relish and adore is how it tries in earnest to adhere to real world logic and atmosphere where it can and few other scenes prior to this one capture that reality for me in the same phenomenal goosebump-inducing way that this scene did all the while we struggled to make sense of this situation in real time with the characters on screen hoping and praying for armin to pull off a miracle in the face of certain death looking at attack on titan i'm sure many fans might label mikasa as the foil to aaron within their group she brushes him the wrong way very often and she's clearly capable of feats that he wishes he was capable of however interestingly upon doing my research for this video i noticed that along with aaron being a great example of an unsuccessful active protagonist struggling in this world armin is on the other hand a very natural and although reluctant successful reactionary character and as this series progresses i think it makes perfect sense how these two end up even looking at them right now in this season one unlike typical shonen protagonists that brandish some supernatural power armin arms himself with strategy and quick thinking in episode 10 similar to how gohan will be forced into situations he would otherwise try to avoid armin is forced to use his superpower and reacts to the dire circumstances appropriately whether that takes place as he and his friends are cornered in a courtyard or in the case of this scene helped to orchestrate the successful recapture of trust armin is quite literally the opposite of aaron aaron the eager agent struggling to enact change in a world that refuses to yield and armin the reluctant hero that naturally finds his footing when faced with the adversity the world presents his way and for me it was that element to armin's character that made him the most relatable person in the series he's very clearly flawed and struggling with fear something that most people can relate to i would imagine many people might not closely identify with the relentless psychotic tenacity of aaron and the athletic perfection that is mikusa and watching over the course of this series as armin transforms from the skittish nerd to the heroic strategist is for me one of the most satisfying experiences and really the primary reason as to why he is my favorite character within this story the female titan in season one the first few episodes set up the main characters and the battle for tross sets up the broader world within the walls we're exploring and then the second half of season one begins and the training wheels come flying off eve of the counter attack the 57th exterior scouting mission the female titan and assault on stowheast these are the arcs that make up the second half of season 1 and while the aforementioned sections that make up the beginning of the series build upon each other and could work as standalone stories these new upcoming arcs depend on each other and work together to achieve a specific aura for the readers and viewers one that i believe is the defining trait of attack on titan's narrative the mystery that informs the action right beneath the surface as i mentioned towards the beginning of this video a challenge that isiyama was confronted with early on was how to best communicate the strengths of attack on titan's narrative all within the confines of a single opening episode in other words how to create a short-term payoff and in the end i thought he did exceptionally well in solving that problem but little did we know the level of proficiency and masterful subversive skills that were right around the corner unburdened by the constraints of the first episode's runtime and the shackles of a typical shonen plot isayama in this section dove nape first into the military-themed kaiju thrashing political mystery thriller he so carefully has set up however looking back on my first ever viewing of this season in 2013 i have to admit that while exhilarating to see unfold so so many details fell by the wayside for me and in one way isayama was counting on that unbeknownst to me and perhaps many of you dozens of clues had already been advertised in order to prime us for the reveals and surprises that will eventually come to our attention down the road however on first viewing i found it to be somewhat overwhelming at times in this season dozens and dozens of new characters are introduced relationships are established and political and military hierarchies are presented to us as well as a bizarre set of natural and unnatural enemies that make the world of attack on titan so interesting and that's not even to make mention of the anime eye catches that you literally have to pause in order to read no one can read all of that in three seconds i refuse to believe that i'm i'm not bad at reading i promise even today thinking back on all the manga and anime i've watched i've never in my leisure read a story that's demanded so much from its audience in a way i think this is sort of like mutual respect isyam is making the story as rich and as dense as it needs to be in order to tell this story faithfully and he trusts us to look and listen closely with the added benefit of this being when you sit back and decide you want to watch the series again it plays out almost like an entirely different experience with the power of hindsight you'll notice suspicious conversations with annie and even during the training corps errands tighten healing on full display as the steam freely floats from his head after he takes that notorious fall with his odm gear and all of this is only possible to enjoy on a second viewing which is really where the phenomenal power of attack on titan's writing can be fully appreciated levi is a phenomenal and traditional shonen character after being introduced to him and his no-nonsense treatment during the first half during this particular section levi proves to be one of the most important characters for us as an audience to understand and connect with in a story where bucking the tropes became a regular occurrence having a familiar and easier to understand character like levi felt a little bit like home to me and while i wouldn't consider attacking titan a show that has made me emotional very often the only character that's managed to evoke that sort of connection from me has been levi and they got an emotional response from me once in the manga and twice in the anime through his character little scenes like exploring how levi would react towards his subordinates death beds grabbing their hands or retrieving something for them after a hard fought battle these stand in direct contrast with the nonchalant tough guy persona he admonishes on the surface he's fun to watch for his titan slaying abilities yes but he's easier to cheer for because we understand who he is very easily unfortunately isayama leverages that fact too in the story very quickly in 2013 this captured my mind like few other instances i can think of having focused so intently on the conflicts with the perilous outside world i never considered that there would be a noteworthy threat inside the walls mysteries are the bread and butter of attack on titan and as such these mysteries depend on the story's ability to adhere to the rules established within the world they take place if you break existing rules the audience feels cheated if you didn't give the audience enough information they feel cheated if it doesn't make sense in the end the audience feels cheated and rightfully so in this journey outside the walls irwin's planet and his infiltration as the traitor irwin's looking for is handled to near perfection a sign of a great reveal surprise or mystery is seen in how our impression of the characters involved either changes or remains the same if a surprise is handled poorly normally it falls due to the incompetence of a particular villain or a flub by the writers looking to work their way out of a hole that they've created in dragon ball super's goku black arc tons of time is spent establishing how time travel works how the final battle is set up and how it resolves but in the end under its own logic it still makes no sense leaving fans to think that the characters are either strange foolish or nonsensical which is exactly what attack on titan didn't do here instead of providing the necessary exposition to us through dialogue we're instead shown how this mystery works and where all the pieces for this puzzle work because everything in attack and titan that isn't addressed works under real world logic it makes sense as to why erwin surprised aaron and asked if he knew who the traitor was right after bean and sonny were killed because aaron couldn't have been involved and was with hanji all night talking about titan theory in addition to that erwin releases potentially sensitive information regarding aaron's basement in chicago because he wants the next expedition to involve this traitor he suspects of being in their midst and he feeds everyone incorrect information regarding the position of aaron all in an effort to corner the female titan in the forest as we watch this and as we break this down even the entire operation that erwin has concocted here comes across as ingenious for him despite his ultimate failure which came about due to his lack of information concerning the female titan's secret abilities and so in the end this scene serves to successfully paint irwin as the risk-taking strategic genius he's supposed to be written to be and we know this because it was demonstrated not because we're told that he's amazing but because we see it for ourselves and in addition to being shocked when i watched this unfold my very first time and my second time all the way through it further served to divert my attention inward and look at the rest of the cast as possible threats instead of exclusively looking outside the walls for humanity's enemy and speaking of humanity's enemies the fight that takes place in the forest between annie and aaron somehow manages to make aaron look monstrous terrifying and awe-inspiring without him landing so much as a single significant strike just a whole bunch of misses grazes and one admittedly heavy but still blocked gut punch by annie and again even here in the moments where you would think that things would be more straightforward attack on titan's foreshadowing strengths are still being followed through running this is the moment aaron hesitated and revealed his humanity and it resulted in yet more loss and more suffering for those he cared about which i think is essential to keep in mind for now furthermore and somewhat interestingly almost immediately after aaron suffers a skull-shattering loss and kidnapping to annie in trying to take the initiative mikasa ultimately highlights her flaw cam and composed most of the time but as soon as aaron's life is put at risk she throws caution to the wind and places her life on the line which again something like this would be rewarded in most shonen but not attack on titan instead levi is there to reprimand her and to further highlight how unreasonable she's being by this time levi had lost his entire squad on this mission and mikasa still had a chance to save aaron despite this she acted hastily and as a direct result of that foolishness injured humanity's best human weapon levi despite the promising results that surfaced from a fantastic writing effort on isiyama in the end this outing highlighted how woefully underprepared they all were for the enemies beyond the walls and all the more humanizing as after their efforts they returned to insult despair and ridicule this entire sequence is honestly phenomenal and gets better the more you watch it the level of detail and polish in the story is frighteningly precise and the visuals are stunning assault on stohes one aspect of this story that honestly struck me as an improvement over the mangas was how it slightly changed scenes included new ones and improved the flow of information to the viewers such that the dramatic moments became all the more dramatic one very clear instance where i leapt from my seat with joy was with aaron being eaten in episode 5. by the time that happened in the manga we really hadn't spent all that much time with aaron as a character and it felt as though if that was it his time spent was somewhat pointless and thus the feeling that this was really it for aaron felt less likely as a result in the manga there was no sort of closure apart from the titan's mouth however in the anime by the time aaron meets his cruel fate he had become something of an emotional leader within his friend group and training corps in other words he had impressed upon mikasa and armin enough to make it a possibility that he in fact could have died and served a purpose within the greater narrative which is i think why this scene worked as well as it did for so many as a fake out in the anime and similarly regarding annie's fight with aaron in stores in the manga right before he transforms in retaliation to annie aaron finds himself unable to become a titan but after some brief reflection and some sobering words from mikusa he erupts from beneath the floor and lands a massive blow onto annie this is perfectly fine but i think the anime did it slightly better while also playing into the themes and future fate of aaron's character in eye-opening ways in the anime the flare for the dramatic is emphasized even further he can't transform for longer we learn why and all the while he gets trapped and impaled but needs some rubble due to this unforeseen hiccup the military and his friends all have to scramble for a contingency plan while he has his reservations all of these delays and grim circumstances compound the initial vision of that scene in the manga and once aaron does transform we don't see it all we see are flashes of him running past buildings windows shattering and the fragile environment of storehe's crumbled to the intensity that he's charging with the first time we see titan aaron is not only is this the first time we see his titan form in this scene but it's the first time he lands a meaningful attack on annie ever and all of these factors culminating in this one scene make it one of the most satisfying punches in the season furthermore this fight acts as a perfect mirror image of their initial fight during the forest battle wherein aaron was very much unable to land a single significant strike all the while annie who was without the function of her arms for much of the fight and the function of her left eye managed to use aaron's own attacks against him but in the battle for stoics aaron is very much a monster seeking out his prey as annie runs for her life interestingly and this is my favorite observation regarding the final fight scene with annie is that aaron's momentary brief hesitation right as he was about to consume annie is the reason she was able to see herself away in the safety of her titan hardening armin even reiterates these exact sentiments to him after the battle during the closing moments of the season 1 finale episode implying that if aaron were to have completely abandoned his humanity and become nothing but a weapon fighting on behalf of humanity things could have turned out different however the fact that annie was the first to be reprimanded and outed as a traitor forced to seed herself away in a crystal is just one of the many tragic and horrific things that befall our main cast in this long and twisted story if the conclusion of the battle of stowhees district has taught us anything is that we've taken the first step to scratch the surface of this cruel world's mysteries okay time out there's a titan behind the wall okay so not only are there enemies outside the walls not only other enemies inside the walls but there are enemies also inside the physical walls when i first saw this this was just the most impossible to comprehend at the time plot swerve that i not only didn't see coming but once again convinced me that i still know only a fraction of what this world really has to offer and the worst part is it went on hiatus for four years [Music] for what i imagine are a large majority of fans on titan's unique animation sits as one of the defining and most beloved aspects of the show from the very first moments of episode 1 audiences are greeted by an astonishing piece of animation as the survey core spiderman their way through the forests to take down a titan there's this sense of three-dimensionality to the movement and i'm not just talking about the gear this scene is our first introduction to arguably the most important name attached to this franchise and the man responsible for crafting attack on titan's trademark action arifumi imai whether you know his name or not you will have almost certainly fallen in love with his work on the show as near enough every iconic scene stems from his hands even if you're watching this video with zero exposure to attack on titan you will have most likely seen his work on the likes of one punch man borroto vindan saga and countless other popular shows heck maybe you've seen his viral fan animation of darth maul and obi-wan because somehow that's a thing and it's amazing the man is honestly everywhere and it's no surprise that he's become a bit of an industry icon in recent years however it's a very specific type of animation that he brings to attack on titan and it's that combination of 3d backgrounds and 2d animation that creates the wild camera work and beyblade madness that defines the show in the pre-production stage the action sequences of attack on titan were originally going to be entirely 3d the show's 3d director shuhei yabuta presented the team with a fully 3d action scene that seriously impressed the staff the series director however tetsuro araki someone who i'll be touching on a little later wasn't quite as impressed he wanted the best of both worlds and insisted on merging traditional animation with the cg action combining 2d in 3d is actually not a new concept and its roots can be traced all the way back to 2003 in naruto's original series a director by the name of toshiyuki tsuru pioneered the concept and its first major appearance can be found in naruto's 48th episode in the iconic battle between gotta and rock lee over the years it's become more and more prominent with it even making an appearance in dragon ball's revival movie battle of gods despite however having a decade to rise in prominence the workflow to achieve this type of animation never really found any sort of logical consistency and that resulted in some hilariously backward tedium you see for a normal animated scene the typical workflow is as follows an animator will draw what is called a layout which is essentially a very rough version of the scene used to convey to your director what your intentions are and to show the background team what they need to paint after this you animate it properly and then it's all composed together for the final version this is all done on pencil and paper up until the coloring stage and that's the norm in the industry contrary to popular belief so when am i popped up and started talking about 3d backgrounds and wild camera work the typical workflow it had to be thrown out the window imai begins his scenes with a very rough layout that showcases how he'd like the animation to play out this is then processed onto the 3d background team who will model this scene and animate a camera fly through for a maya to use to draw his animations within this is where it gets kind of hilarious though instead of transitioning from pencil and paper to a tablet and drawing over the 3d fly through the team would print out the individual frames of the sequence draw the animation over it and then scan it all back in this went on for months they kept using this backwards workflow until an animator called cinda yamaguchi who wasn't even involved in this production saw what they were doing and essentially said this is the dumbest thing i've ever seen in my life why don't you just all start drawing digitally and well that's exactly what they did in my transition over to using a tablet and the workflow became