Hot take: Attack on Titan's ending gets worse the more you think about it

I first watched the final episode last month and felt okay about it, but 3 years of build-up for that conclusion just feels hollow now. The whole Eren and Mikasa scene at the end on that hill felt like it was trying too hard to be emotional when the show spent 87 episodes being about war and freedom. Am I the only one who thinks the series peaked during the Return to Shiganshina arc and never got back to that level?

4 comments

4 Comments

uma_ellis7d ago

Totally agree with you on the Return to Shiganshina being the peak. That whole arc had me on the edge of my seat every single episode, the stakes felt real and the characters were making hard choices. The final season felt like it forgot what made the show great in the first place. That ending on the hill with Eren and Mikasa felt more like a cheap bait and switch than a payoff, like they were trying to wrap everything up with a neat bow when the whole series was about messy war and violence.

the_thea6d ago

i feel like people get way too invested in how a story "should" end, you know? like it's just a show, and the ending was fine for what it was, a neat bow isn't always a bad thing after everything that happened. did the messy war really need to continue all the way to the credits for it to feel "real" to you?

reesel507d ago

Yeah I used to defend that ending hard but you're making me rethink it.

lunaf676d ago

Honestly it's just a cartoon at the end of the day, people act like Isayama personally betrayed them. I barely even remember the hill scene and I watched it two weeks ago.