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Let's be honest here: the art and animation carry this show HARD. The sound track is also fantastic, so all the aesthetics are spot on. I never had a moment in the show where I thought the visuals or audio were poor or even lackluster.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the plot. It's a fairly generic plot where the MC (Vivy) is given data from 100 years in the future future where AI turn against humans in a campaign of genocide. This data is provided by Matsumoto, a cube shaped AI who was sent from the future to be Vivy's partner in redirecting the ... timeline away from the doomed future.

The pair work together in various missions where they must alter significant events ("Singularity Points) in the original timeline to prevent conflict between AI and humans. During these missions Vivy meets various humans and AI who leave a significant impact on her, which overtime lead to her developing emotions and a sense of humanity.

To keep this review condensed I'll focus on the main problem of the show to me:

THE ONE-HUNDRED YEAR TIMELINE.

A 13 episode anime can only fit so much, so as you can imagine there are only a handful of singularity events to flesh out in the story. In order to fit the unbelievably long timeline for 100 years, there are massive timeskips between each mini story arc. How long? Well it starts with a reasonable 5 years, but escalates to a whopping 40 year time skip!

The problem with this is if you're watching episodes consecutively, you're going to be hit with whiplash at how drastically things change when there is a timeskip (which you aren't given any heads up beforehand). When I watched the episode after the 40 year timeskip I thought I had accidently missed an episode.

This time skip issue creates a pervasive continuity problem. There are significant ramifications when each singularity event is altered, so you'd expect there to be a cooldown period where the characters can reflect on what's happened so we can see their development. Nope. The mini arc will wrap up, and in the next episode there is a massive time skip and we're suddenly jumping straight into the next singularity event.

While future episodes do revisit each event to convey meaningful significance, there are hardly any moments where characters will actually reflect on the events that have transpired. Attempts to convey significance are done through flashbacks with emotional music and no dialogue. Which to me, doesn't do a good job of conveying significance.

**spoilers**
There is one singularity event that ends in tragedy and Vivy shuts down because of immense guilt. There is a 40 year time skip where it's found out that Vivy's personality is hiding and her alter ego personality "Diva" is in control. It's suggested that Vivy is dealing with PTSD, but we don't really know because we don't get her perspective for this entire mini arc. The next singularity event is dealt with and ends with Diva being erased forcibly, and Vivy returns.

What I wanted was to see some moments with Vivy reflecting on the events of the past singularity event. After all, she went into hiding for 40 years to deal with her trauma. At the very least I'd hoped that there'd be time for Matsumoto to talk to her about it. But no, the episode ends just and Vivy returns and guess what? The next episode there's another massive time skip, and Vivy's 40 years of PTSD is never talked about.

Again, I think the problem lies with the 100 year timeline. It feels like the writer purposefully has to rush through these singularity events to meet the ridiculous 100 year mark. This rush makes these events feel empty in hindsight.

It doesn't help that the setting changes drastically after each skip (changes to infrastructure, how people dress, how AI looks, etc). Without a somewhat constant setting it doesn't really feel like the story is tied to a "world", if that makes sense. 100 years means lots of change is necessary, so there's no way around it. It's just that having these changes happen every 2 episodes is a bit much. If the author had opted for a smaller time frame (maybe 20 years?) then this wouldn't be a big problem.

To put it frankly, the conclusion to this story is disappointing. Don't get me wrong, as a whole, this story is still good which is why I'm rating this a 7/10.

**SPOILER FREE**

I think a lot of the problems in AOT's final arc comes with pacing problems. There is simply too much content packed into too few chapters. Which is a shame, because I think that prior to the last arc this is hardly a problem whatsoever.

