Attack on Titan’s anime has finally come to an end, as all things do. As per the protagonist Eren’s wishes, the series has aired for 10 years at least. It’s been a long arduous journey filled with heartbreak, rage, moments of respite and cherished memories.
The road to get here is littered with the bodies of many — the scouting troops, the inhabitants of the world of Attack on Titan and the Titans themselves. Plus, there’s the sanity of the readers of the manga and the wife of the manga’s first editor. There’s been a lot of causalities, but that’s life.
It was a much-awaited event. Sites crashed as fans waited anxiously for the sand in the hourglass to trickle down to its release, the refresh buttons on computers were abused. Finally, it aired.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
For 90 minutes, fans were riveted watching the events play out on screen. It was violent, brutal, full of gore. It was a tearjerker, the harsh realities of what Eren was doing. He was flattening the Earth as he marched his army of 50-foot-tall Titans around the globe as he spearheaded them from his skeletal cage inside the Founding Titan.
There were moments where even the staunchest of his supporters would be torn by his actions. As the Titans drive a group of humans off a cliff, a young mother falls and her baby is flung to the air. A stranger catches the baby, passing it along to safety. Except there’s nowhere to go. This sequence, accompanied by the dirge-like music, sets the scene.
Seeing the manga translated to animation, Studio MAPPA has really breathed life into the characters. Everything from their movements to their facial expressions were full of sublime pathos. The cinematography captured the settings beautifully. There’s a shot of Mikasa leaping into the air, framing her from behind are Falco’s wings. She is deadly, beautiful, an angel of vengeance, a Valkyrie. The gravitas of the rumbling is all the more enhanced when one sees it in motion. The OST as always complements the scene. Linked Horizon returns with the ending track which is fitting titled “Saigo no Kyojin” (The Last Titan).
For the first 40 minutes, you are swept up by the events, soaring as high as Eren as the story progresses.
And then depending on your outlook, you might find things…odd after that.
Attack on Titan’s ending is controversial. It was controversial back in April 2021 when the manga ended and it remains controversial now as the anime ends. People lost their minds (they search for it like Eren searched for freedom). Despite a few lines being tweaked here and there in the anime, it remains the same.
There are three paths when it comes to the ending:
- You love it and are satisfied.
- You hate it and you don’t understand what the hell happened.
- You refuse to believe the ending you read was real. You abhor it. You ruminate on it like a cow chewing cud. You reread the breakdown scene over and over again. Until it grows on you, like cancer or a fungus. It’s an ending that is so bad that it’s hilarious. You might even end up liking it.
This is because Attack on Titan is NOT a cerebral work of dark fiction, post-apocalyptic horror.
Attack on Titan is a tale of romance. Specifically, Stockholm syndrome with comedic undertones.
It is truly amazing how a single final chapter can turn the trajectory of the story 180 degrees.
All our unanswered questions we spent hours theorizing are answered by Eren.
To quote Reiner on Eren: “What a man he is!“
As Armin says: “Eren, I have another question to ask once we drag you out of there. In what way are you free?”
Much much later, Eren responds: “I’m a slave to freedom.”
Eren, why did you decide to bring the flat Earth theory to fruition? Why did you decide to slaughter humanity, your own kind and drag your friends to their deaths?
Eren, always a man of few words answers each of them, unveiling the inner workings of his mind:
“I don’t know why, but I wanted to do that, I had to.“
And my personal favorite: “It’s because I’m an idiot.“
Eren Yeager, so eloquent, a war poet who gives even Wilfred Owen a run for his money.
All of these events were carried out at the behest of Ymir the Founder who apparently manipulated Eren. Ymir the Founder was the first of the Titans. She was a young girl who fell in love with a cruel king. A king who burnt her home, killed her parents, ripped out her tongue and after her passing made their daughters consume her flesh.
Like Armin, we wonder why would she still love this wicked man?
Eren enlightens us with a simple line: “Only the Founder Ymir knows that.“
For 2000 years she anguished in her love for King Fritz, waiting for someone to explain that love to her. That someone was none other than Eren’s adopted sister who also moonlights as his stalker, Mikasa.
Mikasa who has never taken off that scarf Eren wrapped around her all those years ago. Seriously. She’s been covered in blood, viscera, and dirt. But she will never take it off. Its state of decay is so profound that Eren even tells her to throw the scarf away once he is dead.
