‘Attack on Titan’ Final Season, Part 3 Review: Eren Jaeger, Where Will You Go?

Have you ever seen a matryoshka doll? Matryoshka dolls or Russian Nesting dolls, at first glance, look like a single wooden doll, in a sort of oblong shape. With a painted face, it sits rather innocuously on a shelf smiling at you beatifically. On closer inspection you will find a thin line running through the middle, separating the doll in half. Twist it open and the doll reveals to you what is inside — another doll, with a similar face. And so on and so forth, you peel off all the layers until you reach the one at the end. A tiny little matryoshka doll that cannot be opened. On your shelf, or table you now have a line of dolls from a single wooden doll.

But what does that have to do with Attack on Titan?

Well, the final season of Attack on Titan (if it can even be called a ‘season’) is quite like a matryoshka doll. It started all the way back in 2020 – December 7th and has been releasing in parts. The latest was just released on March 4th, 2023 (which is part three) and the final part will release sometime later this year. Parts three and four are hour-long episodes adapting the final arc of the manga.

Isayama Hajime’s Attack on Titan ( 進撃の巨人, Shingeki no Kyojin) was serialized in Kodansha’s monthly magazine Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, running from September 2009 to April 2021. It first received an anime adaptation from WIT Studio for three seasons and for the fourth and final season, Studio MAPPA took over.  

The setting briefly is as thus — what is thought to be the last remnants of humanity are confined behind three concentric walls. Outside these walls roam humanoid giants called Titans. These Titans kill, eat, tear apart, and destroy anything and anyone they find. Venturing outside is a dangerous proposition and is handled by the Scout Troops/Regiment, to boldly go where no one has gone before, exploring the outside world and reclaiming the territory overrun by these frightful Titans. At least that was the plot way back when, for the first half of the manga/anime.

Suddenly the scene shifts drastically – the enemy isn’t the Titans, but the outside world that has confined the Eldians in this dreaded Titan-infested island ironically called Paradis.  

Attack on Titan’s protagonist and antagonist is Eren Jaeger, the boy who yearns for freedom. When he was a child, his best friend Armin showed him a picture book that depicted the scenes of what life outside the walls could be like. Endless blue waters, the ocean, vast expanses of sand, the desert, such surreal terrain with alien lifeforms captivated young Eren, who made it his life’s mission to go beyond the walls and see such magnificent sights.

Things are seldom easy in both real life and the world of Attack on Titan.

Eren built up castles in the sky only for it to be crushed and broken down like his hometown.

The outside world did NOT match Armin’s picture book. Boo hoo. It was very, very, very, underwhelming.

Eren was not happy.

Eren was upset.

Seeing how badly the Eldians outside Paradis are treated, Eren hits upon the idea that eliminating all life beyond the ocean will bring about true freedom. Hmm, probably a good idea to rethink gifting encyclopedias to bright young, wide-eyed, innocent children. To do this, he decides to activate the powers of the Founding Titan, marching an army of Titans to quite literally stamp out all life outside the walls. This is known as the rumbling.

Rest assured, Eren is not going rumble his way through the world unchecked – there’s a whole troop of his friends who plan to stop him, including Armin, the one responsible for showing him that picture book.

Part three of the final season of Attack on Titan roughly comprises an adaptation of the manga chapters 131-134. As adaptations go, it’s pretty faithful. What you see in black and white on paper is now animated in full color, voiced in detail.

MAPPA didn’t really hold back on the gore – you see a child’s head get crushed like an ant underneath a Titan’s foot. Hange Zoë’s death is more poignant and sentimental. You do get a better sense of the urgency with which the remaining members of the Scout Troops (sans Eren, of course) run around to put an end to the rumbling. For manga readers like myself, waiting for each new chapter did put a damper on portraying how little time it took for the preparations and the final battle to occur in real-time.

The voice acting is excellent; you have a moving monologue by Eren at the beginning (voiced by Yuki Kaji) that gives you a picture of what’s going on in his head. The ending track “Under the Tree” by SiM complements the story perfectly.

At this point I have a confession to make, I read Attack on Titan all the way to the end with Pink Floyd playing in the background as my OST (and it fits really well, mind you). I never bothered to watch Attack on Titan. However, I was curious to see (like most of the people who have read the ending) whether we were getting an anime original ending or if it was just a Mandela Effect at play.

You see, the ending of Attack on Titan was a controversial one. The culmination of the AoT saga was eagerly anticipated. The fandom (much like the characters) was divided between the Jaegerists (who support Eren) and the Alliance (who were against him). Who would win? Who would fall? Everyone was on tenterhooks.

Watching the hour-long anime episode certainly brought back fond memories and the rush of anticipation to see what happens next when we read the manga. Part three of the final season takes place, (rather, it adapts) the manga chapters just before the beginning of the end, to the sanity and decline of the readers.

Truly it was a time to be alive with the shitposting, the memes, the crazy theories such as the Madagascar Theory; Theories which were as though born from the imagination or a fever dream of those who had consumed the wine spiked with Zeke Jaeger’s spinal fluid. Fun times indeed, you just had to be there.

The ending that unfolded in chapter 139: Toward the Tree on That Hill sort of opened a Pandora’s box that was better left in the basement of the Jaeger family home. Let’s not delve into that, at least for now. Much like Eren, who knew how the story was going to play out but chose to keep his friends in the dark, no spoilers will be present here in consideration of those who don’t know what’s next.

For the ones who were awaiting the AoE (the anime original ending), it is NOT happening; those who hoped for it were as foolish as a young Eren reading an encyclopedia.

For those who are watching the events happen for the first time (the ones who only watch the anime), cherish this moment. Cherish this Eren, for it will be the last time you see him in this light. Remember him fondly as he rumbles his way through to the end.

It’s going to be the last time you’ll look at a bird without losing your mind to hysteria.