infinitely easier from the next season onwards this bizarre and backwards approach is honestly largely a reflection of the studio behind the series at this point in time with studio is a subsidiary of the very famous production ig responsible for the likes of ghost in the shell standalone complex and psychopaths it was founded by a man called george walla in 2012 and attack on titan was their very first series despite the prestige of being under a banner like ig port the higher ops didn't really know what they were doing or perhaps more critically didn't really care now that's a bold claim but it's not unsubstantiated season 1 ran for 25 episodes but the schedule and number of in-house staff available simply weren't enough to handle such an action-heavy series alone and unfortunately george wada didn't care going as far as to say in an interview all the animators are sitting at their desks all day and all night what saves them from depression is one positive comment from a fan as though this all made it okay this lack of preparation and disregard from the higher ups put a real strain on the show and resulted in nine episodes being outsourced as well as the need for a recap episode halfway through in particular the show's 13th episode fell to pieces with some cuts not being finished in time resulting in some of the most bizarre nonsensical sequences coloring mistakes and questionable art and while this issue persisted through the series resulting in a huge number of corrections for the blu-ray it really came to a head in this episode and goes a long way in explaining the need for a recap immediately after however in spite of these horrific circumstances behind the scenes the show was a gigantic success with its animation being at the forefront of many fans praises which begs the question how is that possible then well thankfully attack on titan is blessed with a very strong core staff of recurring animators many of which there's just simply not enough time to cover we've touched on imai already but another big name is asuyuki ibarra who much like imai works with 3d camera work but also has a real talent for character acting the exceptionally exaggerated melodramas seen here is another of these defining titan traits and that stems from the series director tetsuro araki originally behind the death note anime fans of that show will be immediately familiar with his ability to turn the most mundane conversations into big loud dramatic set pieces it doesn't matter what's happening araki will find a way to turn it into nail-biting goodness and i think that distinctive unabashed style of direction plays a large part in why this series gripped so many people back in the day i mean it's kind of hard to tear your eyes away from the screen when you're being yelled at and his style aside araki's long-standing reputation within the industry meant he had a wealth of contacts to bring in as guest animators to elevate the series visuals episode 7 was outsourced to studio puro which is a funny coincidence given naruto's indirect influence on the action this choice brought in the iconic naoki kobayashi animating aaron's transformation likewise episode 7 brought in hironori tanaka an absolutely legendary animator whose work you will have seen across dozens of stunning shows and he animated the devastating debut of aaron's titan form showing off his ability to animate powerful humanistic movement and delicate character expression now of course a series cannot survive on strong action scenes alone if everything else looks potato so thankfully for attack and titan it's blessed with distinctive designs and a strong animation director to keep the show on model while every anime needs a character designer to adapt its manga counterpart into a version that works for animation isayama's artwork at this point in the series was not as refined as later in the series to say the least usually featuring a lot of hatching and really rough lines and thus this would require a dramatic overhaul to work for anime and that's where kyoji asano comes in as character designer he turned isa yama's designs into polished model sheets for animators to reference in particular he used very thick outlines to reflect the bold line work of the manga while simultaneously making alterations to figure and form for more competent anatomy and recognizability from character to character in the chief animation director role is satoshi kadowaki a very talented animator who used to work a kyoto animation before moving to production ig and eventually wit his job here is to ensure adherence to the model sheets but also to ensure expressions are solid and animation moves the best it can with these two together a solid roster of regular animation directors at their disposal and a powerful group of recurring action animators attack on titan's first season succeeded despite its horrific circumstances behind the scenes it's a triumph against the odds and while it wasn't without its pitfalls as we've addressed it still managed to gain a reputation at the time as one of the coolest looking shows around with the polished blu-ray version readily available these days these pitfalls are largely relegated to the distant memory of the broadcast version now only found on streaming sites like crunchyroll but this is just season one and as the series eventually pushed onwards into new material in 2017 spectacular new visual and narrative spectacle took center stage once again the meteoric rise of the series had been stunted by the four year wait for season two and so the question on everyone's minds at the time was could attack on titan capture that same lightning in a bottle feeling in their sophomore outing the answer no they could only do better season two of attack on titan took a great series and transformed it into one of the best i'd ever experienced bathed in failure mystery and tragedy much like its predecessor however this time there's a small glimmer of hope on the horizon clash of the titans clash of the titans is the longest story arc we've yet covered in this review spanning an entire season in almost five volumes of its manga where the prior season consisted of mainly easily identified mini arc beginnings and endings clash of the titans continues on from the events in the last but in doing so covers one massive incident that unfolds over the course of many flashbacks and earth-shattering revelations because my adoration for the twists and surprises of this series potentially border on the insane what i want to draw attention to and praise first of all is that it gives a much needed exploration into the many side characters surrounding our main trio of armin mikusa and aaron and how does it achieve this well through intense conflict while i didn't recognize or at the very least didn't fully appreciate this on first viewing what i later found interesting about revisiting season two's opening section is that a considerable portion of the story takes place during the events that comprise the assault on stowhes district covered in season one which means all of this is taking place while aaron is dealing with annie and it's aftermath who would have thought that this wasn't the most shocking and awesome thing happening at that time and it's all made possible thanks to the considerate and careful use of flashbacks by hajime isayama and i like this choice for the same reason i'm keen on the use of one piece's flashbacks and the various means with which oda opts to introduce us to and come to better understand the surrounding area for its viewers and readers in any given location one of the most challenging aspects when writing a story is creating or manifesting a world or atmosphere that feels real or potent enough for you to identify with or imagine yourself within if you're not interested in the world the story is taking place in then you may very well be pushed away or left disinterested making world building not only one of the more difficult pieces of narration to effectively employ but also one of the most crucial thankfully however isiama does a phenomenal job in this department and in this season i noticed just how effective he can manage to be when it comes to using the flashbacks as a vehicle for this it forced me to stop thinking of this world as a set of scenes where nothing is happening in the background and instead a deep and dynamic world full of consequence and danger around every corner if annie and aaron were fighting then where were the others what were they doing personally i'm someone that at all costs tries to avoid spoilers and when i heard that season 2 was coming i hid like there was no tomorrow from all of my social medias for ages and the result was the utter shock and awe i felt when i first laid my eyes on the beast type i didn't know mike as a character all that well but as the number two of the scouts behind levi and skill getting to witness the fate that befell him as the beast titan interrogates and ultimately disposes of him with truly horrifying in all the best ways furthermore after having outed annie as a shifter i was fully anticipating the next individuals that would come to the surface to be the armored and colossal titans however instead isayama opted to show this brand new hairy boy making me feel all sorts of intimidated and confused at the same time i wasn't sure as to what was going on and where this story was even going at this point exactly where he wanted me to be however this is where things got a little more complicated than they had been thus far in the story having to jump to and fro from point of view character to point of view character as they surveyed the neighboring towns to help evacuate and to try to locate the hole all the while being sucked into flashback after flashback i think particularly in the anime which added even more flashbacks than the manga had already served to kill the pacing for me in some areas as well as sprinkle some confusion in there on my first viewing despite this i still think that what's added offers more positive than negatives by a wide margin i'm not sure if i mentioned it yet but i love sasha and i love these chapters specifically once again isa yama didn't explain to me why she was worth admiring or showing respect for but instead demonstrated to us why she is a phenomenally courageous and interesting character all in her own scene rich with backstory immediate conflict and moments of true altruistic heroism now after season 1 i enjoyed sasha's character i thought her comedic potato bit that made everyone meme about it was fun but the primary reason i found my initial fondness for her was after what she did to save samuel however with that said she was still comfortably at that point in the category of needs more spotlight in order for me to fully engage with her as a character and boy in this season does she i love this self-contained episode so much i'm inclined to say that it's a dark horse for best episode amidst this supremely strong season's other installments in this one episode i went from feeling lukewarm on sasha to her being one of my favorite characters with a flashback that explores how and why she came to overcome her prejudices regarding outsiders figuring out where the importance of community and kindness truly lies and we see sasha change from someone who would have once ran to protect herself and contrast that with a sasha that we now can see makes use of the strengths that she has to protect others that cannot protect themselves it's a powerful story with some horrific and beautiful imagery it's emotional it's tense and it's probably my favorite episode from this season but not my favorite piece of character development the beginning of this arc is quite dynamic and somewhat frantic given that the scouts are largely fractured into smaller groups each with their own individual missions concerning evacuation and checking out the wall for breaches top to bottom some of the imagery particularly in the dark of the night as the scouts worry about what might be lurking out there and the dark of the dingy castle they eventually find themselves in all of this both in the manga and the anime serves to really capture the horror aspect of the series and it's in these moments of panic we finally get to explore a character that up until this point hadn't even received a name in the manga yet and that person is yamir once again i have to admit that when i first delve into season two the individual's smaller scope character flashback stuff left me somewhat unsatisfied and to tell you the truth if you had asked me a few years ago after my first viewing which i preferred season one or two i think i might have said season one quite confidently however now after having revisited it and after having taken a closer look at how it works i adore this dynamic ymir is shown to have with historia who up until this point i had only ever really known as the nervous girl that gave sasha help during training that one time however what's interesting about them isn't necessarily their communication or what their personalities are that made their dynamic so fruitful within the story for me it's instead how their characters clash and inform the act they're each undergoing separately in other words it makes sense why amir is the way that she is and thus makes sense why she is drawn to historia and through a very eye-opening flashback we see that the sweet girl of historia is actually willing to kill herself and by extension daz just to appear like a good person to the others before she dies and on the other side of the coin historia eventually recognizes the weakness in a mirror that she didn't think that she has neither of them are living for themselves however their respective dynamics and challenges push each other to become more well-rounded and secure characters upon second and third viewings i enjoyed their portion of the story so so much that i'd even posit that there's a strong argument to be made that their journey and story in this season is easily the most underappreciated component of it taking two characters one of which i hadn't even heard of and another that i had almost totally forgotten about managing to explore their lives and backstory so brilliantly that i ended up not only caring about them but also found it to be immeasurably fascinating when breaking it all down upon my revisit and also this was awesome now this is a small and somewhat surface level observation but this instance among many others helped me appreciate that this season gave me much more than i was anticipating even on my first go-around the series had already hooked me with its premise and its existing titan threat alone but the fact that this continued to drip feed more and more information leading to different and newer titan shifters being revealed felt exhilarating to sit and gawk at in amazement the beast titan and now this new gremlin-like titan that emir is brandishing to defend the castle with gave me more questions than i ever could have dreamt of particularly after reiner confronts amir as she reads some supplies she finds in the castle brandishing a language those within the walls apparently shouldn't be familiar with at that point i'm like what does that even mean who are these people where did these suppliers come from when can they transform why do they all look different why do some of them want to take out humanity within the walls and why do others defend them and what would have happened if amir wasn't there to have made the save that day i'm sorry in advance for my gushing regarding this upcoming section but this literally brought attack on titan from a 9 out of 10 to a 10 out of 10 for me and look listen i adore one piece but it wasn't my first love attacking titan gave me that big heavy foreshadowing surprise first and for that reason it would always hold a special place in my heart so get this right i adore this scene more than i thought was humanly possible for a man to love flashing colors on a digital screen i was unreasonably excited holy [ __ ] oh my god okay it's happening oh man but that came with problems not with the execution of the story those are okay no we don't talk about improving this scene it's perfect the problems i had came about because season two took so long to come out instead of watching this scene with my friends and family that i had before i was watching it alone and i had no one to talk about this earth-shattering revelation with in a way despite my forever alone set of circumstances at the time this yielded a massive benefit in that it forced me to reconvince my family and friends to cut the series again which meant that i too would watch along with them and that's when i realized that to fully appreciate this series it needs to be consumed once blind and then re-watched as you're armed with all the greater understanding the plot has provided you with never in all of my life up until that point had i been as blown away by a story this show that i had been such a massive fan of for five years at that point demonstrated to me that not only was it brilliant but it was so in ways i never once noticed what these unveiling or mask off moments for the characters of attack on titan are among the most expertly and carefully handled that i've come across certainly the most numerous and isayama achieves this by perfectly managing what the audience is explicitly told and implicitly told in short explicitly informing your audience of a given plot point is exposition this can be seen through annie outing herself as the female titan through aaron popping out of his titan's nape or levi showing us that he's a great soldier these are all pieces of information that explicitly inform us through no uncertain terms that annie is the female titan aaron is also a titan shifter and levi is a badass but this isn't what impressed me tons of stories have these climactic moments of revelation but what makes them work or brilliant however is how they are foreshadowed through implicit information being strategically given to us throughout the story to put it simply implicit pieces of info are the uncertain but curious behaviors or choices made by certain characters or components within your story that if you had been paying attention or suspicious could very easily have pointed you in the direction of their true intention and it's through this analysis of when and how this use of implicit communication we begin to understand the scope of the story and the benefits an author like isayama can enjoy when he understands how the story is going to end from day one this is why attacking titan is a show worth watching from the start a second time at the least it's an entirely different experience running back through the story with my friends and family now armed with an understanding of who was who and where the story was going my mind was free to pay attention to details outside of the plot i was left utterly speechless and in awe of the sheer number of implicit hints i missed out on whether it be keith shadis waltzing right past all of the titan shifters on induction day their curious placement in the second op how suddenly interested reiner was in aaron's titan before we knew it was aaron how annie found out where aaron was in the scouting formation in the end all of the sketchy hint-filled conversations they have and can we talk about the cans again all those are only a small few of the dozens of hints we were given concerning the true nature of reiner bertolt and annie however for many reiner and berthold's ultimate reveal as the culprits behind shingencine's fall stand as some of the most unique and shocking the series has to offer i spoke about the director of this series briefly before but his flair for the germanic really helped to elevate for comparison's sake and his mask off moment and soon to follow transformation thereafter in season one it's cinematic and it's a thunderous moment for what might be annie's biggest moment in the series however with regards to reiner and bertolt this reveal broke my brain and i think it did so for two very important and clearly identifiable reasons the most