I find the steep drop in quality of writing for the last chapters in particular to be especially jarring. The final chapter itself is steeped in controversy at the ... moment, with many fans being divided over whether or not it was even coherent. I lean more towards the latter, as I think the pacing problems come to a head, with too many unresolved plot points leading to frustrating confusion. Depending on your interpretation of the events in the ending, you could literally feel as if manga's main theme (fighting for freedom) and the protagonist's character arc is non sensible. While one can make the argument that it's perhaps the reader's fault that they're MiSiNtErprEtiNg the story, I think Isayama's drop in writing quality is ultimately to blame. Never should a writer make an ending so jarring that half the fan base has to question the entire story's coherence and integrity.

I truly wish Isayama had dedicated a few more chapters to this story. If you asked me to review this manga before this last arc, I'd give it a 10/10 without hesitation. It annoys me to no end knowing that if he had slowed down, taken a deep breath, and paced out the conclusion that this would have been one of the best manga ever written. However, as it stands, the rushed conclusion, and confusing ending really hurt AOT's overall quality, hence the final score of a 7/10.

Overall an amazing show, but certainly not perfect.

First of all, the show's animation and art is old. For some this isn't really a problem, but for me it took a while to get used it. It's not atrocious by any means, but the art and animation don't add a "wow" factor to the show as a whole so don't expect beautiful spaceship battles and eye candy.

If you can deal with the old art and animation, you're in for a treat because the story and character development is fantastic. The author knows what its doing with its characters. Most of the main characters have ... motivations that are complex and often challenged; they must endure trials that make them question and slightly revalue their beliefs and their character grows as a result.

This development is intertwined with the complex and engaging story. The two main groups fighting in this show are the Free Planets Alliance (FPA) and the Galactic Empire (GE). Neither side is necessarily evil, and main characters fall into both factions. The two sides fight a bitter war that kills billions of people and takes the lives of some characters we come to enjoy. Since neither side is evil, it creates a rather interesting scenario where it's hard to cheer for a certain side to win, because that would mean forgoing some cherished characters on the other side. It's far more engaging because it forces you to constantly evaluate the motivations that each character has, because it's not so simple that you can write off one side as just "evil for evil's sake".

In depth character motivations make for interesting and coherent decision making. For the main characters, you get to see the choices they make and their justifications for them. There's rarely a moment where characters make out-of-character decisions for the sake of plot - it's always related to their inner ambitions and motivations. You even get glimpses into the motivations and decision making behind many side characters, making them more than bland tropes (Oberstein!!!)

So far I've only mentioned the GE and FPA as being the two main sides that fight each other in this show - well I was being a little bit misleading. They are the two sides that have actual characters. The Earth Cultists are a third group that become a major nuisance to either side in the latter half of the show. Unlike the FPA, and GE, there are no characters with in depth and complicated motivations in this group. The de facto leader of this group is De Viller, who's motivation is to cause chaos and obtain power. He name literally sounds like "Devil" and he is the embodiment of pure evil in this show. While this doesn't ruin the still morally grew and complicated conflict between the GE and FPA it takes some engagement out of it because now there is an objectively immoral character thrown into the mix.

This wouldn't be so bad if De Viller's actions weren't so impactful. The climax and finale of the show is entirely manipulated by them. To have such a bland and underdeveloped character to take the reins of the show is beyond jarring and I found myself more pissed off that I really should have been. Another thing that bothers me so much about him is that you don't even see him making any decisions - you merely see the consequences of them. As an example in contrast, Reinhard will make a decision to enact 'x' plan and therefore you see 'y' result play out in the story. In many cases, 'y' doesn't play out completely because there are things that deviate from 'x' plan/decision. Plot points revolving around De Viller skip 'x' and jump straight to the 'y'. Since 'y' is so significant in the end, it's ridiculous that you don't get to see the build up to it, like you do when other main characters produce consequences.

De Viller and the Earth Cultists stopped me from giving this show a 10/10. The ending is still very solid, but these guys still leave a bad taste in my mouth. If you can stomach these guys and the fact that they go against so much of what is good in this show then this will be a 10/10 watch for you. Nevertheless, the characters of the GE and FPA are still fascinating and make this show great.