The Winter 2022 Preview Guide

Attack on Titan The Final Season Part 2

The war for Paradis zeroes in on Shiganshina just as Jaegerists have seized control. After taking a huge blow from a surprise attack led by Eren, Marley swiftly acts to return the favor. With Zeke's true plan revealed and a military forced under new rule, this battle might be fought on two fronts and we'll soon discover where Eren's allegiances lie.

Attack on Titan The Final Season Part 2 is based on Hajime Isayama's manga and streams on Funimation and Crunchyroll on Sundays.

James Beckett
Rating:

It's the beginning of the end, or in Attack on Titan's case, it's the beginning of the second half of the end (at least, so long as we presume that the series doesn't pull one last fast one and make the end of the end into a movie). Either way, it's good news for us, because it means the return of one of the titans of modern anime (pun very much intended). The show isn't pulling any punches, either. Marley has come at last, its forces raining down upon the Eldians of Paradis, and it means war on a scale that even Attack on Titan has rarely seen before. It's going to be a bloodbath, on both sides, and the good folks at MAPPA are here to make sure that we feel every horrific minute of it.

Story-wise, this premiere does a very good job of balancing its action with the understandable need to catch the audience up on everything that they may have forgotten in the last ten months. We get a tantalizing tease of what is in store for Hange and Levi before returning to the frontlines at the heart of the island, where Eren does battle against Reiner and Porco, with humans on both sides getting absolutely shredded to pieces in the fighting on the ground.

It's Attack on Titan going to full “war epic" mode, and the action is bloody, visceral, and mostly top-notch in its direction (save for some minor quibbles that I'll go into more detail with in the Weekly Streaming Reviews). Even when the show isn't reveling in its sometimes shocking levels of gore, the talkier parts of the script do well to get the audience back into the proper narrative headspace. When Onyakopon and the other prisoners debate Eren's motives and possible plans of action, they're basically enacting the same heated debates that fans got into themselves. There's no clear answer in sight, but that is very much by design.

So, we'll just have to see what the rest of Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 2 has in store for us. All signs point to this finale being one for the ages. I'm an anime-only viewer that has managed to remain almost entirely safe from spoilers, so I cannot promise whether or not the ending will vindicate the series, expose its fatal flaw, or go in another direction entirely. I'm excited as hell to take the journey to find out, though.

It's here at last! After 9 years, multiple long delays, and more fried Crunchyroll servers than you can imagine, we're on the brink of the end of the biggest anime of the last decade. For reals this time, we promise. And if I'm being honest, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing this all conclude, for better or worse. While I really enjoyed the first half or so of AoT's final season (part 1!), I admit I found the back half just kind of exhausting. Episodes on end building and building and building towards the final confrontation between the gnarled loyalties of the cast, combined with a lot of retcons to let it all make sense, left me worn out by the time Reiner finally returned to Paradis.

Unfortunately that build-up just keeps on going, as in-between a customary Big Ol' Titan Fight, we see the established cast once again trying to play catch up with the larger plot, once again throwing various characters' motivations into question. It's not bad material – though I'm less than thrilled about the still-lingering question of Mikasa's genetic bodyguard powers – but after years of status quo-shifting twists I'd like it if everyone could just get on the same page and take decisive action at some point. I spent years patiently, then not so patiently, waiting to see inside that god damn basement, and my patience for Titan's other mysteries has just about worn thin.

On the positive side, the fight that makes up the lion's share of the episode is pretty cool. We finally get to see Eren's War-Hammer buffed Titan form in action against multiple opponents. The CG has also gotten some improvements, more effectively communicating the speed and ferocity of these big boys punching the mickey out of each other. The models for the anonymous 3D Maneuver Gear soldiers still look like toy dolls though, and it's genuinely funny to watch them tumble off of rooftops in the middle of the battle. MAPPA's rendition of the Titans sadly has never lived up to the scale and power WIT was able to deliver, but this is still a solid action setpiece with some genuinely strong moments of writing to complement it. Reiner's “We've suffered too long. You've suffered too long.” line sticks out as a great encapsulation of what this show's endgame has kept trying to say with too many words, and I hope that however this battle ends we'll at least get some closure.

Really, that's all I want out of this Final (Final!) season: resolution. At this point I don't care if it's good or bad or confused or a total quagmire – I just want Titan to get to its point and say it with its whole chest. I suspect there'll be a lot of sideplots before we get there, but if nothing else it's gonna be super funny seeing Eren scream along to SiM's nu metal OP every week. That's comedy gold that only Attack on Titan can deliver

I'll say this for Attack on Titan: it certainly hits the ground running. When last we left off, Zeke had been placed inside a Titan, Levi was apparently killed in an explosion, the majority of our heroes were locked up, the Marleyan's were invading, and Eren was getting ready to face down both the Jaw Titan and Armored Titan in the middle of the city. In other words, we were already mid-clusterfuck and, in this episode, it only gets worse.

There is just so much death. While Eren's forces are prepared to fight Titans, they are in no way ready or equipped to handle zeppelins with automatic weapons and legions of paratroopers. And with Eren busy with his own battle, it's a slaughter of disturbing proportions—made even worse by the fact that we don't really know who we're supposed to be rooting for. If Eren's side wins, everyone with Titan blood gets sterilized—i.e., a slow genocide. If the Marleyans win, everyone's likely to be rounded up and killed—i.e., a quick genocide—or alternatively, enslaved. Meanwhile, our heroes—the people we would naturally side with—are caught in the middle, unsure what to do even after they are freed from prison.

The big issue here is that everything Eren's doing feels completely out of character to them. That he would go along with Zeke's plans for sterilization is unbelievable—so much so that it brings his stated motives into question. He might have his own plan and is simply keeping his cards super close to the chest. However, there is no way to know for sure.

There is an additional wrinkle to this as well. Eren told Mikasa that she was biologically compelled to want to help him. Now, whether this is true or if she simply loves him, the doubt placed in her head will force her to make a logical choice rather than an emotional one. It seems that Eren wants her to follow him out of belief in what he is doing, not because of their past together. (The same is likely true for all those he cares about.) Unfortunately, the question remains: are Zeke's goals Eren's goals? And if not, are his goals any better than Zeke's? Time is running out and a decision needs to be made right away. It's a darn good cliffhanger—even more than the Titan battle coming to a close outside in the streets.