obvious identifier within this revelation has to be how understated it is when said alongside other important moments in the series even other big revelations like annie's the difference in staging is clear for all to see it's clear the director of this episode wants there to be a chance that you could have missed this moment entirely it's not the focus of the scene and even in the manga isayama has reiner reveal all of this information to aaron in the background with the focus being on other characters this serves to put us as audience members into the minds of the scouts much like many of them we did not see this being the time or place for such a reveal and certainly not in such a straightforward manner which ultimately serves to create the second and most powerful component that makes this scene work like it did and that's contrast due to the low-key nature of the unveiling once things start to kick off with mikasa almost killing them both their ultimate transformations are made to feel all the more monumental and titanic thanks to this very understated build up and to paint a picture for you i was off my seat dancing and cheering as aaron lamented the loss of his friends and shifted into a savage anger-filled titan lunging forward with intent to kill worth mentioning at this point also is that there's a marked improvement in this section's manga material compared to the earlier volumes where the artwork was to isiyama's own estimations memorably bad in these sequences however the panels are emphatic and thoughtfully composed so much so that during my research for this video i for the first time in my research got sucked into reading further than i needed to on more than one occasion but unfortunately this improvement in the manga comes at the cost of the anime's adaptation while i think 3d can be used well to complement 2d animation in a variety of interesting ways if handled correctly i do not think that what season two and even what later on in the series demonstrates can be described as anything other than immensely distracting and that's me being charitable made all the more evident as it stands in direct contrast with one of the most well animated fight sequences this series has to offer reiner versus erick [Music] there's a great story being told here of how aaron is forced to employ restrained strategy and patience to contend with the stronger and more durable armored type all the while the scouts have to figure out burn burn to the ground yeah i don't think i've been more amped up for a fight than i was for aaron vs reiner and i certainly have never seen a fight like this attempted in an anime before and while in recent years i have brought in my horizons in that regard i have yet to see a fight handle mixed martial arts better and more impressively than this did like today i watched two mma guys break down this very fight and it was awesome did you know that this takedown that aaron does was called an osotogaddi well i do now and it's thanks to these guys and attack on titan i guess takedowns triangle chokes armbars guillotines and variations on takedown defense this fight takes all the components of a fight that more casual observers might describe as boring in mma and throughout this fight educates a general audience on the strategy utility and the entertainment value found within a fight like this serving not only to make a fantastic fight but offer it a distinct and unique flavor in a series that up until this point had fights which were composed largely of kicking punching and missing punching [Music] within a story like this there's always something in the future for us as an audience to hang on for isayama will always have a series of medium and short term mysteries to drag us along with like will they retrieve aaron from the warriors why are they there and who's the beast titan despite all of these at some point or another being answered there is always a long-term question hanging in the air for us too while this section is largely composed of action intense character exchanges massive set pieces and one massive emotional question mark at the end what managed to captivate me during this dynamic pursuit was less so the action and more so how nuanced and believable all of the main players behaved take amir for example thanks to the prior flashbacks we understand where her allegiances lie and thus in talking to reiner she starts working with them because she believes that what historia currently has is unsustainable that she doesn't have a future within these walls so not only is this a believable motivation that informs the crucial decision she ultimately makes but it also helps to paint a grim picture for where reiner and bertholdt are from originally there's also this tremendous character moment for irwin who while leading his squad gets taken by a titan only two okay look i know this is a fictional world but good god almighty would i follow that man through the gates of hell another example of nuance and meaning found in this sequence has to be berthold's conflicted and guilt-ridden mindset throughout here yes we do in fact during this season to varying degrees both reiner and berthold have demonstrated that there's a possibility that there's possibly a likable person beneath the surface despite the atrocities they've committed making the emotional torment and physical pain these two undergo in the chase all the more thought-provoking distracting us from [Music] holy [ __ ] erwin you absolute monster down an arm and he still secures the target honestly this entire chase sequence had me on the edge of my seat from its hopeful beginnings to its almost hopeless end after having exhausted some tremendous strategies from armin and heroin some incredible feats by mikasa and securing aaron even once again they are forced to deal with the harsh reality of this world and oddly this portion of the conclusion felt somewhat final and peaceful to me i'm not really sure if i'm alone in thinking or feeling this but my first go through this series this was the one and only erin yeager moment to invoke some sort of emotional response from me as i mentioned prior in this review i believe in and respect the idea and utility of erin yeager's character within this series i don't think it would work without him he's a fundamental component to how this story functions but he's not the most relatable his desire to achieve his goals borders on the psychotic much of the time and his facial expressions and threats particularly during the treetop sequence remind me more of norman bates from 1960s psycho than a typical shonen protagonist but this scene it hit me differently maybe it's the staging maybe it's hannah's courageous attempt to overcome his guilt and save the two kids maybe it's mikasa thanking aaron for being in her life and saving her or maybe it's the very human moment we share with aaron as he crumbles the floor in tears faced with the reality that once again despite the new powers despite all everyone has done despite all that he has done he is still a slave to the circumstances he finds himself in powerless helpless and defenseless yet in the face of this he stands up comforts mikasa and faces certain death unflinchingly without fear this got me knowing full well that he is going to his death aaron remains true to himself and his convictions proving to us that while he might be a lot at times he believes everything he says and is willing to die [Music] okay wait what was that what happened and why is aaron suddenly a titan bender leave it to attack on titan to answer a ton of questions in the single season only to leave us with way more god i love this moment and what's more is this moment on top of giving the scouts an opening for them to escape it also gives a mere reason to leave historia with the scouts because aaron proved in this moment that those living within the walls might actually have a future behind the scenes season two despite the second season being greenlit immediately following season one's broadcast and huge success it took four years for it to finally hit the air now of course the show wasn't in production during these four years at least not in the sense of things being storyboarded or animated the show truly didn't begin being made until late 2016 so i think it's important to talk about why it took so long to pick back up contrary to popular belief the gap didn't purely exist to create a buffer between the anime and manga all of season 2's narrative content was entirely finished within the manga by the time the first season of the anime had finished airing the primary reason was more so to do with structure while the arc featured in season 2 is very action-packed filled with reveals and intense set pieces what follows is a low-key politically driven arc an arc that isayama wasn't particularly happy with and one fans weren't hugely engaging with at the time either with the staff to create another 26 episode season it would have started with a bang yes and then peter out into this more subdued arc thereafter as i'm sure you can imagine and as the staff realized that didn't make for a very gripping finale and the solution was to split the sequel into what we have today an action-packed second season followed by a political arc to kickstart a third season a year later leading into the climactic second half of this season that would inevitably stick in audiences minds due to the sheer number of narrative beats while news of the second season would only be 12 episodes after many years of waiting angered fans it ultimately turned out to be a blessing in disguise the production was significantly stronger this time around with every single episode this time being created in-house while the show began on april 1st 2017 the staff had already finished episode 1 in its entirety by the end of 2016 with episode 2 already hitting the animation phase in january of 2017. it's far from perfect but a far far cry from the state of season one and with the popularity of that first season this also meant many freelancers were itching to join the team which went a long way in boosting the overall quality of this second outing i mean the famous aaron vs reiner fight brought in some super stars such as toshiyuki sato naoki oshibe and itsuki tsuchigami phenomenally talented animators who many of you will undoubtedly know from the wonderfully animated mob psycho 100. of course the old superstar team of ibisu ibarra and imai who carried season 1's action make their return here in an even bigger way also actively looking to one-up their previous efforts taking full advantage of the show's new forgiving schedule and this roster of incredible action animators really can't be overstated but the improvements don't simply exist within the action space while season 1's dialogue scenes largely consisted of stills with flapping mouths season 2 managed to introduce legitimate character acting animation with young new talents like kana ito making characters actually feel alive during moments of downtime however perhaps the most dramatic overhaul within this season comes in the form of wit studio's newfound makeup team between season one and two of attack on titan director tetsuro araki and much of the titan team had created cabanari of the iron fortress where this new technique was established it involves a team of digital artists going over shots and painting in extra detail particularly in the hair and eyes while its use on kevin airy was fairly haphazard often popping up sporadically with little rhyme or reason its presence in attack on titan's second season functioned largely the same as harmony cells did in old anime to create dissonance in aid of impact for instance the first appearance of the beast titan connie laying eyes on his family or historia and emir's emotional interaction all of these scenes stand out very literally from the rest of the series visuals add so much to the weight of these occasions people will always notice when something's different and titan season 2 takes advantage of this whenever it can unfortunately with the many improvements season 2 brings there are some major caveats that are important to acknowledge also and one of them i mentioned earlier the 3d colossal titan the team at madbox are responsible for the series cg and unfortunately the work on display here is less than great i think it's important to understand why this titan is cg however and the answer is probably not all too surprising it's entirely to do with time in season one this titan was nothing but a static head and any action around it was minimal coming into season two onwards however there are entire action sequences built around this titan with complex rotations and camera movement the issue is the colossal titan's design is just as complicated as any insanely detailed mech is it is covered in hundreds of tiny lines detailing the musculature and full of segments just drawing one frame of this character is difficult enough but once you introduce any sort of movement let alone rotations you're then looking at hundreds of sheets that all need to be perfectly detailed and consistent in form from frame to frame not only is this astonishingly difficult to pull off but that is months upon months of work that no tv production is ever going to achieve without destroying itself using cg is not a sin anyone remotely familiar with trigger or euphonible's efforts will know this fact perfectly well take this scene from killer kills first episode for example everything here is cg and yet you'd barely be able to tell due to the way the texture work is perfectly matched to the rest of the scene and traditional animation timing and techniques have been employed such as smears unfortunately the cg in the wit studio era of attack on titan makes no such effort to blend using textures that don't look remotely like the rest of the series and linear animation timing that ultimately looks more like a low frame rate video game than the traditional frame modulation you see in 2d animation it may allow for some spectacular sequences but it sure comes at the cost of seamless integration the second caveat of this season is also time related despite the significant improvements found in season 2 schedule the pressures of the production did ultimately catch up to the team resulting in dozens of animation directors per episode struggling to hold things together the biggest example of these struggles are most apparent in episode 11 where any sort of complex piece of animation involving multiple characters were relegated to shaking stills nice looking stills but still is all the same despite my talking about these caveats in quite a bit of detail they're incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things and ultimately as of this video season 2 remains the strongest production the titan series has ever seen some people might not even be aware that episode 10 could be called the studio ghibli episode of the series with ex-ghibli staff members kenji imura and masayuki miyagi directing and boarding respectively and while the episode has little to write home about in terms of wild animation the way it's storyboarded and particularly the use of lighting is absolutely unrivaled it feels distinctly different from any other titan episode and when you look at the minds behind it it's easy to see why araki also brought in his friend takayuki hirao from studio uforable best known for directing the fifth garden of sinner's film for the iconic seventh episode of the season delivering on some of the season's most impactful moments ultimately season two was the perfect storm it managed to iterate on and perfect the concepts found in the first season while offering up interesting new ideas and executing them with newfound finesse thanks to an improved schedule to this day it is still the shining beacon of the franchise now 70 plus episodes deep and although this consistent level of polish across the board won't be found again the animation peaks don't stop here season 3 may contain the lowest of lows but it also contains some of the most extravagant ambitious and unforgettable of highs and at this poll i took on twitter asking all of you which your favorite seasons were is any indication i'd say this second half is something special [Music] the uprising arc alright this is going to be a tough one to fully break down so wish me luck of all the arcs i've discussed aside from this also being quite long the differences between the manga and the anime are substantial however nothing that changes too much regarding the plot in short the anime tends to extend rearrange or embellish action sequences like kenny chasing levi in favor of shortening or removing certain dialogue scenes i think looking at this critically it's important to recognize the pitfalls an adaptation must try to avoid when it's creating its anime counterpart and so i'd imagine many of the decisions made for season 3 part 1 came about due to pacing concerns and this arc boasts a really cool idea opting to momentarily turn our attention away from the titan threat outside the walls and to instead focus on the corruption of the world within them dealing with political unrest boatloads of eye-opening exposition that unearths a massive conspiracy and some of the most disgusting visuals this property has yet offered up to us [Music] for the most part i thought a lot of the changes here were welcomed particularly when we consider the different pacing requirements an anime might have when compared to a manga take episode 1 for example it covers chapters 51 52 53 54 and 57 primarily culminating on this moment the most notable exemptions from these chapters are the experiments on eren's titan and historia's backstory on the farm and while these aren't present in this section anymore they are later on in the season instead though i will say that while we do get to see the aftermath of these titan experiments in the anime the manga went into much more detail dedicating almost an entire chapter to these experiments alone gleaning lots of extra interesting pieces of information not essential information but interesting nonetheless overall i can appreciate and understand the necessity for these changes it's important for a story to feel like it's moving forward and choosing to end this episode on a sudden shocking murder kickstarting a chase scene with levi is a much more favorable cliffhanger than some expository dialogue exchange that this section is filled with however you might have also noticed that two chapters were missing from that aforementioned list of covered chapters in this first episode those being chapters 55 and 56 this material while not present in the same order as a manga is presented in later anime episodes and are either significantly less detailed or have been entirely changed chapter 55 is almost entirely the torture scene with levi hanji and the military police soldier i think this version from the anime only served to remove a lot of the gore with all the necessary details still remaining and so therefore i think this is a welcome change however in saying that it's not all great changes one such removed exchange i otherwise really appreciated came from a scene wherein levi reveals to everyone that historia is to be made queen if their coup of the government is to be successful here i think something is lost or at the very least made much less interesting and less rich due to this creative decision initially historia resists and is overcome by the responsibility resulting in levi grabbing her by the scruff of her neck willingly and happily playing the bad guy his speech in this scene is great and it paints him as a tough but fair person that is willing to walk the walk and talk the talk however the best aspect to be gleaned from this scene is a conversation that is led by mikasa after the fact when people start questioning or doubting levi in that moment she backs up her captain and acts as the soldier she needs to be couple this with her asking about the condition of levi's ankle later on on the rooftop and you've got a clearly shown progression of her character after