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Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 returned after a year amidst much fanfare and anticipation. After the initial delay regarding the simulcasting, the episode finally made it onto Crunchyroll and took the world by storm. Not only in terms of animation or presentation, but the thought-provoking themes and the darker overtones set this season apart from the previous ones.
Whatever criticism viewers may have had regarding Mappa’s decision to broadcast an hour-long special episode instead of a full season has been placated by the execution of the first part of Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3. This part covered chapters 131-134 of the manga, leaving chapters 135-139.5 to be adapted by the second part premiering in Fall 2023.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3. The episode and the article contain graphic descriptions of violence. Reader’s discretion is requested.
Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 Part 1 plays with the concepts of freedom and sacrifice as the series says farewell to Hange and Floch
The first part of Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 is further divided into two segments: Rumbling and Sinners. Part 1 of part 3 covers chapter 131, The Rumbling, and chapter 132, The Wings of Freedom. The second segment of part 3 covers chapter 133, Sinners, and chapter 134, The Depths of Despair, from the manga.
Part 1: Rumbling
The part begins with a flashback of the time when the survey corps visited Marley. Eren had saved a boy called Ramzi, but he realized he would soon kill the boy via Rumbling and started apologizing. Attack on Titan then cuts to the present, as the Colossal Titans mercilessly trample Ramzi and his friend Halil. As Ramzi is slowly crushed, he sees the visage of Ymir the Founder. Elsewhere, a young Eren finally feels free and turns to talk to a grown-up Armin, who is shaken out of what is revealed to be a Paths-vision.
On their way to Odiha, Armin and Annie have a heart-to-heart on the Azumabito ship. Their conversation revolves around the feelings they have for each other and the futility of having such feelings when the fate of the world is in danger. When they reach Odiha, Annie chooses to leave with Kyomi Azumabito on the ship, taking Falco and Gabi with them to save the children. By interrogating Elena, the Alliance learns that Eren plans to first attack Fort Salta, the military airbase. The flying ship is almost finished when Floch appears and shoots a few bullets, which damage the fuel compartment.
This requires additional repair time, which the Alliance force does not have since that Rumbling reaches the continent at that moment. After Floch succumbs to his injuries, Hange takes the responsibility of stalling the Rumbling until others can get away. They hand over the command to Armin and bid a touching farewell to Levi before attacking the titans, allowing the others to leave safely. After their demise at the hands of the Titans, Hange wakes up in a version of the Afterlife, where they reunite with Erwin, Mike, Moblit, Sasha, and other fallen comrades.
Part 2: Sinners
The second part of Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 begins with the Alliance force determining that separating Zeke and Eren should stop the Rumbling, with Levi taking that responsibility. As everyone tries to unearth whether Eren is deliberately allowing them to stop him, he calls them to the land of the Paths.
After every single one of his former comrades pleads with him to return, Eren announces that there is no room for negotiations. He must take his freedom from the world, and the others must stop him. There is room for nothing but a clash of interests, and they must fight for victory.
On the Azumabito ship, Falco and Gabi tell Annie that the boy has been dreaming of Zeke’s memories, and by default, the memories of every single Beast Titan before him. They discovered that there was once a Beast Titan who could fly. At Fort Salta, the Marleyans and Eldians stand together against the Rumbling, but their arsenal proves to be useless against Eren’s army. However, before they can give up hope, the Alliance force arrives, aiming straight for Eren and the Beast Titan.
Themes
Beyond the historical commentary and the political premise, mangaka Hajime Isayama has always focused on two concepts in his series: freedom and choice. In Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3, the themes of conscience and sacrifice have also been focused upon. Floch and Hange, in a mirror to each other, willingly give up their lives for not only the survival of their comrades but for what they believe is right. Interestingly, while’s Floch’s death is mostly used as a negative plot device, Hange’s death is glorified and used as a segue into placating the viewers with an idea of an afterlife.
Eren, despite bearing the burden of genocide and suffocating under it, also carries an undercurrent of inevitability, a lack of control that brings with it a sense of relief. Meanwhile, the Alliance force, despite trying to do the right thing, is drowning under the blood on their blades. From Armin to Reiner to Jean to Connie, not a single person can differentiate themselves from those they once swore to stop.
