I should have seen it ages ago, but it has become my habit over the years to have a select few shows that I will only watch whilst exercising on my home trainer. The strenuous exercise tends to banish everything outside my immediate vision, shoving aside trouble and concern, while giving me a deeper investment in whatever I'm watching. It also necessitates me to actually get off my lazy ass if I want to go and watch that show I really like. I can also watch only 1 of these shows at a time, because I'm compulsory that way, which is why I had to wait this long before continuing Attack on Titan as I was still watching HunterXHunter, which has 148 episodes in total. HunterXHunter is decent, and I had a good, although quite a drawn-out, time with it, but it still doesn't hold a candle to Attack on Titan.
Every show, bar one, that I've watched this way I've become deeply emotionally invested in.
Black Sails, Attack on Titan, The Walking Dead, HunterXHunter, Doctor Who, the re-watch of Penny Dreadful, Taboo, assorted movies of which the only ones I can remember right now are Atomic Blonde and Hardcore Henry. The one show I hated, though I did see the cleverness of (the ending at least) was The Shield.
When Season 2 of Attack on Titan came out I went and re-watched the phenomenal first season also on home trainer (one episode at a time, because the show really is that good) before moving on. Before I began watching season 3 I didn't do his, because at the time I was feeling ambivalent about the whole thing.
You see, season 2 had had a difficult task going forward as it needed to begin revealing many of the setting's more tantalizing secrets.
And, sad to say, it didn't do it all that well.
The most significant revelation came so out of nowhere that I at first hadn't realized what had been said. I imagine it must've looked like one of those scenes from a movie where a character does a double-take; all of a sudden: a few seconds staring at the screen failing to connect, a vacant stare as I slowly began to realize what's just been said. Bewildered moments where I tried to make sense of it, pausing, checking the episode number and title, replaying the scene, shaking my head in absolute bewilderment.
It was such a bombshell of a reveal.
I have since heard that the manga did it a bit different, for that specific reveal at least, and that it also shortened a particular arc a little. It's a bizarre scene because it completely breaks the viewer's immersion, and though the ideas behind it; the psychology of the characters in the moment, and in that it establishes a common ground in the responses of us, the audience, and Eren as the protagonist privy to that particular revelation, it didn't really work, or at least I didn't feel satisfied with the way in which this was done. But in any case, the secrets revealed were merely the tip of the veil being lifted, and they didn't much impact our knowledge of the Titan enemies our protagonists fight against. On the contrary, it added more mystery to them, and made them more dangerous than ever.
Season 3 then, must have had an even more difficult task, as it pretty much would be revealing everything the fans might have been curious about.
Yes, that's right; Season 3 of Shingeki No Kyojin serves up the goods, all of them: The nature of the Titans, the truth behind the '100 year peace' (which had always sounded like a very dubious bit of propaganda), everything concerning Grisha Jaeger, the Titan powers and so much more. It's a barrage of information and, given the track record of the show's past revelations, you might be surprised to hear that season 3 does it pretty much perfectly.
The big revelation is one that had the potential to sink the show completely, and though there is definitely an adjustment period needed because of the magnitude of the thing, the whole opening up of the world, the story, all the new different elements; as these all completely change the show; it is in effect a paradigm shift, it nonetheless works just perfectly.
It mainly works because the themes and ideas, seemingly so vastly different, introduced at this point in the show aren't actually new to the story at all. They've been here all along, but they've been upturned, inverted, and made more vast. It also helps that we've known that this revelation has been coming since day one, with the basement, and the revelations within it, having been Eren's goal from the outset. The knowledge of the titans, the truth about this world; they were always going to be big things, reshaping our perception of the story going forward.
And now the truth is out. The world has altered and the story cannot be the same.
It must be said: not everyone would have been, or is going to be, satisfied with it, because the show is almost going to be an entirely different beast going forward.
And since Season 4, coming out in 2020, will be the final season there's no real telling how it is going to go. It is likely that the story will conclude in some sort of stalemate or tragedy, because it honestly is almost impossible to wrap it all up in just one season. The revelations have shed new light on the world, the convictions and perceptions of our characters have altered, and there doesn't seem enough time left to explore it all.
I've grown very fond of the show, its music and style. The characters have become familiar friends and I'm going to be sad when their story comes to an end. But, I'm looking forward to Season 4 anyway. I'm dreading it and anticipating it in equal measure.
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Over the past few days I've also checked out several of the Attack on TitanOVA's which were all absurdly awesome, with the Ilse Langnar episode in particular being quite affecting, and I've even blazed through Attack on Titan: Junior High, which seems like such a stupidly ridiculous idea with no hope of succeeding, until you start watching it and you find yourself laughing out loud at its humour and its cleverness. It also manages to give some much needed depth to a few of the side characters that have become mainstays in the main series, even though they don't always have much to do over there.
I still need to track down the Lost Girls OVA, and the A.O.T. Wings of Freedom game is waiting for me on my PS4, but after that I'm going to have to avoid spoilers and wait until season 4 releases.
Depending on how good that the anime ends, I might pick up the manga, but for now I'm still good with just reading Berserk.
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