implementing the lesson she learned that day in the force against the female titan it's a subtle but great moment and unfortunately it's left out of the anime completely making mikusaf feel more lifeless as a result which is a shame because all she seems to be known for in the anime is loving eren which is an important part of her character but not the only part overall the changes made to the existing chapters revolved largely around streamlining conversations and combining separate scouting missions into one more focused operation that helped to tie everything together in a much more straightforward and believable way at the end of season 2's material i mentioned a twitter poll i took that pointed to season 3 being the most liked season of them all though i am certain had season 3 only being this first half concerning the political uprising the poll would most definitely have turned out very different and that's not to say that i thought that this section of the story was bad or that it wasn't a great idea far from it but i do however think that when said alongside all the other parts of the story it stands out as possibly the slowest and least interesting portion for some and while i can only speak to my own experience i would wager that it is largely due to the lacking development and attention given to the aristocratic class and military police throughout this story up until now that play such a large role in this section while they have been present here and there those moments have always been fleeting and infrequent at best the military coup that takes place in this section is vital for making later more interesting storylines work it's a necessary plot point in the story but for a great deal of time during it while there were some great ideas and some versions to successfully pull off the coup i was still waiting for these scenes to pass on by so that we could focus on the rod reese family plot thread which i found to be far more engaging due to its focus on primary characters and the truth of the world and so while i didn't dislike the military coup section i did think it was the weakest part of the story due to my lack of emotional connection to many of the key characters involved though that's not to say that all of these interactions are less interesting encounters like jean's hesitation to take out members of the military police served as a key moment for his character and his mission to become a better leader also there's this really nice scene in the woods with jon 2 and i think without getting too lost in the weeds here my main takeaway has been that while the manga has more details and a few interesting and somewhat important instances that the anime doesn't have it's also a version of the story that left a large portion of the reader base less interested and it's a key part of the story which is himself wasn't particularly happy with either leading to his direct involvement with season three's anime adaptation but thankfully once the monarchy is taken down and the military gains control over the government the plot really starts to get moving and the tension rises dramatically the time taken to set up the chess board the way that they wanted to has taken time yes and to some people may have been somewhat tedious but thanks to it being handled the right way none of the characters current motivations or placements feel forced or contrived and we can all now focus not on separate splintered points of interest but instead one major operation the rescuing of aaron and historia from rod reese let's back up for a second or two here this for me was always the main point of interest in this story the truth behind the royal family and the coordinate power of the titans and interestingly now looking back on this portion of the series the character that holds this entire season together is kenny ackerman if you look back through the story at other characters that occupy a temporary role in this story like levi squad marco or even hannes these are all characters that are brought in to fulfill a minor narrative requirement be it functional or motivational and once they fulfill that purpose they then exit stage left heck annie can fall into that category too she told the story that was required offer and now she's a crystal girl but my point is this isn't some new idea in storytelling and sometimes it can be great like hannah's emotionally driven multi-arc development where he contributes to the message and purpose of the arc before saying goodbye but it can also feel a little forced i'm not sure how i felt about this but while i was watching season one on my first go around while i enjoyed levi's squad and found their personalities endearing to me they were very obviously redcoats there to serve the purpose of a somewhat established character's death in the series this i didn't personally get a lot out of but it by no means hindered my ability to enjoy the season kenny on the other hand is a character that unlike levi's squad plays a pivotal role in telling this story so much so i can't even begin to understand how it would possibly be told without him which is exactly why i think he was created in the first place and once the arc ends so does kenny on one hand i can appreciate his connection to levi's past making him a character directly linked to a fan favorite and i also found his connection to the royal family filled with plenty of interesting interactions like their first meeting but i can't help but feel indifferent to him as a character i can understand his personality fine and i can appreciate his point of view and i found it to be exciting at times also but at the end of the day i couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't that important to the plot of the greater series and he wasn't in a sense prior to season 3 part 1 he doesn't exist and isn't mentioned again until season 4's annie reiner and berthold flashback material as a cameo because of this despite isayama's best efforts to build up a family legacy around the ackermann name with his connections to the reese family and secrets of the world kenny at the end of the day seemed to me like a fleshed out plot device or at the very least like he wasn't part of isiah's vision for the series from the beginning and instead something he concocted later on this is all to say that i do enjoy him and his part of the story insofar as he contributed interesting opportunities for exposition and to further the plot but as a character however i wasn't particularly engaged by him i do however feel like i am somewhat alone in feeling this way and kenny seems to be something of a fan favorite amongst the fan base sporting a terrific design and driving the story in this section like no other this aspect of the story was honestly my favorite part of this section even taking giant blob titan rhys into account the sense of scope and scale these revelations offer the series made my head spin all those visions aaron's been having well they're all thanks to this person the passive king behind the walls something that really blew my mind while i was watching this was this tiny but really cool piece of continuity if we go back to around the first time aaron transformed it's clear to see that aaron even back then was utilizing memories of his father watching frida reese transform before he inevitably killed them which all informed his very first transformation frida transformed the very same way and aaron even back then was seeing flashes of greece's final moments too it's not given much attention at all but i appreciate it nevertheless consistencies shown over the course of a long running series are what gets me to write multiple hour video essays like these of all the characters i've discussed thus far concerning this season specifically historia unfortunately is one of those characters that ended up losing more than her fair share in the aforementioned cut material all in the name of pacing to be clear though i still love her inclusion in the anime i found what part she did play to be both emotional and compelling climaxing on that amazing moment where she denies everything she thought she wanted her entire life in favor of staying true to the person emir wanted her to be and who she herself wants herself to be it's a powerful and inspiring moment sharpened by the phenomenal musical track unique to this moment that i may or may not have listened to hundreds of times because of this very scene whether it be the outburst learning that they won't be going after amir her conversation with erin her reluctance and ultimate confrontation with levi concerning her becoming queen all the way to her eventual acceptance all of these moments in one form or another were either caught entirely or altered considerably and not to historia's benefit i think even so this scene in the crystal cave is still a powerful one where two central characters learn of their past serving to mentally crush aaron and empower historia both for totally understandable and satisfying reasons and even though i did enjoy what the anime produced maybe even more than the manga i can't help but feel i cared so much more about the historia character in the manga thanks specifically to the presence of key character moments many of which i mentioned were cut still i felt that largely attack on titan stuck the landing and thanks to the wealth of exposition and plot after happening in this season so far the story is now primed to get back to what they do best deal with crazy as hell's set pieces holy [ __ ] what the hell is that oh my god orvo district section of the story is honestly quite short and in my view was there to act as a coronation of sorts for historia primarily all the while showing off how efficient the scouts and aaron can be when they work together free from the watchful corrupt eyes of the capital monarchy and this has some of the most memorable set pieces in the series i think rodriguez's desperate transformation into the goopy blobby island-sized titan dragging his face across the land only to reveal that he yeah he doesn't have a face it's gross it's graphic it's awesome and it's damn memorable and looking back over the course of this section of the story i have to say that i admire its dedication to the political thriller it was aiming for its perseverance in adapting an altered version of it for the anime and it's incredibly cathartic finally getting to see and expose the injustices and corruption of the world government fall resulting in the scouts finally being treated as the heroes they deserve to be and seen as aaron's reaction of the cheers and adulation of the crowd paint him as someone that while he never anticipated or did what he did for the cheers he most certainly appreciates them for he knows how treacherous the next mission is going to be because if you thought this uprising portion was why everyone loved this arc you'd be sorely mistaken for what you've just seen while great has simply been the build up or prelude to what i consider to be the best anime viewing experience of my life return to shigen china this is the ark that made attack on titan my favorite story never and i mean never has a story so potently and perfectly captured my imagination the way this has completely satisfying my more analytical side by capitalizing brilliantly on previously established content while also educating me on things i never understood before in other words this was the arc that inspired me to one day write this video and yes it is that damn good it has everything and i mean that action the best in the series so far high stakes highest so far in the series character progression like we've never seen before and that's not even to draw attention to the world building and lore finally revealed in this season and so i guess what i'm trying to say is if this act were a person i would have already introduced them to my parents gotten married and had perfectly written children with them there's this feeling that we've truly come full circle and transformed alongside these characters we've begun to uncover the truths of the world and boy are we in much more of a dominant position as a result while watching this i had this feeling of euphoria come over me as the scout so effortlessly plugged up the hole in wall maria something that was once such an ordeal in trust now is a non-issue this is very literally the culmination of everything we've gone through so far aaron is now fully in control of his titan the military are now in full control of their own efforts and they can utilize titan hardening however we are still encroaching onto enemy territory and believe me when i say that i felt that with each passing step into this familiar location made possible thanks to the coffee grinder and limited remains armin finds of a camp despite us returning to the place where it all began attack on titan managed to make this once familiar and in some ways nostalgic location feel more alien and more dangerous than anywhere else we've come across in the story making for strange but welcomed feelings of unease brewing in my mind and as armin's concerns shift from suspicion to near certainty the tension rises gradually this is a cam before a storm and what a storm this scene made me sweat and to this day a show has never made me do that before being so close to the scout's point of view as they slowly come to realize just how outmatched they may very well be serves to excite us yes but it also further places us in the corner of the characters we relate to the most the scouts that are now cornered and fighting for their lives for me the highlight and what sticks out of my mind from this opening establishment has to be the sudden surprise look that falls across erwin's normally relaxed face it's one of the only times we actually get to see erwin shocked and while brief it was enough to send shivers down through my spine in addition to that i love the point of view we get to see all this from because light travels faster than sound when the titans appear we as an audience get to see what's happening on the ground below before erwin hears it it's a small detail but it goes to show how much effort was put into these scenes establishing the stakes the setting and positioning the upcoming conflict to be the greatest and most important fight in the history of this show as erwin bellows to his shaking troops were both hoping for the same thing to settle it here once and for all humanity or titans which side will live which side will perish i've sat her in my seat for five minutes trying to collect my thoughts and feelings on this scene and put it into words but the level of excitement i felt that day while watching this i sincerely cannot effectively convey with the scouts now forced to split up against seemingly insurmountable odds it was at this point i knew i was getting ready to witness something truly special and before i get into the specifics like i know all of you want me to i want to first draw attention to what i think makes this fight work so effortlessly and therefore effectively in a nutshell isayama has managed our knowledge of this series such that we understand exactly the right amount to enjoy this situation to the utmost while also withholding certain pieces of information to help us enjoy it even more like the beast titan being able to summon titans is a great uno reverse to surprise us with and create tension we know what characters are and are not capable of we know that they only have one way of getting horses over the walls and we came to learn that earlier in the story we know what the topographical nature of sheik and sheena is and how the walls are built around it essentially thanks to the time and energy spent expanding upon this world and its characters isayama is now free to focus exclusively on setting the stakes and positioning his individuals according to where he thinks makes the best fight we have two teams one is in shingenshina and the other is trapped outside both are fighting for their lives and will most likely die and oop there they go and okay so that's happening on one side of the wall and what about the other side if you cast your minds back to any of your favorite fights from fiction they almost always follow a somewhat similar structure and one of the most crucial points of that structure that makes any fights ending feel massive is a low point before the finish goku vs frieza effectively achieved this by making frieza more monstrous than goku ever could have imagined jojo's bizarre adventure utilizes this all the time but my favorite occurs during dio versus jodorow where judo almost dies trying to stop dio and even in more modern western media like the avengers films 1-4 they all made full use of this technique in all of their final battles and so in other words the more cornered or close to the feet you can get your hero team to be the better and with erwin's side in the panic and air inside after almost all being completely blown to pieces thanks to berthold's transformation with the world being as cruel as it is and with there being no obvious way forward to victory as an audience member i was sitting there in despair alongside these characters and this is where the key mechanical differences between attack on titan and dragon ball surface where dragon ball relied on what eventually became a shonen trope in goku getting angry and achieving a new power-up to overcome frieza attack on titan made me feel like there was sincerely no way out of this which made the eventual strategies employed all the more satisfying and ingenious to me and the best part is because isiama wanted to have two separate battles happening on either side of the wall at the exact same time he was able to have his cake and eat it too making both of these brilliant climaxes work for very very different reasons isayama told us what to expect with erwin's plan against the beast titan and he kept armin's plan to stop berthold largely secret because of this i was able to enjoy surprise and catharsis to the highest of degrees all within the run time of a single episode erwin's plan not only doesn't rely heavily on surprise it actively pushes against it explicitly telling the audience what his plan is outright but strangely despite this episode containing some of the best action set pieces perhaps of the entire franchise the one part that i keep revisiting to this day time after time is this soda i don't think any scene in an anime so effectively placed me into the shoes of its characters the way this one has and if there was any scene i would not want to be a part of it's this one as i watch these poor soldiers shake vomit and panic their way to their deaths apart from the visceral approach taken here i really like how this scene contrasts with armin's plan not necessarily in how it's carried out but more so in how we as an audience members participate armin's mission is based entirely on surprise we know how each of the components work that make up how he solves the eventual issue however the ending of this is left completely up to speculation this is what makes this scene work and when aaron finally reveals his big revenge moment the sense of catharsis we feel is made all the more powerful because we didn't see it coming this is the most accepting aaron is of his current circumstances within believing that reacting is the best course of action right now in other words this is aaron when he is the most submissive to the world around him fully taking armand's advice in a battle that you would think he has the greatest potential for being emotionally charged within aaron isn't in control but he seems to be okay with that working alongside his team to achieve what they need to and contrasting that with the prior section where his world comes crumbling down around him as he finds out that he's really nothing special it makes for a wonderful comparison however interestingly and also in the same episode levi's assault on the beast titan is almost entirely forewarned [Music] they're not doing anything mechanically revolutionary here in shonen this is rather fundamental but you'd be surprised