It’s not that Eren lacks a conscience, but as the scene with Ramzi clarifies, he has made peace with his actions and freed himself from the responsibility by making others responsible for stopping him. Suppression of his own conscience has allowed Eren to use the conscience of his former comrades to create a failsafe and rescue both.
Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 also highlights the theme of crime and punishment. Some of the Marleyans have taken the Rumbling as their penance for all they have done to the Eldians. Contrarily, people like Floch believe that what Eren is doing functions as justice beyond just being a means to protect Paradis.
Another glaring theme is that of humanity. The phrase “Rest of Humanity” appear often in this episode, but it is never clarified what it defines. It appears that for Eren, “Humanity” is the enemy, which supposes that he no longer views the people of Paradis as part of it.
Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 also presents a case of a no-win scenario. The Alliance forces have many choices before them: they can flee, they can join Paradis, or they can fight Eren. However, none of these choices are casualty free, and in the end, it boils down to whether they would rather let themselves suffer the guilt of their actions in order to allow humanity a chance of survival, or if they would allow everyone to perish to keep their own hands clean. Either way, they will be part of a large-scale slaughter, explicitly or implicitly.
Lastly, the theme of freedom is at the center of Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 part 1. Eren believes that freedom cannot be achieved or given, it can only be taken. What he lacks is empathy for other people’s freedom. Despite the way the manga ended up shaping Eren’s character via that controversial ending, at his core, Eren is not a believer in equity or equality.
He is not necessarily against oppression as he views it as a natural state of life, he just refuses to be oppressed. This episode's chief point is that Eren views freedom above everything, to the point where he considers it the greatest gift he can give his comrades, without any consideration for their choices, wants, and wishes.
Review
The episode spends a good while trying to explore and demystify Eren’s psyche. His scene with Ramzi is particularly hard to watch, as it is juxtaposed with the brutal scene of two children being trampled underfoot. However, the flashback brings out one key point: Eren did not decide to continue with the Rumbling only to protect Paradis but also because the world outside the walls failed to meet his expectations.
He looked at the world and saw only greed, oppression, abuse, and the rotten core of a doomed species. This sort of disillusionment, fortified by the kind of tunnel vision that Eren has, led to him wanting to cleanse the world so that a purer sense of freedom can be found. This encounter with Ramzi, while humanizing Eren, also serves to make his motives less altruistic, if such a term can be applied to genocide.
On the more technical side, Mappa continues the brilliant work they did in part 2 with the animation. However, several critics will take an issue with some of the scenes, particularly those of Levi. The scene of Ramzi’s death, while animated in such excruciating detail, is painful to watch. A slight alteration of manga panels has been done to presumably fit the long chapters into the time constraint and to also craft a smoother narrative. The voice acting is as spellbinding as usual, particularly from Yuki Kaji (Eren), Marina Inoue (Armin), and Romi Park (Hange).
Final thoughts
So far, Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 seems to follow the manga page-by-page, further diminishing the chances of an anime-original ending. Furthermore, it can be assumed that the second part of Part 3 will be the final part, given that there are only 4.5 chapters left to adapt. While the pace did not seem hurried, some of the more poetic scenes from the manga did not make the cut in the final draft of the episode.
This episode brings the series to its climax and raises the conflict to a level of resignation, where neither party particularly wants to fight but will have to do so to survive. The episode is a study in contrast and contrariness. The juxtaposition of Ramzi’s present with his memory of Eren, the contrast of Mikasa’s feelings for Eren and Annie’s feelings for Armin, the irony of Eren’s violent pursuit of freedom and his enslavement to this self-fulfilling prophecy of which he is both the creator and the victim. Perhaps Armin’s question at the end of the episode is a question this episode asks Eren:
“How exactly are you free?”
Readers can watch Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 Part 1 on Crunchyroll in America and Europe. Interested people can avail the manga on Kodansha's affiliated online reading sites like Comixology and Kindle.
