Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Attack on Titan The Final Season
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KaidoYuji8Shinji
Posts: 119 Location: Manchester, NH |
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EXCELLENT review! I agree with everything you are saying too. AoT really started, for me, as a simple show that has morphed into an insanely complex show about human life. There’s no right or wrong. Good or bad.
I will also say I hadn’t been watching too much anime prior to this final season and now I’m obsessed again! |
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Minos_Kurumada
Posts: 1097 |
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Sincerely, I am not a friend of calling every authoritarian regime "Fascist". When you know some history you realice that there is authoritarianism and that ideologies are just lip service to get into power.
As Erdogan said "Democracy is just like a train, you get off once you reached your destination", just replace democracy with the ideology of your (dis)liking. For example, Fidel Castro was a socialist dictator, left winged... you know who one of his BFF was? Francisco Franco a fascist dictator, right winged... Castro even declared 3 days of national mourning when he died. We can claim Marley is Fascist like Italy during WWII, but can also claim it's Socialist like North Korea or Maoist like China or Leninist like Byelorussia and you would be right no matter what. Ultimately, AoT has a strong liberal (libertarian) message, every government is shown to be corrupt, incompetent and racist without getting into much detail of what kind of political spectrum each one falls into, because, the enemy is that that block our freedoms, ideologies be dammed. This is just my little pet issue though. |
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Pipoko
Posts: 165 |
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I think the reason why I can tolerate some of the potentially careless imagery is that I feel like the story has its heart in the right place.
I see it more as ignorant useage than deliberately hateful useage because all sides are shown to be composed of complex people. Basically even if all that awful conspiracy stuff is true, that still doesn't excuse anything because innocent people on both sides suffer and feel pain and no excuse justifies causing the suffering. |
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Everlasting Coconut
 Posts: 302 |
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Episode 5:
Man, that was intense. I had to remind myself to breathe a few times even though I already knew everything that was gonna happen 
To me this was Attack on Titan at its best, from beginning to end. Though if I had to make one complaint, it'd be that I wish the staff had taken advantage of the concept of the play and gone all out direction-wise. It was a good opportunity to get creative and inventive. But I'm just being nitpicky. Agree with everyone else that this is one of James' best reviews.
Yeah, this is my personal interpretation. Isayama wanted to write a story about the endless cycle of war and how anyone is capable of both great good and great evil, and in order to do that, he chose the most tone-deaf allegory possible. I admit it was a little hard to reconcile with this fact at first, but over the years I've come to terms with it. Of course, it's worth criticising, but I'll leave that to the reviewer and the people experiencing this part of the story for the first time. For now I'm gonna stick to the good stuff, aka the great character writing and well-intentioned themes of the story.
I would like to add that even though lots of innocent people are clearly going to die, Eren's promise is being recontextualised here. The fact that Reiner vividly remembers what Eren said to him back in the forest of giant trees while Eren seems to have almost forgotten it shows how our MC has changed over the years. Eren from season 2 was just saying the most cruel and violent things he could come up with to let out all his pent-up anger; it was kinda childish, really. But this Eren no longer thinks about making his enemies "suffer and die in the worst way possible," cause he knows it's not about that. |
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Doodleboy
Posts: 296 |
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The reaction to this episode is interesting, mainly because in the final scene Eren just killed some children through transforming below that apartment building. Most of the reaction is cheering though.
I like how Mappa's design of Eren's Titan-form is much more monstrous than his look in the previous seasons. It fits Eren's new role. In a lot of ways Attack on Titan's main theme buried underneath the charged allegories is something basic. The cycle of violence that has been played out in a lot of anime before this Tokyo Ghoul, Fullmetal Alchemist etc. How to achieve co-existence despite histories of imperalism and violence. Which well.. time will tell if it has anything good to say about that. Eldia as Japan is a metaphor that is charged in a lot of ways. Although I don't feel knowledgeable enough to say anything intelligent about that. Honestly one thing I do like about this arc are the stakes. At this point of the story it's hard to imagine an ending where some form of genocide doesn't happen. It's hard to imagine an ending that isn't bleak and nihilistic. |
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 959 |
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This was a really fantastic review for an episode I can't imagine was easy to write about. All the more uncomfortable allegories, like everything dealing with Japanese post-WWII nationalism, are now undeniably in the spotlight (or would "center stage" be a more on-the-nose comparison), and I'm super invested to see where this story goes long-term. It is a balancing act for sure but given the show's track record, especially regarding how it handles both its Eldian and Marley characters, I have a lot of faith.