how many screw up this common shonen action trope or at the very least don't make full use of it thankfully however attack on titan didn't fail but instead presented to our eyeballs one of the most decisive and satisfying beatdowns ever administered in the series but what did it do right to make this so effective well it empowers us the viewers to some significant extent and allies us with the side we are most familiar with once again to take dragon ball as an example when goku arrives right in the nick of time to make the save during the ginyu forces battle toriyama utilizes dramatic irony so effectively we know who goku is we know what he's capable of and we know how confident he is and they have no idea what they're in for similarly we as an audience have seen everything that levi can do how hard he's fought and what he's lost all building up to this one moment a moment where zeke doesn't know it yet but he's just made the biggest mistake of his life he underestimated levi compounded by brief flashback sequences where reiner and berthold even warned zeke about levi all this serves to make this beatdown all the more satisfying for the viewer or reader and most importantly it only worked because we knew it was coming the levi battle is built upon anticipation and the armin plan depends on suspense and surprise to be successful both being incredibly well executed it's a master class in the fundamentals of shonen storytelling demonstrating how and why these tropes have become so effective and ubiquitous within the shonen and broader anime industry to harken back to the beginning of this video where i drew your attention to this particular quote from pete doctor of pixar he said it's that impossible struggle with no answer that makes for great stories and you can tell that this episode's subject matter connected with a lot of people due to the sheer amount of arguing that manifested as a result of it the debate over who ought to survey core revive and inherit berthold's titan armin the new promising strategist or irwin the impressive survey corps commander it's a fascinating episode and discussion if i'm being perfectly frank the value of human life and the consequences of death playing massive roles in this create wonderfully engaging and emotional outbursts from the likes of mikasa erin and even levi a robust litmus test i use to gauge the competency of writing within a series is how successfully they can pull off interesting conversations for extended periods of time there's a phenomenal episode in re zero wherein rem and subaru just talk for the entire run time and it might be my favorite episode from that series shonen often leans heavily on action and in some cases this can point to weak character writing or a weak story however by this point in attack on titan the criticism that characters receive no development or that the story is aimless have to be thrown out the window or at least i think they do because it's impossible for so many people to be sucked into a debate over a long conversation with high consequences if they didn't feel a connection on some level to the characters that they stand to lose here particularly after erwin had given the performance of his life this is a difficult pill for us all as an audience to swallow we want people to be rewarded for their efforts and to one-up themselves later on like they have done so often many ended up disagreeing with their decision to revive armin here however i thought it was not only the correct decision but the only one that they could have made and i think isayama must have known that too one of the most irritating aspects of dragon ball for many fans around the world is how it introduces establishes and bonds us to various characters over the course of its story only to cast them to the wayside later unceremoniously this is what removing death as a consequence does to a series characters that serve a purpose need to have an exit strategy otherwise they become parodies of themselves erwin's story was that of a tenacious and courageous military leader uncovering the secrets of the world in the face of ridicule and impossible odds and in the end he managed to lead that world to the truth a truth that he never got the chance to see and right before he died he made peace with that to me that selfless act embodies erwin's spirit far more than him discovering the secrets of the world and soldiering onwards in a hollow meaningless role thereafter could possibly have done for him had he discovered what was in the basement he would have had no greater purpose whereas armin he still has a purpose the basement imagine being so bold as to dangle a carrot in front of your audience promising them that it would be worth it down the line now imagine dangling that carrot for six years now imagine that that carrot was more astounding than you could have possibly been prepared for i've spoken numerous times throughout this absurdly long video discussing how isiyama managed to pull the wool over our eyes in the name of subversions and recontextualizing his characters and world and this does all of that just a lot better the reveal that humanity beyond the walls is not only still alive but also thriving and far more technologically advanced than we are sounds like a convenient and somewhat contrived twist made only to serve as a diversion into the story's endgame however nothing could be further from the truth as we had all the information we needed to predict this ourselves before it was revealed to us in episode 56 with hints dating back as far as episode 29 in season 2 a throwaway statement made in passing by the scouts in an old castle details that they discovered supplies likely left behind by bandits recently however it soon revealed that emir can read the unfamiliar language on the canned herring left behind which is a saltwater fish these supplies in question were left by the beast titan who made an appearance just one episode prior very close to this location making it obviously not a coincidence keeping these supplies in mind let's look ahead to episodes 52 and 50 where we see zeke reiner and berthold drinking coffee and the remains found by armin of this camp show the coffee grinder i mentioned going back all the way to episode 29 it's clear to see that a similar anti-coffee grinder was used in this campsite the anime puts heavy emphasis on this coffee grinder also placing it in the warrior flashback in episode 35 the op of season 3's second part and even giving it its own info card this coffee grinder is of vital importance to this mystery because we know that coffee is a tropical export with a short shelf life meaning it cannot grow in climates seen in this series which frequently features snow this explains why armin when he discovers the campsite in episode 50 doesn't know what it is instead referring to it as black tea this tropical requirement of coffee implies that where the warriors are from has to be very far away from the land within the walls or has access to it through imports from other countries explaining the presence of the now newly imported coffee and the saltwater herring through commercial fishing emir is also a supremely valuable character in this story for this sort of exposition she describes the beast titan as a monkey in episode 34 an animal that aaron had never heard of before once again due to the climate that they reside within however as an audience we know what a monkey is and therefore never make the connection the same goes for coffee and herring we just never associated with anything significant because we know what it is and the characters don't really need to tell us anything furthermore it's made known to us that humanity has been behind the walls for 107 years with those in charge keeping technology secret when we see merrily for the very first time through grisha's eyes we are met with the technologies placing marley somewhere in the 1930s of our world meaning the world within paradise resembles that of a military nation from the early 19th century which taking into account the rivals we saw in season one holds to be accurate so now let's take a look at zeke zeke makes numerous references to baseball throughout his time with us prior to the basement reveal however what i didn't realize at the time was that baseball as a sport was only popularized in the mid to late 1800s placing it far outside the scope of paradise's understanding and once again hints towards a more modern and civilized outside world this in addition to the numerous other emir flashbacks the modern footwear worn by zeke and berthold in episode 49 as well as the countless talks concerning grisha's modern medical abilities saving everyone from a plague after appearing miraculously outside the walls one day all paint a very clear picture once put together of an outside world that is both hostile and advanced far beyond what they are capable of on the inside and as an audience we were all able to understand all of that long before we saw that photograph in the basement but to tell you the truth of all the reveals that shook my brain to its very core none did so more than that which made this scene my favorite subversion in the series dina was the titan that came to kill carla and was the titan that aaron punched in making contact with her royal body he was able to make use of the coordinate power this wasn't a random secret power but instead an example that attack on titan sticks to its rules of the world to such a degree that my initial reaction to watching this unfold before my very eyes was probably something like this in other words i liked it a lot and it blew my mind so i guess what i'm trying to say with all of this is that what makes this basement and this section as iconic and so widely praised as it is isn't just the photograph necessarily but instead almost everything else that came before it that made that moment and that photograph make as much sense as it ultimately did and for most of us this recontextualized the story into something we had not seen before no longer are we fighting titans instead we are at war with humanity outside the walls what does that even mean [Music] behind the scenes season three while season three's narrative content particularly in its second half amounts to some fans absolute favorite aspects of the series this ultimately marks a decline in the show's production values in terms of its average quality despite containing arguably the best pieces of animation the series has ever seen it unfortunately also had some remarkably unfortunate lows due to a deeply oppressive schedule and some major staff omissions the troubles with the schedule here cannot be overstated while we now look back at season 3 as a two-parter the show's third season was never intended to be divided in the first place when the show first began it was listed for 22 episodes with the home release schedule likewise reflecting this initial broadcast time frame it wasn't until the season reached its midpoint and the network began to air unfinished scenes again that listing dates began to change and ultimately the final episode of what is now part one concluded as per usual followed by a hasty to be continued in part two announcement perhaps the biggest example of these troubles occurred within the cave section of part one featuring countless wonky drawings unfinished cuts and missing directions such as camera shake it continues beyond this episode to an extent but no other section features quite the same many hundreds of corrections found on the final home release for things to melt at the first sign of action it should come as no surprise that an emergency mid-season break was called for with the looming action-heavy second half on the horizon however with only six months between parts with almost nothing but action ahead of them the break could only do so much and unfortunately the second half of the season struggled to keep together too falling back on outsourcing in places once again eventually fans noticed what's become known as meme tiles a repeated cut of animation duplicated over and over and over again to the point of hilarity masking the lack of finished content of course it also didn't help that even the supervisors were struggling to correct off model art in time for broadcast too but all this schedule talk aside one of the biggest losses in this season came from the absence of the makeup team that made such an impact in season two due to the production of the cabin area of the iron fortress movie the team's focus was entirely placed on said film with no time left over to work on attack on titan's third season for its dialogue heavy first half which most definitely would have benefited from the stunning polish the team would provide this is undoubtedly the biggest blow felt this season something that unlike unfinished drawings missing a deadline isn't as simple as just slapping the finished work in the blu-ray miraculously however season 3 is still widely regarded as a fan favorite season with some of the greatest pieces of animation and direction the show has ever seen it was an undeniable success and the results speak for themselves so how was this even remotely feasible given the horrific conditions i just outlined well the answer boils down to three major factors tetsuro araki's wealth of industry contacts the nurturing of emerging in-house talent and of course adifumi imai's unwavering dedication to best his prior work in the case of araki he realized very quickly that for a dialogue-heavy portion of the show to hold people's attention it must be directed and boarded to absolute perfection if the narrative beats don't land if the images aren't composed in interesting ways then everything quickly comes crumbling down in the absence of animation to remedy this he called back to his early days at studio madhouse bringing on board yoshiaki kawajiri of ninja scroll fame alongside mamuro hosoda's pupil tomohiko ito most well known for sora online both of these individuals provided competent storyboards for their respective episodes along with them were wit affiliates like takayuki hirao who i mentioned earlier was an integral part of the team and joined by ryotaro makihara an animator turned director with a meticulous touch together they formed a powerful team and managed to alleviate the series key moments in ways that more than satisfied fans and hid the trouble production the most obvious examples of guest direction elevating episodes comes in episode 46 in particular the very famous tokusatsu director friend of hideyakiano and co-director of shin godzilla shinji higuchi storyboarded this episode and with him came toshiyuki sato the wonderful guest animator i mentioned in season 2 producing some horrifyingly natural titan movement in other words in-house talents were really coming up to the forefront of the production and strutting their stuff with impressive finesse sachiko matsumoto who was largely unknown prior to this season hit fans hard with her powerful animation of erwin's demise alongside the stunning effects driven missile barrage as mikusa attacks the colossal titan likewise another relatively unknown talent by the name of shinsuke aoki delivered some wonderful in my inspired work with several levi's scenes and of course finally on the subject of amay it would be absolutely impossible to talk about this season without mentioning this man's name to say that he blew people away would be an understatement of the highest order his work on this section is both inspiring and well legendary storyboarding and animating his own scenes in this season the sheer number of man-hours put into his contributions this time around paint a picture of an animator both dedicated to the franchise and constantly looking to improve his already magnificent skills kicking off the first part of the season in episode 2 with the absolutely spectacular chase scene this 35 second piece of animation took am i an entire month to animate and that was with the help from two other people it is such a stunning piece of work that wholeheartedly embodies the journey the production of this show has been on as it's come to perfect the 2d 3d pipeline and continues to iterate on the sheer madness possible with it however there's one major piece of animation that sticks in people's minds when they think of this season a 45 second scene of legendary proportions and one that has firmly planted itself as an all-time iconic fight scene in anime history it is of course levi versus the beast titan this astonishing scene is the result of four months of hard work am i spent a month alone on simply storyboarding this sequence and then another three months on top of that to actually animate it and bring it to life four months for 45 seconds and boy was it worth it the three dimensionality on display here is absurd beyond description levi shoots around down under and up and what's so spectacular comparing this to previous 2d 3d hybrid scenes is that unbelievably background movement here is 2d animated the consistency in form from frame to frame as the angle adjusts is just mind blowing combined with the detail of the art the complexity of the effects work and sheer power of the animation's timing it's really no surprise that this sits as one of the most iconic scenes around it is emblematic of attack on titan's action and brought to life by the very man that has defined it since the very beginning more than anything i think season 3 as a whole could not be more of a perfect send-off and summation of wit studios time with attack on titan in spite of horrific production conditions it shows the power of a director's reach within the industry and the sheer dedication of its staff as they work tirelessly to overcome the odds it's the gathering of a monumentous team accumulated over years of work and shows precisely what a tight-knit group of individuals can do under a leader with an unwavering vision alas with studio story ends here for now as we head into the mappa era for season four with any sort of drastic change heads turn and people pay attention we've seen as much with the use of the makeup team in season two it can be both very effective and very jarring but one thing's for sure it will be noticed the transition from with studio to mapa is a complicated one one that offers up changes in each and every area and regardless of how you feel about the change there's no denying it's certainly gotten people talking and paying much closer attention to the production than ever before to fully understand these changes it's vital to get to grips with why this occurred in the first place with any anime a production committee exists to organize and fund the production and ultimately reap the majority of the rewards should the show be successful with the original seasons the committee consists of pony canyon who hold the rights to the music kodansha who owned the manga densu who handled the advertising mbs or nhk the relevant tv network and finally production ig who as i established earlier hold ownership over whitfield the ig port banner when it came to season four the committee as per usual came to it and asked them to tackle the season with the broadcast dates set for late 2020. in response to this with staff just looked at their calendars and it became very clear very quickly that there was absolutely no way that they could tackle this kind of a project with the current time restraints as much as they would have loved to have done it it simply wasn't feasible and so the committee were forced to look into other studios and this is why me outlining the production committee's makeup is important there's nothing there that stops anyone from earning money by changing studios no matter who ends up taking on the project the committee still wins they asked every studio under the sun and absolutely everyone was sane enough to say no to the demanding schedule being offered to them except for one studio mapper once a prestigious and ethical studio led by masao muruyama of ex madhouse fame his departure in 2016 led to a drastic change in the studio's once meticulous approach instead