The anime that has taken the world by storm, Attack on Titan, has announced that there will be a third instalment of the “Final” season.
But the “Final” instalment of the popular anime won’t be released until early 2023, which means fans will have to wait just under a year for the conclusion of the gory, complicated, philosophical experiment that is Attack on Titan.
The series follows the lives of Eren, Mikasa, and Armin who are humans trapped within a series of walls to prevent the monstrous Titans from devouring them. The story of the Titans is as mysterious as they are enthralling and as the series progresses important discussions about the nature of man, war, determinism versus free will, and peace are discussed in great detail.
Long-time fans of the series will know that the anime had initially had trouble finding a studio to create the show due to the intense gore and complicated moral story the show provides.
The trouble proved so burdensome, that an entire anime studio company, WIT STUDIO was created to produce the show and later the final instalments were given to MAPPA studios (Jujutsu Kaisen, Kakegurul, and Dorohedoro) after the show’s massive success and cultural influence.
Attack on Titan has previously taken long breaks between seasons, particularly between seasons one and two which waited from September 2013 until April 2017, nearly four years.
MAPPA has taken their time with this show, to give more CGI elements to the complicated action scenes while even improvising scenes that weren’t in the original manga.
There is also rumoured to be an Anime Only Ending (AOE) for the show after the original ending proved controversial and unsatisfying for many fans who wanted a happier conclusion to the story.
This decision has been met with a complicated reaction from fans, with some supporting the decision while others are comparing the release of the “Final Season” to other animes that have been done quickly.
Attack on Titan was the only show to bring me back into anime. I hadn’t watched or even touched anime since my teenage years since I found the tropes to be annoying and distracting, particular the dreaded ‘fan-service.’ But then came along Attack on Titan with a plot that genuinely kept me guessing throughout the show. While some of my initial theories were correct, a vast majority of them were not and this continued to bring me deeper into the show.
The show really dove deep into more intense philosophical issues that one wouldn’t expect from a Japanese cartoon in a manner that reminds me of NEON GENESIS: EVANGELION, a show that looks like a giant mech brawler which is actually a deep analysis of the psychology of someone coming of age taking inspiration from Schopenhauer, Freud, Jung, and Jewish mysticism.
This parallel isn’t unwarranted but instead of a psychological subversion of what I consider to be a “Biological Mech” show, Attack on Titan subverts the audience with political philosophy from Hobbes, Foucault, Anti-Natalism, Utilitarianism, Plato, Machiavellianism, Epistemology, determinism vs free will, and perspectivism all under the guise of a fantasy monster series.
Being a fan who has both read the manga and continued to stay up to date with the show, I knew the decision for an additional part was going to come. For weeks I had been telling my friends and other online communities that the show simply cannot end here based on the source material.
While I, too, feel misled by the wording and promotional material, this choice was a logical one that I had known for the past two months and the decision does not come as a surprise to me.
The first season of Attack on Titan is streaming on Netflix while the complete series can be viewed on Crunchyroll and Funimation.
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