She doesn’t.
Mikasa is a woman of even fewer words than Eren. Eighty percent of her lines are either something beginning or ending with Eren. She lives for him; she’ll kill for him and in the end, she even kills him. It took us 139 chapters and ten years to finally understand that Mikasa is apparently the protagonist of the story.
The whole adopted sister role aside (hey no judgment in today’s world!) this might have worked if there was even a bit of development in romance between the siblings. Alas, there wasn’t.
If your significant other doesn’t decapitate your head, then proceed to engage in necrophilia by kissing you all the while under the gaze of an ancient ghost girl in her child form smiles creepily, then can it really be called true love’s kiss? Take notes, people.
Full disclosure; I watched this 90-minute episode for one reason and one reason alone. To see my favorite panel from the manga animated in 4K and fully voiced. MAPPA not only delivered but did the impossible. Somehow Eren managed to appear even more pathetic than he was in the manga as he throws a tantrum.
“No! I don’t want that! Mikasa finding another man? I want her to pine after me even after I die…for ten years at least!“
Yuki Kaji, Eren’s voice actor flawlessly delivers this line punctuated by Eren’s sobbing as Armin calls him pathetic. We even get to see Eren getting punched by Armin in slow motion.
This is where it diverges from the manga. In the manga, the conversation ends soon after with Armin telling Eren: “Thank you for turning into a mass murderer for our sake. I swear I won’t let this transgression go to waste.“
In the anime however, the conversation is different. Armin admits he is equally responsible for all of these transgressions. After all, he was the one who showed Eren his encyclopedia and put the idea of freedom from the walls into his head. Eren wanted to show Armin the world beyond the walls, that was why he decided to rumble.
Armin thanks him. Not for turning into a mass murderer, but for showing him what the world beyond the walls looked like. Taking equal responsibility, Armin tells Eren that they will be together forever in hell.
Mikasa is quickly forgotten from Eren’s mind as he embraces his best friend Armin, crying as he tells him he’ll be waiting for him.
Coupled with that punch Armin threw, maybe Ymir is messing with my head but this looks a lot more like true love.
When it is all over, Mikasa still wearing her scarf, takes Eren’s head, walks back thousands of miles to Paradis to give him a proper burial. Even after his death, she doesn’t leave him alone as she sits beside Eren’s grave watching the world go by.
All of Eren’s actions have not changed the trajectory for his people. The world nukes Paradis in the future anyway. As Eren himself predicts, he’s achieved absolutely nothing. He didn’t even finish rumbling, he stopped at 80 percent. We have to admit it, as Eren does himself — he isn’t an anti-hero or a hero. He’s a regular teenager in his emo edgelord phase. What did one expect him to do?
It is for this reason there is no point in dissecting the plot, political intrigue and the morally gray world of Attack on Titan before the finale. The question whether to support Eren’s genocidal actions which could be justified by the atrocities committed to his people or to support the alliance (against Eren) because the world’s people don’t wish to be squished like a co*ckroach is inconsequential; an exercise in futility. We are left in the dark with unanswered questions and a simple phrase of “Only Ymir knows.“
What we have is Eren reappearing in the form of a bird — possibly going Tatakaw (that’s birdspeak for Tatake which means fight).
For the ones who’ve watched the anime alone, it is definitely worth reading the last chapter. There are slight changes but only after experiencing both can you truly get a clearer picture of Attack on Titan’s story.
At the end of the day, we all dedicated our hearts to Attack on Titan for 10 years at least. Some of us grew up alongside Eren, others joined us later.
The ending may not be for everyone. The general consensus is that the ones who don’t like it, didn’t understand the story.
Regardless of it all, it is the end of Eren’s saga.
Or is it? Because there’s more to come to clear up the divided ending for manga readers in 2024. Perhaps there will be further clarity as to it is that only Ymir knows.
Levi fans can rejoice as there will be a spin-off series on him called Bad Boy which will be a prequel to the events in Attack on Titan.
As we pay our final respects to Eren Yeager, heading towards the tree on that hill we shall remember him fondly for who he was and cherish the memories he provided us.
Remember what he said, he wants to be in our thoughts for a decade at least.