transitioning to more of a conveyor belt company pumping out show after show if you scroll through the company's output you can see maruyama's vision from 2012 to 2016 in full effect only producing two to three shows a year of largely very high quality after that however you can see the number of shows ballooned with sporadic differences in quality with 2020 in particular seeing the company produce eight shows their agreement to take on the project despite impossible circumstances is both saddening and expected of the company these days and with their newfound place on the committee the monetary gains for its higher ups clearly outweigh the care it has for its staff on the front lines unfortunately in circumstances like this the approach to creating anime becomes very different where wit studio spent a great deal of time assembling a team auditioning character designers and picking a director who would end up gathering a powerhouse of strong directors mappa's approach was to grab whoever was available quite literally pulling new character designer tomohirokishi and telling him he'll be handling the designs for the season fortunately though for season four the little town they could gather certainly knew how to make an impact taking over from tetsuro araki as series director kem yuichiro hayashi another mad house alumni who made his name at mapa through his faithful and powerful adaptations of series like gato and doroge doro the latter of which was praised heavily for its strong cg work and stylish direction aspects that became very important for titan season 4. this time however hayashi's role was as chief series director meaning his work was split with the regular series director john shishido who served the same role in 2016's yuri on ice the division of this role allowed the two to split the workload and as a result outside of a few episodes the pair storyboarded the entire season themselves for a production struggling to assemble core staff this is a real blessing and frankly there's a lot to be said about the level of control and consistency achieved through productions with a strong singular vision now that's not to say that season four is one big homogeneous blob remember ex jubilee member masayuki miyaji who storyboarded the spectacular 10th episode of season 2 well miraculously he returned for season 4's 15th episode producing the harrowing presentation of zeke's backstory although his work here doesn't have quite the same level of visual oomph as his last outing due to the weaker accompanying director in overall production the episode is still a remarkable effort filled to the brim with ambitious angles and concepts on the in-house side of things the in-house towns provided some great work here too teriyuki omine a very idiosyncratic and ambitious director worked on several pivotal episodes oozing of atmosphere and impact satoshi sakai from wit studio even appeared on one of his episodes and the one after and in episode 2 omine requested the use of rotoscoping a technique he first explored when working on doroto's second ending as a result the episode moved a lot and featured a great deal of character animation seldom found in the rest of the franchise the execution is a little janky to say the least but it's hard to fault in a production starved of specialist animators unfortunately this lack of available domestic talent is where the show starts to drastically falter you could write another two hour video about the anime industry's problems here but to put it simply there are too many shows being made and not enough staff to make them this becomes an even bigger issue when you as a studio are already taking on too many shows for your own in-house talent to handle let alone needing freelancers the industry's solution and one that mapa took in attack on titan's case is to take to social media and begin recruiting freelance animators from overseas one such example would be filipino animator ver creek who produced one of the series coolest scenes there were also chinese animators han han and inklore who handled the levi vs beast titan 2.0 fight which is largely good but many of their rough layouts were changed to 3d models due to the lack of time to finish the 2d drawings and that leads us to the big elephant in the room here the cg titans for a lot of people the transition from 2d titan battles to 3d was a tough one to stomach and it's been a hot topic ever since the season debuted understandably change can be hard to come to grips with and it's true that for many people cg of any quality in anime will never hit quite the same impact as its 2d counterparts but in attack on titan's case the cg is not only a dramatic improvement from what came before it's also arguably the most consistent and strongest aspect within this production from mappa taking over from madboc the cg of season 4 is primarily handled by studio v syn a mappa affiliate and old acquaintance of series director hayashi the team's work on hayashi's previous show doreje doro was justifiably praised for its seamless blending of 2d and 3d animation and it continues here in attack on titan using 2d layouts for reference the team makes full use of traditional animation techniques like frame modulation or frame cutting to produce movements more akin to 2d work likewise the texture work is remarkably seamless especially compared to madbox's video game horror show gun are the bizarre gradients instead replaced by flat cell shading topped off with a line work filter applied to the 2d animation to really bring everything together with impressive finesse it may not be as seamless as the work found in studio triggers productions but it's solid stuff and was most definitely not deserving of the hate directed its way upon broadcast perhaps the most obvious and largest change however this season admonishes comes from the new character designs while the previous character designer in wit studio kyoji asano had made many changes to his designs over the years initially removing the thick black outlines and eventually slimming the faces and figures to age up the characters the differences here are even greater tomohirokishi took straight to the manga fortunately dealing with a very polished era of isayama's art and translated it rather directly to the screen for example he consciously undid what he considered to be overly sexy female designs saying that glossy lips and overt sexiness don't really fit in the world of attack on titan while this strong adherence to the manga is great for hardcore fans of the source material it's unfortunately a little less ideal for the animators that have to draw them not because of the nerfed women but because they are immensely detailed with hundreds of lines and particularly the new movement gear that infamously crushed the production with their appearance causing scenes to take three times as long to animate steps were made to alleviate this to an extent for example the intense hatching featured around characters eyes and jaws in the majority of scenes aren't actually hand drawn if you believe it instead there are texture applied to a drawing later down the line saving animators many hours drawing these details in on the many thousands of frames each episode it's a very smart way of going about things and a method i'm sure saved a lot of valuable time frustratingly it's hard to talk about season four's production without sounding like you hate the show like it's this irredeemable failure of a continuation that must be condemned in every way i hope i didn't come across like that because frankly season 4 is still a perfectly enjoyable entry to the franchise it's very lucky in that the content it's covering has next to no action and so the areas it's not lacking in its directors and storyboard artists can actually do a lot to elevate the struggling production in ways they absolutely wouldn't be able to were this as action-packed as season 1. with all that said it is a season of compromise it's a season of unfulfilled potential and most critically it's a season of incredibly overworked animators struggling desperately to get things done on time anecdotes from staff of having episodes being incomplete less than 24 hours prior to the air date corrections being applied so late that you can see the difference between the preview and the final episode and heck even corrections that straight up don't get applied in time whatsoever the story of this season's creation is one wrought with misfortune and trade-offs and one that yielded a less polished product as a result however that's not to say that this season didn't wow its audiences at times thanks in part to some solid visuals on occasion but more so the nail-biting heart-stopping and soul-destroying narrative that consumed my brain for weeks and weeks after reading with the anime continuation not hitting our screens until early 2022 one would hope the production can stabilize in time until then it's time to tackle this final quarter of the story in its purest form it's time for war you might have noticed in the last section concerning the basement that i neglected to discuss many of the other revelations and elements found therein namely grisha's backstory and the revelations of marley this wasn't an unconscious mistake i made in glancing over crucial material instead it was a decision i made intentionally to discuss the themes and events found and explore them within this section as tonally i think it's a much more appropriate fit considering the somewhat controversial elephant in the room here now while i'm sure a great number of you have no idea that this has happened i'm also sure a significant portion of you may very well have skipped to this part of the video just to hear my impressions on this arc and the controversy surrounding it well over the last couple of years many publications and discussions online have labelled attack on titan as pro-imperialist pro-fascist anti-semitic and pro-war particularly after its most recent arc and the revelations found therein given that my experience is with story and that i do not espouse to be politically savvy even in the slightest i can only speak to what impression i've received from the narrative as a whole i'll do so briefly as i'm sure politics aren't necessarily why those of you that have watched this far have decided to do so concerning imperialism and the pro-war propaganda some see in the story i don't think i can get behind this particular train of thought personally visually the argument can be made that battles are depicted as awesome and something to admire particularly with the driving force behind the narrative being that of nationalism early on however this is done intentionally to tear down those very concepts and themes surrounding nationalism later take the early opening sequences from the show as an example of this these can be seen as nationalistic anthems depicting the flags and soldiers of paradise as heroic and in a positive light however over the course of the series the tone of the ops changes significantly but slowly we learned through the series that death is a horrific consequence of this gallant heroism and that these admirable soldiers are all just people putting their lives on the line and what they stand to lose or risk by joining the military is on full display with even the colours at this point having changed considerably to a much darker tone the atmosphere has changed and it's no longer upbeat however the changes continue as we finally arrive at season 4's op which depicts soldiers as mindless zombies in a world devoid of life and color with ruin around every corner it actively depicts war as a negative thing that begets more suffering and that's just looking at the ops of this story which just so happened to mirror the perspective of our main character aaron jaeger throughout naive to the truth of the world at first aaron looked to the military as the only ones worthy of respect to him however over the course of the narrative much like the various ops imagery have shown aaron's rose-tinted impression of the military and war two fades as he discovers the horrors of it and the corruption found even in the military by the time he reaches marilyn in season four he's become a completely different person with a very different yet resilient outlook on life this is all to say that while i do believe that attack on titan focuses on war and combat i think it does so not by promoting any pro-nationalistic message but by telling a story about the horrors of war through the lens of one character aaron this would be different however if the nationalistic tendencies he adopts later in the story were projected in a positive light also however in this story aaron through radicalization becomes the villain his actions are condemned both explicitly and implicitly in the text and the same can be said for both the jaegerists that rise up with him and marley at large in fact the entire point of gabby's character is to show that disliking or hating people for traits that are otherwise out of their control is wrong that's the message or at least it's the one that i received now the conversation however becomes much more muddy when we begin discussing the anti-semitic criticisms of the story to put it simply if looked at in isolation i do believe it's possible for someone to get the impression from the story that because the aliens had the capacity to turn into monsters that the writer might in fact be communicating something equally nefarious about the jewish people considering the allegory isayama is using to communicate that the aliens are akin to the jewish people living under nazi germany while i do think that this is an understandable reading of events in isolation i don't think it's due to any insidious plan or prejudice against the jewish community from the writer isa yama allegorically speaking drawing comparisons like isiama has done here i think were an attempt to connect us with and make us sympathetic to the plight of the alien people by depicting them as jewish people during world war ii whether that be through the armbands they wear the ghettos they live in or through the treatment they receive these easily identifiable similarities are there to quickly help us better understand their otherwise complicated situation without requiring the text to bloat itself with detailed explanations in storytelling oftentimes allegories are implemented to connect us emotionally with something that exists in the real world already george orwell's animal farm is a textbook example of this it didn't connect with people because they enjoyed a story about farm animals they connected with it because it represented the danger surrounding the russian revolution in attack on titan hajime isayama outlines clear and easily identifiable similarities between the aldians and the jewish people's treatment and as an audience it immediately encourages us to view merely as the oppressive fascist and nationalistic force they are and the eldians the victims of a horrid oppressor that needs to be stopped in other words the desired effect isiyama wanted from this comparison he's making was to endear us to the elden warriors sent to paradise and to build a hatred for how marley has and continues to treat them in effect the story hinges on isiama's ability to bridge the gap between the audience and the aldeans of marley that we have been fighting against ever since the story began as an audience we need to like them for the story to work or at the very least sympathize with them this is what i believe isiyama's intentions were for the aliens to be akin to the jewish people insofar as their treatment and not a one-to-one comparison however i cannot say that someone's interpretation of the material is wrong in this instance if they think he's wrongfully implying that the jewish community are monsters taking all of this into account however i think it's much more reasonable and likely to assume that he was careless with this particular allegory and didn't intend for a story to be received that way considering the main message of the story is anti-anti-semitism overall i personally do not view attack on titan as an anti-semitic fascist or pro-war work but instead a cautionary tale on the dangers of indoctrination propaganda racism and perhaps most interestingly the path of suffering radicalization can lead one down with aaron's transition into the antagonistic role the threat of the titans as a whole vanishes as both sides with their nuances explored unite against a common threat isiama's handling of these subjects might be a little clumsy but it's fair in my opinion from problematic if you look at the series in its larger context now with all of that addressed let's finally dive into the story the marley arc as i briefly touched upon a moment ago the purpose for the beginning of this arc is to endear us to an enemy we've been fighting against for the entire series an enemy that's turned cities to rubble torn families apart and terrorized millions causing untold suffering across not only the entire cast but as we soon find out in the first episode of the season other parts of the world too trying to successfully endear us to those responsible for the destruction within the walls seems impossible but isa yama pulls it off it should go without saying that this section shocks and challenges its audience perhaps more so than any other that's come before it throughout this video i've given you my enthusiastic musics on the first season i've screamed in joy over the second and i nearly passed out from the sheer excitement during the prior season 3 material however with this there is a very different approach taken and tone attempted to be struck instead of following the same ragtag group we've grown to love and appreciate since the beginning isayama decides to deviate from that by dragging us kicking and screaming as we explore the other side of this conflict across the sea in a land called marley redefining the meaning of the phrase a cruel world through some harrowing war-torn imagery within moments isa yama had me on their side the fourth season's material is deliciously complicated and nuanced not complicated in that it's difficult to follow but emotionally complex primarily we bounce from new characters oppressors victims warriors and even children so much so that by the time the third episode of this season rolls around it becomes clear that the real enemy isn't the military hatred or even the titans that we've been fighting this entire time but instead it's ignorance a fact that those in power on both sides marley and paradise to varying degrees have utilized to oppress and control their respective populations i mean this is precisely why erwin existed within the story and why the entire cast was so gung-ho on reaching shinganshina and the basement in the first place it was to discover the truth to become less ignorant conversely on the other side of the conflict in marley we see this theme explored to its natural extreme the indoctrination of the youth brainwashing them into not only believing that they themselves are devil spawn but that it is their duty to die formerly and to repent for these inherent sins they supposedly have and so when i discovered we weren't going to be following the point of view of the scouts but instead the up-and-coming recruits and forces from marley instead i without any word of hyperbole jumped for freaking joy at this point i hadn't decided to read ahead in the manga and still had no clue how the story was intending on proceeding however electing to show us that the enemies we've been fighting against all this time aren't monsters but people trying to stay alive too was exactly the sort of injection of narrative ambiguity and moral nuance i was expecting from this tale and boy was i happy gabby gang gabby gang gabby gang gabby gang gabby gang gabby gang gabby gang wheeze of the battlefield too smart got a big brain but a bigger heart this is exactly why i found gabby to be such a tremendously well-written and important character to help introduce us to the indoctrination and propaganda rampant in the