Why is Attack on Titan taking so long to end? MAPPA's split strategy, explained

“Why is Attack on Titan taking so long to end?” has been one of the most frequently asked questions within the anime community in recent years. While the release window of the series' first three seasons wasn’t exactly a narrow one, the time it’s taking to complete what MAPPA Studios calls the fourth and “Final Season” is nearly comparable.

With Attack on Titan: The Final Season having first premiered in December 2020, the series will take roughly three years to complete one season’s worth of material by the time it’s done. This is an exceptionally long time to produce a single season of a television anime, especially considering three other seasons of similar stature were produced in a six-year timespan.

However, there may be a method to MAPPA’s madness from a quality perspective, given the series’ climactic finale. Likewise, there are obvious business advantages to splitting the season up so much.

Follow along as this article attempts to answer, from a business and quality perspective, why Attack on Titan is taking so long to end.

Note: Parts of this article are subjective and solely reflect the opinions of the writer

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MAPPA’s approach to Attack on Titan’s final season is both confusing and infuriating to fans

Taking a business perspective is the easiest way to answer why Attack on Titan’s final season is taking so long to conclude.

By splitting the final season up into multiple parts, MAPPA opens up the opportunity for the series, its staff, and the studio itself to win several awards over a span of multiple years. This also gives the studio more opportunity to pick and choose a given award year for release based on potential competition.

This strategy has obviously been tried and true, as evidenced by Attack on Titan’s impressive performance at the 2023 Crunchyroll Anime Awards.

From a financial perspective, MAPPA now has the opportunity to release several home video installments for the final season rather than a few. The studio can also eventually re-release the final season for home video in one cohesive, all-encompassing package.

While it may be hard to believe, there’s also an argument to be made for the qualitative benefits such an approach brings. By spacing out the total material needed to complete Attack on Titan’s story, MAPPA allows itself to devote a higher overall budget to the production. Likewise, more freedom can be taken in the pacing of the series, ideally resulting in a sweet spot being found.

There are also hidden benefits from a viewership perspective, even in a post-Netflix world in which the average television watcher is used to being able to binge-watch a series.

With MAPPA’s approach, fans are given more time to digest and formulate opinions on the events of each of the final season’s parts. Fans are also given the opportunity to rewatch a season for further analysis at their own pace if they so desire.

All that being said, it’s hard to truly say for sure whether or not such an approach is a net positive. Viewers have not been fans of the release process, especially the latest decision to split the season’s final part up into two anime specials. To earn such ire from fans makes any adaptation practice worth questioning.

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Be sure to keep up with all Attack on Titan anime news, as well as general anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.