WARNING SPOILER FOR FINAL EPISODE OF AOT
The ending of this anime and the conclusion for Eren's character arc is the most significant case of character development retcon in the history of all fictional characters
This is worse than what happend with Luke Skywalker in Fall of the Jedi
This is worse than Stannis Baratheon when GoT had no more book material to adapt
This is worse than Daenerys Targaryen random ass heel turn
...
This is worse than the appalling NTR nonsense that was present in Rent a Girlfriend
All these appaling character changes had some vague reasoning or backstory to it
They cop out of the entire shift of Eren Yeager's personality and have him revert back to the crybaby he was in S1 just to proceed to behead him and have Mikasa make out with his beheaded corpse and then carry it around like an urn
Eren did not change at all apparently which I will go on to in depth later on and its the most boring/bland retcon/cop-out of an interesting character I have ever seen
They falsely try to trick you into thinking Mikasa moves on from Eren (she doesnt because of EM shippers)
They falsely bait that Historia being pregnant matters (it doesnt)
And they nuke Paradis (didnt happen in the manga) as some sort of "bad ending"
Eren also being the one who killed his "mother" is just some bullshit that Isayama made up as cheap heat for people to get mad about and for it to be dramatic (seen this kind of stuff pulled out by D&D in GoT)
Its not a good plot-twist, Its cheap heat and makes 0 sense
Mikasa being mentally traumatized and hurt over losing Eren was just sad to see and they just kept her character the same as she always was
Historia and her pregnancy constantly being shown progressively in the manga and show aswell is just clickbait for you to think she is going to be relevant to the Rumbling or Eren (no she is just bing chilling with a NPC farmer they cant be bothered to give a name or backstory too)
And then Eldia gets destroyed in the credits anyway so Armin looks like a complete dipshit at the end of the story
Isayama like I wrote in my Manga review just doesnt know or is too scared to pick a side decisively for the resolution of the story
He wants to appease weirdos that ship Eren/Mikasa so he makes these weird scenes between them
He wants to appease to people who are nostalgic for the show so he doesnt kill off any of the main cast and lets them live
He wants to also appease to people who like Eren/Mikasa/Armin being together so they have this weird ass humbling scene where Eren says he is sorry and Armin punches him and stuff??
And the only way this is possible is by just writing that Eren and his actions/words were caused by his Attack Titan McGuffin or whatever super powers he owns and that he had no "control" over them and that he didnt know what he was "doing"
They didnt want to write Eren off as a villian that loses but rather some fucked up version of a "martyr", For this to be done he quite simply just answered to everything that Armin asked with "I dunno" and "I just felt like it" which is juxtaposed on the reasoning of "my head is a mess due to Ymir and me being a slave to my powers"
This is clearly a symptom of writers block or EXTREMELY bad writing and is just for what I see it as blatant retcon of a character to appease to an ending that he wanted
He clearly wanted to go the route of Eren killing his friends and impregnating AOE and just refused to follow it (Idc if you call this AOE cope I know what retcon writing is like because of Star Wars)
This is bailing out of an investment
This is the narrative version of trying to rollback all your changes from an app you are developing and going back to the base you started off
The execution this is all done in is absolutely abysmal, I dont mind the MC dying and losing. Death Note did a very good example of how to properly do it and Code Geass aswell
The only thing they fixed is that they made Armin and Eren's dialogue more decent, Which is why I rate the anime a 4/10 instead of what I gave the manga (which was as 1/10)
Armin actually sees himself as responsible for what Eren did and this makes the whole "martyr" thingy that happend to Eren make more "sense" (some cucks are going to be mad about this)
I think thats a bit more decisive than whatever the fuck they did in the Manga
So TLDR - Its a badly executed Code Geass ending similiar to Lelouch
It is very sloppily done and they defly 1000% could have spent more time developing this whole marley/eldia stuff
However the audience for this show only come for the action and are not as interested in worldbuilding/lore/character development
So I cant entirely blame Isayama for the direction he went with the manga/anime
AOT is very popular and that is by virtue of its action scenes
However I still do wish that they gave it more time instead of wrapping it up so quickly, I also think how the studio for the Anime developed the Final Season was odd and only done because Isayama himself rushed the Manga and they couldnt animate such stuff for what it is worth in a season anime (hence the constant part 2/part 3/part 4 pattern)
So the anime pretty much also had odd pacing because it occured in the Manga aswell
Nov 4, 2023
WARNING SPOILER FOR FINAL EPISODE OF AOT
The ending of this anime and the conclusion for Eren's character arc is the most significant case of character development retcon in the history of all fictional characters This is worse than what happend with Luke Skywalker in Fall of the Jedi This is worse than Stannis Baratheon when GoT had no more book material to adapt This is worse than Daenerys Targaryen random ass heel turn ... 
Apr 7, 2021
Shingeki no Kyojin
(Manga)
add
The Manga felt very strong and consistent but ultimately I dont even feel the need to mention anything that happens past CH 139 because it ultimately feels meaningless considering the ending we got. A series that ultimately at the end failed to correctly choose what path to take and chose for a "everyone wins" half assed ending is always weak. Its weak writing. You could explore victory for one side rather than try to please everyone A writer always needs to be firm in his decision making. And Isayam was firm but the last chapters he started to break down to what he thinks people want to see ... |