world of marley she's single-minded well-trained and filled with hate reminding us that unlike the audience the characters in the story are ignorant and easily manipulated all in the name of seizing power from marley this is where the relentless pursuit of power leads us to a world that can turn the most compassionate of children into monsters and a defenseless child into a heartless attacker aaron and reiner despite being at each other's throats for the majority of the story are actually remarkably more the same than they are different a cursory glance back over the story particularly after the material covered in the season demonstrates that both reiner and aaron have a threshold for suffering that far exceeds most if not everyone in this tale they each go through torment and tremendous loss for their respective goals somehow finding the resolve to do so along the way unlike other characters that often crumble in the series aaron chooses freedom over comfort and reiner too chose in the face of absolute failure and horror he kept pushing forward now i spent a considerable amount of time towards the beginning of this video discussing and exploring how and why aaron's character works within the story explaining that he's an active protagonist trapped in a world that forced him to be reactionary and i bring this up again because reiner on the other hand is a reactionary character living in a world that forces him to be active aaron a sword forced to defend and reiner a shield forced to attack both of these characters while in verses of each other share a desire that no matter what we deserve better reiner is fighting in the hope that one day he will be the hero that will raise the eldian people standing in the world and aaron is fighting for the freedom of humanity they are both the protagonists on each of their respective sides of this wall and ironically if that very element to their personalities that they have in common that leads them to be mortal enemies great friends and ultimately the reason this entire story is being told at all and if you're thinking the similarities between these two characters ends here you'd be dead wrong in the beginning both reiner and aaron believed that they were inherently special that something inside that made them worthy of all this bloodshed failure and suffering that they've caused on their way towards this ultimate goal however as i pointed out in the prior section aaron has an existential crisis after he sees that the only reason he was able to transform in the first place was due to his father forcing it upon him after killing the rhys family brutally and as we discover in this section reiner was the worst warrior trainee only receiving his special qualities because marcel influenced and manipulated the higher ups into choosing him there's a phenomenal and superbly written video dissecting this very relationship i'm discussing between reiner and aaron called two sides of the same coin by the youtube channel's soul and in it he points to a specific panel from the manga that perfectly captures reiner's character succinctly and it does so because in this image reiner's reality and delusion stand in stark contrast side by side i will save everyone he says as he abandons marcel i'm going to punish the ireland devils despite acting like more of a devil than any of the aldens he's demonized i'm going to become a hero he says killing thousands of innocents and failing his mission through this flashback we can clearly see that not only is reiner running away from this titan but he's running away from his problems from a mother who's manipulative and delusional and a father who despises him and interestingly it's this coping mechanism this distancing himself from dealing with who he really is that creates instances where reiner at times seemed to be innocent and good earlier in the series much like aaron shown in hero personality being at odds with the rest of the world reiner has his own shonen hero persona that too is at odds with reality and so when marcel gets eaten after saving reiner the leader and best candidate among them reiner is forced to hide in his delusion and press forward with his mission to be the hero that he thinks he's meant to be and in doing so realizes that the people he's been taught to hate his entire life are just regular people like him back home and ironically enough it's through his embodiment of this delusion that he becomes the person he always wanted to be in paradise someone strong reliable and someone people can look up to until he snaps now years later all he can do is suffer the consequences of his actions in total depression he made fatal mistakes that others have had to pay the price for and he never became the hero he thought he was destined to be if you ever needed evidence of dramatic character development and attack on titan look no further than right here in this scene from season four having once demonized him as a traitor he vowed to kill aaron now sees the humanity in reiner while reiner someone who constantly ran away to protect his sanity is now forced to face the living embodiment of his past sins and aaron now moments before he commits mass genocide probes reiner to see if he will be able to live with it like he has will he be able to accept it in this moment aaron acknowledges that they are very much the same this is the biggest shift in the entire series from a character standpoint after following aaron's struggle as an active protagonist forced to bend to the will of the cruel world aaron finally has the agency he so desperately yearned for and in achieving such killed countless innocents becoming the villain of this series itself then on the other side of the coin after admitting to the sins of his past for the first time aloud and bending his knees to aaron before him reiner begrudgingly becomes the hero of this story the sword that was once defending is now attacking and the shield that was once forcing itself to attack is now defending those that need protection the attack titan and the armor titan are now in their natural states so let's dance naturally it's around this time i simply couldn't wait for the anime any longer and picked up the manga to read ahead in the series because this fight may very well be my favorite from a thematic standpoint for what it represents in the series it's such a strong and clear mirroring of the events in shigen shina with gabby as an appropriately headstrong stand-in for aaron as he becomes the monster he once despised i mean there's a reason why they composed the poster of season 4 to look like this because it mirrors the very first one and the fight that takes place is one of the most dominant and adrenaline pumping outings from isoyama while being much more narratively focused on the subtext of the heinous actions from aaron it also sports some truly hellish visuals and graphic scenes and can we take a moment to talk about how awesome peck is during this figuring out what was happening enabling her to make the save with porco in the middle of an enemy sneak attack there's some tremendous action here the back and forths are stupendous but no moment from this fight for me outshines the appearance of the scouts seeing them suddenly and slowly begin to make themselves known is both an exhilarating and terrifying experience in this season climaxing with a beautifully delivered quote by porco as haunting as it is pathetic while the soldiers from paradise begin surrounding him can't you see i'm a titan these guys are just humans yet they're coming to kill me these guys they're the devils of paradise it's such a horrific scene that builds beautifully and makes out the forces of paradise to be every bit as terrifying and monstrous as they've been warned they were and yet as an audience we know that not to be true there are so many mixed emotions implications and consequences from this battle and in real time i found myself reeling just trying to grasp the scope of this event all the while gabby is forced to watch her friends get trampled to death or killed quickly and suddenly by the devils from paradise just like aaron was forced to do all those years ago however unlike aaron gabby is different she can do something about it war for paradise arc it was clear for me at least while i was watching all of this suffering unfold that we were finally entering the endgame of this story for sasha who had up until this point being such a positive force to not only have to participate but to die suddenly and unceremoniously because of this fighting it made me feel well conflicted to put it bluntly in one way i felt it appropriate the cynical direction aaron chose to take the story and meant that positivity had to take a backseat and so thematically it felt as though the joy of the series had died also the one person that was always looking to the future with optimism now no longer has a place in this cruel world and unlike what felt like at the time the entire internet i didn't hold gabby entirely responsible i loved sasha as a character but those actions gabby took were a retaliation against an aggressor she'd been raised and trained to hate her entire life and ironically due to the way we follow their journey from this point on both gabby as well as falco represent the future of this world twisted as their views once were it's their journey in the pursuit of truth that makes for me the most narratively compelling portion of this upcoming final part to the anime i don't think it's coincidence that this section of the story contends and deals with the radicalization and de-radicalization of two very similar characters but at very different times in their lives aaron and gabby obviously the stand-in for erin during the raid of liberio gabby is placed in a position of contempt amongst the viewership all the while we're more inclined to hope for and forgive the demonstrably larger scale of suffering aaron has unloaded on these people due to our long-standing relationship with the character however as aaron unrestrained pushes himself further and further astray gabby well she starts to change and for complete transparency i wasn't exactly surprised by the direction her character was taken in it made perfect sense to me for her to serve this purpose to push gaby's ideals and prejudices to the absolute limit until her worldview is shattered leaving her forced to finally contend with reality finally starting to see clarity past the ignorance that once clouded her mind all of this is perfectly good but it's how isoyama got us to that point that i thought was the most brilliant and surprising aspect of it proving it's not the destination but the journey that changes minds and no solitary episode better exemplifies that progression or journey than this one episode 70 entitled deceiver it's just it gives me the good chemicals i could go on and on about the gorgeous storyboard this episode boasts or how it massively endeared me towards the character of falco but in truth the main reason why i loved this episode came down to how it used the gabby character to fully explore what radicalization can mean and how the greater story played into this message being amplified substantially now i touched on this briefly in the season 2 section of this review but the episode where sasha rescues a little girl from a titan stood as one of the highlights of that arc for me taking a character that once held onto a prejudice concerning outsiders and turned her into a strong hero that saved an innocent and that very innocent helped to save gaby and falco all the while confronted them about their hatred for her people and we know gaby is the one that kills sasha the girl that saved her and she doesn't even know about that god i'm getting worked up just talking about this one i love this episode the messaging of the story here is fantastic obviously the script is great but it's what's not being said that almost makes the most noise on this occasion for me the expressions falling across gabby's face as her world comes slowly crashing down around her the sobering realization that everything she's been taught might actually be a lie it's one of the most cathartic conversations in the series but you know what's not cathartic remember when i said that this story was deliciously complicated and nuanced well this is what i meant one it's obvious to everyone that flock is a hell spawn that deserves a fiery death more painful than i could possibly describe it's also shown to us how and why he came to feel this way this now radical leader of the agaris forces doesn't just sprout out from thin air like almost everything else in this story it does so after the appropriate time and buildup all the way back in the prior season we can all plainly see the seeds for this sort of corruption being present it's all there his fear his hatred his punchable face it's there plain as day he believes in a nationalistic vision for the future and those thoughts were nurtured accidentally through the earnest efforts of one hanji and the forces of paradise as they over the course of four years strove for a peaceful resolution and integration into the broader world and while aaron is a big part of this entire movement and i do fully intend on talking about our man that's one with the man bun i thought the dynamic hanji zou provided acted as the best narrative opposing force to flock's cruel overly nationalistic view in the story with her insisting that finding a peaceful resolution is the only worthwhile pursuit for a better tomorrow but situations are complicated and watching as hanji is forced to withhold information from the people she promised she wouldn't lie to ever again hurts but again we can understand why she's making those decisions making all of these characters not only feel flawed but much more real after the amazing fight and aftermath on the rate of liberio finishes the story sort of takes a pit stop in expositionville and spends a night or two in the flashback hotel it's not my favorite part of the story but i can see why it's needed and i'd rather it be there than it not and this is vital for two reasons it helps us better hate flock with the burning intensity of a thousand sun and it helps us set up and build tension as we press forward into the climax of the story as an audience we know that there are so so many enemies on route to paradise wanting to clap back after what happened and so what initially started as a frustrating annoyance within the military and public questioning why aaron was apprehended in the first place it eventually and naturally turns into a full-blown movement to overthrow the scouts and free aaron this very much is the final setup phase of the story and isiama doesn't want to screw anything up and so while it might be a little pedantic with some of the characters and episodes as we discuss foreign policy with not japan or build a railroad it's also filled with meaningful character moments alongside some intensely interesting and heartbreaking events until it too reaches a boiling point jeez dude watch this lise you can actually pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half and now this was one of the hardest scenes to sit through particularly in the manga the way isayama drew miku's face during this exchange is honestly heartbreaking with armin surprisingly and sufficiently carrying a lot of the emotional weight here too if you cast your minds back to episode one of the series armin chooses not to fight the bullies for he believes much like he does now if he were to fight back it would be stooping to their level this speaks to his philosophy in pursuing a peaceful means of integrating within the world he sees retaliation and violence as stooping to their level and while aaron was talking down to him specifically for a considerable portion of this he held himself still the same way he would when facing any other bully however he cracks when aaron rips mikus's heart to pieces it's a gut-wrenching scene and i haven't even begun to talk about levi zeke's betrayal of marley and levi's supervision of him stands as the only moment in recent memory where attack on titan actually made my heart sink into my stomach as a strong wave of insight and sudden realization cascaded over my body the utilization of the wine to infect all of the unsuspecting aldeans with zeke's spinal fluid was something i never saw coming and found deviously clever it's already been established that the titan formula needs to get into the bloodstream and alcoholic beverages work by transporting the alcohol into the bloodstream all the foreshadowing pieces were there including a really strange altercation at a restaurant with sasha's boy toy it's such a terrific adherence to the mechanics of the world while still managing to pull a surprise out of what felt like thin air creating one of the most tense moments i had ever experienced while reading through a story and perhaps because this was a scene i experienced in the manga first i actually didn't enjoy it nearly as much in the anime when i saw this panel i felt as though that was it for levi it felt to me that a death here could be tragic and serve to create more tension leading into the climax later and so in other words as i was reading through this i literally convinced myself that he was done for but you gotta be kidding me styles and the beast titan and drags his stubby ass into a cart i firmly believe my preference for this is squarely a result of me reading the manga first and in the anime it's a great adaptation for the most part and then we get zeke's flashback at this point in the story we're made fully aware of zeke's motivations to work alongside aaron but what i like the most about zeke's portrayal is that much like everything that's revealed in this series it's foreshadowed numerous times during the lead-up to this flashback plenty of personnel have remarked at how special zeke is but never outing his royal blood as the reason and simply put it's because he never told them now it's very possible that that reveal wouldn't have landed for me had i been reading week to week but i binged this series hard and caught up in like two days at chapter like 137 so look i was completely surprised when i saw zeke as a traitor to marley but when i saw what the plan was things got extremely serious and real very quick with him having the means to enact his plans seemingly at the ready all he needs to do is which brings us to here the end of the anime with the two protagonists from either side reiner and aaron facing each other once again for what will no doubt be a battle to decide the future of this world it's the perfect point to leave off this story but a ridiculous cliffhanger considering what i know comes next but as you know this is where the anime chose to go on a mid-season break i will henceforth be covering material as of yet not adapted by the anime so if you wish to avoid spoilers and have watched this far i would like to say thank you so much for watching and i hope you'll come back to visit once the series returns all right those that care about supporters are gone now thank god i wasn't sure how much longer i could go without mentioning a spoiler like the rumbling or the weird centipede thing or aaron's head being blown off but now i'm amongst those that don't mind so let's press on forward to tell you the truth the rumbling is the single most terrifying action set piece i've seen committed to the pages of any manga and going into this final section on paradise i found myself reflecting on the beginning of this arc quite a lot the motivations surrounding aaron are honestly unsettling to say the least not just because of what manifests from them but because the story has been told from aaron's point of view for pretty much its entire run if you think back across the attack on titan story it's all pretty much following aaron's journey and story surrounding his origin however that's not the case in season four one of the first things we notice about the arc is that we're following a different perspective and the first time we see aaron is as an intruder or outsider to the