Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2

I'll try to keep this brief for the most part; I'm sure most of what I am saying has been said before, anyways. This review will not be all encompassing of my thoughts, mostly just covering what is at the top of my mind after finishing the final episode.

I have always had problems with Attack on Titan's criminal under-utilization of its characters and emphasis on shock value over substance to trick viewers into thinking they are witnessing the most shocking and daring anime the world has ever seen. But ever since the the Final Season Part 1, the storytelling and overall plot has taken a big step in all the wrong directions. What was once a deeply complex mystery about the origins of the world with elements of horror and a display of the realness of death and humanity has turned into a bland story and a dangerously dumbed down ethnic politics charade.

I could sit here and talk about the animation quality or the CGI titans all day, but I think the true problems of Attack on Titan lie in its subject matter. Let me be clear, by making this review, I am not saying that it is impossible to cover things like ethnicity and genocide in media; Code Geass is in my top 3 favorite anime of all time and that show is literally completely about ethnic politics and colonization. But you have to be really careful. Making the fan-favorite main character of your anime a mascot for mass-genocide and having the main plot points of your anime being ethnic cleansing and race wars is... well, it's not the direction I would have gone with this story. I think that what Attack on Titan has done at this point is almost dangerous, to a certain point. Yes, the good guys are on their way to go take down Eren, but I don't think you can really take back the damage that you have done by making him, the MAIN PROTAGONIST, the poster boy for wiping out all of humanity in a genocidal rampage.

The best part of this season was Eren's huge moment in the paths, convincing his father Grisha to consume the Founding Titan and essentially set Eren's plan into motion. Or, at least it's the best part of the season if you don't think about it for more than 5 seconds... the Attack Titan having the ability to basically transcend time sure is a convenient plot device for Eren at that moment, and sure, it might've been planned back at the end of the third season, but that doesn't make me hate it any less. Introducing a time travel ability was the second-last thing Isayama should've had on his list of things to include in this story, right above ethnic politics. It straight up does not make sense. If Eren is able to see not only into the past, but also into the future, does that not make the entirety of the series irrelevant? Are the events of the rest of the series then pre-determined? Does that not completely remove any stakes for Eren and every other character? Can the future be changed? It makes my head spin. Maybe I'm missing something?

(Manga spoiler)

Aside from the problems I have with that aspect of the anime, I once again take issue with the characters and the ways in which they are used. Having a cast as large and with as many moving parts as AoT's comes with obvious utilization issues; not everybody is going to get their appropriate time to shine, and you have to plan around that. This season is particularly bad in this sense, and it's honestly a head scratcher. Why in the world do Yelena, Floch, and Magath (as well as others whom I forget) get as much screentime as they do? These characters are so useless, I literally despise every one of them. Why not spend time on, I don't know, your literal main characters in Armin and Mikasa who are still horribly underdeveloped and boring at this point in the story? It's baffling to me. Of course, that's not to say that everybody deserves more screentime. Eren understandably gets a ton of coverage at this point of the anime, but my god does it get tiring to hear everybody talk about him constantly. Maybe it's just because I find him to be a worse Lelouch, but I think I hate Eren. I don't want to get into that too deeply because this might end up being a billion words long if I do, but I just can't stand him. What he has become, not just in the anime, but in the fanbase, has turned into something I truly detest.

I think the biggest problem I have with this part of the anime is that it has become unbearably bland. There is nothing like the magic of the first two seasons to be found in any part of the Final Season. It has become something so far removed from the mystery and intense emotional journey that Attack on Titan initially was. Instead, we now get to watch a soulless attempt at a political war drama and a frustrating display of amazing potential flushed down the drain. At least it's finally over... Wait...