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Covnam
 Posts: 3733 |
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What a great episode. The tension was palpable. The animation was great too. I just re-watched the emergence and there's even a brick hitting a guy in the middle of the crowd. Can't wait to see where it goes. Eren seems to have tossed up Tybur to presumably eat him, but he's clearly transforming in the next episode preview, so I guess he isn't successful and we're in for a fight =)
Also agree with the others, great review. |
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Kirki
Posts: 296 |
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Seriously, it's not a world history documentary. Chill. You don't have to try to interpret every scene as a take on historical events just because it borrows costumes from a certain era. In reality, AoT is not much different in its themes about discrimination from shows we've seen before a hundred times, the most recent being, heck, Brand New Animal. The main difference of AoT than the series we have seen so far, is it's stellar writing which essentially forces you to think about real world counterparts and consequences. If it's making you uncomfortable and sparks a discussion, good. That is what it is meant to do. It is a war story. It tries to analyze why people fight wars, what drives them, whose fault it is (if it is), how it stops. What makes you uncomfortable is not the aesthetics - it's the dreadful understanding deep in your gut that actual people have gone through this kind of despair, even without Titans in the pucture. Becomes very real this way doesn't it.
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2463 |
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Genuinely amazed at the amount of tension the soundtrack and direction is able to bring in these episodes. Elevating the manga's material by quite a bit (though there's also just seeing stuff with knowledge of what happens later that also elevates these moments so much). I didn't think AoT would ever become one of my favorite anime when I watched the first season and thought it was just fun action with way too much yelling and generally bad character writing. What a turn of events.
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KaidoYuji8Shinji
Posts: 119 Location: Manchester, NH |
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That’s how I felt too. Season 1, while fun, was super dramatic and an action romp. My how far the show has become. Re watch season one.. there’s a lot of hints at what was to come. Great manga and show.
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crazieanimefan1
 Posts: 410 Location: Auburn, AL |
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I'm almost reminded of North Korea the way the propaganda is said. The island is that of Japan, one of their enemies. But they're fighting back.
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Zefram
Posts: 108 |
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This episode was very good. I actually felt it was stronger and clearer than corresponding manga chapter. You can feel the tension simmering there.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16941 |
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Had to remove a few posts. If you can't make your points without making personal attacks and being a rude ass then don't post. And spare the "freedom of speech" or "great purge" rhetoric. It's just a bs argument to excuse being a rude ass to others. Rule 1 is be civil and always has been here. So follow that guideline or such posts will be removed.
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Zimmer
Posts: 185 |
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It's still a spoiler. Sure am glad I watched it before I saw this. |
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jdnation
Posts: 2031 |
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MAPPA has been doing an outstanding job so far!
The anime is a major improvement and elevation of the source material, in my opinion. I think some people are getting too caught up over reading into the story their own political religious grievances or desires, much like this matter about concern over what real-life historical or cultures artists may or may not take inspiration from when creating their fictional settings. AoT is not boiled down to a story about the current vogue pet peeve of 'fascism.' It's about general human nature, the good and the bad, of which fascist depictions amongst other things are one key on a big grand piano. There's empathy, hatred, suspicion and general misunderstanding and cultural imprinting and habits, which no matter what political spectum you think is da best one evar, these debased tendencies of humanity will eventually screw it up. You will never create utopia by chancing upon the right kind of legislation. That's what makes this episode so great. Eren is there and pretty much understands the deceit that these people are labouring under, and he's practically willing if he could to just let it all slide if he could. He harbors no resentment towards Reiner. But he knows for a fact that this is now a matter of self defence. War is interested in him. Reiner understands this too. And both of them know that the propaganda is so great that there's no convincing anyone. The only result is conflict. Had this event gone otherwise and Marley opted for peaceful resolution and negotiation, Eren likely would not have acted. But it was never going to go another way, and he and Reiner were in that basement and understood it. Therefore Eren confirms his enemy status, and strikes! The whole setup is a great tragedy! |
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