narrative the manga and the anime frame this scene to show aaron as the villain or antagonist he interrupts the narrative and reigns destruction down upon those around him many of whom are innocent however what makes it scary to me at least is that over the course of the act we're shown his thought process the conflicts in liberia the uprising of the egoists the battle of paradise afterwards and of course the rumbling are all metaphors for how conflict manifests in the real world and the horrible outcomes that can stem from them what began as a story about a boy and his friends fighting against what was understood to be an absolute evil outside the walls was eventually revealed to be a desperate and conflicted assault from some brainwashed and abused children acting on behalf of a tyrannical government across the sea the story became so much more complicated and nuanced aaron spent years of his life looking for an alternative to war with marley and all his efforts in attempting to do so went out the window the instant marley themselves declared war on paradise fully intending on slaughtering all of them in order to take what they want for themselves and much like those living in shigen china that faithful day in the beginning the civilians of marley and people like gabby will only see aaron as a pure evil maniac acting on his inherent devil nature aaron's attack on liberio while i believe it was coming anyway happened there and then because that's where marley declared war on paradise his attacks were targeted against marlene officials and sponsors after the declaration was made the current plan being worked on by the likes of hanji armin and the rest of the scouts through foreign politics were hinging on a reality that was founded in fantasy much as it pains me to say but pretending like they could have waited 50 years to become part of some international trade and political sphere becomes nigh impossible when we consider the broader context that marley was formulating a plan of action against them long before they could have reached that goal not to mention rally support from the rest of the world and spread propaganda concerning the aliens of paradise this of course isn't to say that i support aaron's efforts here absolutely not but there's a big difference between supporting aaron's rumbling and understanding that after this aforementioned point it's either a question of succeeding in a monstrous war effort for your entire country or letting them die for the benefit of a foreign elite and that's the terrifying reality of this story the notion that sometimes in very very serious life-threatening situations there are no clear or straightforward answers available both choices are hard aaron understands that the only way for him to make paradise free is to win a war against the entire rest of the world and the rumbling is the only weapon they have with which to achieve that on the other side of the coin the hero forces whom we follow the point of view of are comprised of oppressors and oppressed alike from all sides of this conflict coming together deciding to sacrifice their own people to ensure the survival of a far greater number understanding that if they succeed the oppressors will massacre and oppress ruthlessly and without reluctance most likely and i think that's what makes this final section of attack on titan so intense and heart-stoppingly captivating it's why i've spent what is now over 60 pages of a script writing about it and i'm sure it's why a number of you have been watching all of this time too it's a clashing of ideals in a situation where each ideal is forced logically to its most extreme conclusions there is no pure evil doer or wholly correct hero and there is no way out of this situation that doesn't end in significant and tragic loss on both sides there's only trade-offs available here and having to face that as a reader felt horrific horrific because that's the way the world is and it forces you to contend with that reality chapter 126 and 127 are supremely powerful i think because it forces our new hero team if you can call them that to sit during the night and contend with what lies before them and what the give and take of the upcoming situations are a strong highlight for me has to be how hanji much like her commander before her gave up her life to give our heroes a chance at effectively saving the world from aaron's wrath made all the more effective by its aftermath as she finds herself in the paths alongside all those she's lost it's a powerful moment made all the more so by how often throughout this series hanji has second guessed herself and how much of the blame she shoulders herself for this event happening she's been a massively optimistic character and the perfect choice to succeed erwin i think she's had to contend with learning that titans were once people that she experimented on and tortured she's had to deal with tremendous loss and she's had to deal with letting people down time and time again like everything else in this series it's a bummer but she's optimistic for a better tomorrow until the bitter end with a supremely powerful panel seeing her exclaim i'm not accepting genocide she values life she recognizes that there are innocent and defenseless people all over the world so in other words she wants to protect humanity not just her humanity in paradise but all of it and all of this came before the big storm that eventually erupts as they conflict the very end this piece before it gave me pause to consider and cast my mind back to appreciate all the hidden hints foreshadowing this very event whether it be exactly talking to aaron during his trial in season one about either being a demon of destruction or a savior there are two instances with armin one where he chats with jean about the titans they discovered in the walls potentially going for a walk or armin again remarking that aaron always runs off on his own leaving them behind during the season 2 material heck even the way aaron justifies his killing of the human traffickers to protect mikasa might help explain how he dehumanizes those that might threaten paradise in the wider world he thinks of them as animals threatening the freedoms of himself and his loved ones and so keeping all of these in mind as i look on watching as aaron marches like some sort of eldritch nightmare across the sea and arrives on the mainland as a reader i'm just faced with the suffering and terror that this sort of force brings to the world now before i move on to the final battle i have to shout out this amazing artist and creator on youtube called kane pixels they've gone out of their way to recreate some of the major story beats from attack on titan's final section in a found footage news report style from the 1940s or 30s it's amazing and terrifying check it out okay time for the big bad oh wait no okay wait no first thing oh geez levi how could i forget levi okay so levi is alive the scene where his body is discovered by hanji the way it's framed or worded and the way the scene cuts short in my heart of hearts i knew there was a good chance levi was alive chapters and chapters and chapters passed on by and no levi until suddenly levi's alive i was so pumped now naturally i didn't have the same build up like some of you guys might have had i mean i blitzed through pretty much all of the prelude to the rumbling and the battle thereafter in a couple days but even then i made a lot of really weird and loud happy noises as soon as my brain processed what happened levi you absolute monster and human wrecking machine you are alive okay now it's time for what i thought was the most hyped thing i've ever seen the final battle but first a small disclaimer something i noticed that happened to me anyway when i was part of a community surrounding a long-running franchise was that eventually i became less flexible to what the author or products were delivering in other words i didn't like it as much now plenty of people haven't liked the last few chapters of attack on titan and i'm sure it's for very justifiable reasons but i can say that i had that same experience personally i love them so if you're one of those people who didn't like it i'm sorry that you didn't but i can't speak to your experience i could only speak to my own so with that out of the way let's dive in truth be told usually when i write about a given section i like to write out the bullet points of what i think makes it tick so i can better structure my arguments or observations concerning it thereafter but with this there's there's just too much it's fittingly the culmination of most of the present characters arcs as well as the send-off to the series jean acts as the selfless hero armin the assertive strategist gabby is de-radicalized and aiding the effort levi in devastating fashion completes the last ever mission erwin ever gave him peck-styled like only the karak titan can and mikasa overcame her greatest weakness and that's not even to make mention of the scale this battle boasts from a visual standpoint i need only point to one of the many big page spreads to demonstrate the astounding progression isa yama has made as an artist over the last 11 years of publication i mean who knew consistent practice could make you amazing this entire fight is packed with so much content that honestly i think i could write another two hour video alongside detailing the conflicts and consequences that emerge from this mega man-esque showdown against the villains of the past so for the sake of compromise let's talk about my favorite aspects of it and why i thought they worked as well as they did for me and maybe a thing or two that i didn't like okay first things first the paths how they work and how they're depicted before leading up to and during this battle served to amplify the story greatly for me impressing me further by how everything here makes sense because everything has been slowly built up to over the course of a hundred plus chapters if you told me in 2013 that little kid aaron would be the living embodiment of all my greatest fears both physical and existential all made possible through the power of titan path blood magic i would have said you're crazy and i'm not watching this story the paths and how they connect different parts of this story are visually stunning and serve to bring everyone together for tons of meaningful scenes whether it be the ambush that zeke tries to get aaron with only for him to reverse uno card the bearded blondie and say actually no i'm ambushing you one of the best moments with the pats has to be how aaron announces to all the alien people both in paradise and throughout the rest of the world that the rumbling is happening that honestly gave me shivers and made the occasion feel all the more massive and hopeless this is peak titan magic and it's so out there and crazy yet feels so perfectly connected and justified and not at all silly when in the context of attack on titan's world and during this battle the paths play an integral role in the functionality of this i mean look at this armin gives zeke a feels bad man speech only it's actually really nice and not at all city like i'm describing it and he pops out like a pimple on prom night from aaron's founding titan body like i love how this all makes sense but out of context it could be the weirdest thing anyone could have seen that week and levi has no chill at all by the way dude barely gets a few words out and levi eviscerates him from existence jokes aside though i thought this moment was great and the reason why is painted across levi's face after he does the deed erwin wanted him to take out the beast titan a threat to humanity but in making himself visible zeke found the beauty in being alive and so while levi did take out his target at the same time he didn't the zeke that he was assigned to take out was long gone i mean geez not even levi gets to be happy the way that he wanted to and the battle that takes place might be one of the best i've seen in fiction as i mentioned prior there are so many individual moving parts to consider each with their own motivating factors and distinct goals now with something like this i was terrified that it could get extremely messy and convoluted very quick but right from the outset we are given a goal and that soon becomes a two-part plan and then a three-part plan and then the plan suddenly becomes a monument to how screwed they all really are this was one of the coolest aspects of this tale there's honestly tons to love about this part of the story but that's not to say that i'm in love with everything it has to offer if there's one aspect to this finale that i'm lukewarm on it's the titan centipede thing but that's not to say that i don't think it makes sense at least not any less than a tree of life does in norse mythology it's like the existence of god in the bible it's this source of life that in the series's case kicks off the story in amir's flashback giving her the power of the titans and spawning everything that happens after that zeke even goes as far as to liken it to the god particle more or less in that it's this mysterious entity that happened to survive among the matter that vanished however i do think there's criticism to be made here nevertheless this is a story where pretty much every character and element found therein has been massively fleshed out and the byproduct of that is a story where you could effectively drag every alien in the world to a google hangout in the paths and it doesn't come across as silly or ill-fitted with how character-driven everything is a more nebulous concept like this centipede that's external to the story and not really acknowledged by anyone directly can feel a bit i don't know underwhelming it's a very important figure that isn't expounded upon in masses of detail so its importance is quite easily overlooked and as a result kind of makes its appearance in the finale a little lackluster if you're not 100 glued to every sentence the manga throws at you however with that said aaron colossal titan fight with armin as aaron's rumbling is put on hold and he has to dedicate all of his energy to contend with armin's colossal titan all eyes fall to mikasa as she needs to make the final move here to decide what way she's going to go about this something i will say about this though is that for reasons some of which i've outlined in this video mikasek comes across as so much more interesting and likable in the manga tragically much of what has been cut to allow for adequate anime pacing has been an element to her character that brought her to life for me and made this moment feel all the more impactful and for that reason among many others i am happy that i started reading the manga when i did in preparation for this video it made this chapter significantly so much more powerful and immeasurably heartbreaking and as i watched mikasa now for the final time sore through the air and into the mouth of aaron's colossal founder my heart stopped as i watched mikasa sever the head of the person she loves more than anyone else in the world followed by a kiss i will sincerely never forget both horrific and beautiful in its depiction an action that perfectly captures attack on titan's soul allowing isa yama to make his biggest and farthest reaching callback he's ever made in this series see you later aaron echoing the opening words from chapter one over 11 years ago i get chills just thinking about it however perhaps more likely to be overlooked has been one of the most ironic potential foreshadowings i noticed while re-watching the series in my research for this video in episode 5's conclusion aaron says much like he does in the manga you think i'm going to die in a place like this as he stands in the mouth of a titan with his desire to protect his friend and to fight for what he believes in being the very reason he found himself in that specific position in the first place and now over 130 chapters later we find ourselves at the end of this long twisting story again with aaron through his intense and unyielding desire to protect what he cares for places himself in a place like this all of his own creation forcing his loved ones hands to do the unthinkable god i love this story alright guys a small disclaimer before i move on to my final thoughts surrounding this series i'm actually recording this the day the video comes out because it turns out chapter 139 came with a lot more baggage than i was anticipating while i think in broad strokes the next paragraphs to this video surmise my overall thoughts and impressions on the series and its ending to some extent i've decided that it's necessary for me to give my full and more complicated and critical impressions of it once official translations become available for chapter 139 so for now enjoy my final thoughts on a series which i wrote prior to the full chapter dropping and anticipate a more detailed video on the final chapter and my feelings surrounding it next week thanks and that's when we get it the last chapter 139 i knew that going into this it would be mostly clean up on the details and aftermath of the prior chapters aftershocks but something did surprise me here having been a story that's encouraged me to think instead of feel all of this time for the last chapter all i could focus on while reading was my now long history with this series after eight years of personally keeping up with it sharing it with family and discussing it long into the wee hours of the night with my closest friends i'm confronted with the reality that attack on titan is over like any great story worth telling i am somewhat sad to see it go but overcome with joy that the author got to tell the story he wanted to share with us in its entirety a story detailing the dangers of racism ignorance and radicalization all while demonstrating that sometimes much like real life there are no clear-cut right answers for any side only trade-offs the muddied or messy messaging many began to criticize this series for brandishing while it might not be for everyone for sometimes understandable reasons for me i think it helped to capture the muddy and messy nature of global politics and humanity at large without compromising towards a deus ex machina type contrivance that points to an obvious world peace solution when in reality something like that just doesn't exist it's sad it's controversial and sometimes incredibly disheartening and while it concludes in this fashion i think it does so while leaving behind a gentle yet hopeful echo one that reminds us that yes terror may create cruel people pacifism may lead to suffering and love can lead to heartbreak but we shouldn't lose hope for the possibilities the future might bring for despite everything i've mentioned there's a reason why we love why we believe and why we continue to fight until the bitter end [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Totally Not Mark

Views: 4,661,057

Keywords:

Id: 5LFsVz0XyHs

Length: 177min 49sec (10669 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/AutoModerator]

This post has been tagged as ANIME SPOILERS. Please remember to tag any new episode/manga spoilers beyond this point.

New Episode Spoilers: Anything from an episode of the anime within 24 hours of its official English release.

Manga Spoilers - Anything that has not yet been revealed in the anime. If a person, Titan, or location appears in the anime but is not yet named, the name is considered Manga Spoilers.

New Chapter Spoilers - Anything from the latest chapter of the manga, until official English release.

Spoilers include hinting or alluding to events. For more information, please review the subreddit rules. Failure to properly spoiler tag comments may result in a temporary ban from the subreddit according to the moderation matrix.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/GOT_Wyvern]

Yeah, it's a brilliant review. Sat through the entire video, and was amazed by his analysis.

[u/ZiegelPy]

what does it review? the entire manga?

[u/waitinf4Haloinfinite]

holy hell, this is amazing tysm op ima watch the whole thing