Attack on Titan
| [MANGA SPOILERS] The following paragraphs weren't written by me, but by a random guy on the Internet. One day I was just surfing Reddit when I found this essay (to be specific, a pdf file) about the ending (characters, theme,...) which I found pretty in-depth and well-analyzed (also, sorry Random-guy for stealing your work. I promise I will put in credits as soon as I find the source and thank you in advance). Here are some thoughts of Random-guy why Isayama might've done it: -------------------- Now that we've gone over all of that, I'd like to end this with some of my speculation about why Isayama deliberately wrote something that is so horrible. I think the most likely scenario is that he was forced to change the ending at the last minute, either to avoid the controversy of the protagonist successfully committing genocide or to boost sales since most Japanese fans want the Alliance to survive and for Eren to end up with Mikasa. Either way, this ending is designed to be more marketable and sacrifices quality to appeal to those who only want their fanservice. With how intertwined the story was with the planned ending, just changing one of the two major components of it would've drastically altered the outcome. Turning Eren into some a mindless robot that only thinks of Mikasa all his life the way she thinks of him would've made the reveal that he was the father of Historia's child fail, which would've also made his reason for wiping out the entire world for his family and to spare future generations of this conflict fail. Likewise, making the Alliance win against Eren and keep the cycle of hatred going didn't fit Eren's motivations either. This new ending needed to retcon Eren's plans for a full Rumbling so that he could lose. By that point, it's impossible to salvage the ending since the outcome doesn't match what the rest of the story was written for. Isayama probably figured he might as well just burn the entire story while he's at it and added a lot of things that weren't needed for this changed ending like Eren killing his mother or the comedic tone of the whole chapter. This might've been his way of expressing his frustration with not being able to end the story naturally and he probably turned this new ending into a comedy to make fun of it. There were a lot of signs of last-minute changes even outside of the things I mentioned about the writing of this chapter. Isayama spoke to Eren's VA in private recently and suggested that he was going to voice another "tatakae" scene in the final chapter, but there was no such scene in the chapter for him to voice. Weirdly enough, the number of pages in the final chapter changed after 138's release. Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine announced that it would have 45 pages a month prior. Then Isayama was told to make a chapter with 52 pages. Then Isayama couldn't stretch it for more than 51 so the editor took the blank page to write an afterword himself. The final chapter should've been planned out at least a few months in advance. Changing the number of pages after 138’s release indicates something in the storyboards changed very late into the process since Isayama normally has the storyboards for the current chapter done by the time the previous chapter is released (at least according to his known schedule). Then there was the final panel that was completely changed in almost every way. There was an exhibition in the middle of 2019 that contained audio of what was supposed to be the final chapter and it sounds like the Rumbling was originally going to continue until the end, but the audio was instead used for chapter 134, 5 chapters before the end. Lastly, MAPPA mentioned not knowing the ending as recently as a few months ago, which is odd because Isayama had told WIT director Araki about his planned ending years ago.  As for the writing itself, the final arc is so bipolar and suffers from tonal whiplash. We went from Eren starting a genocide, to an Avengers-style team-up, back to Eren's genocide in two chapters that give us the strongest proof that this is Eren's end goal, and to a final battle that only results in the Alliance winning and everything that happened in the story prior to it is no longer canon anymore. The dark and tragic tone of Eren's chapters is contrasted with the light and comedic tone of the Alliance chapters. It looks to me that during the final arc, Isayama was no longer sure if he'd get his intended ending and probably kept going back and forth between the direction he wanted for the story and the direction someone else wanted. It would explain why he couldn't even tell MAPPA how it was going to end. The thing I find most strange about all of this is Isayama's silence. He hasn't spoken about the ending since it ended while his editor has been doing all the talking. His editor has been very vocal and is happy with the way this story ended. He was also the one who had the last word about the series on the last page of the final chapter rather than the actual author himself. After everything else that I've gone over about the story's writing and its changes, I'd say it's almost certain that this ending was the result of meddling from Isayama's editorial team. I highly doubt Isayama actually wanted this ending considering all the interviews he's given over the years about how he was always focused on the ending, how much the story's themes mean to him (he often talks about parents in this series and his own experience with his parents), and how much he hated the idea of childhood friends getting together, always talking about how Eren doesn't love Mikasa that way and how Mikasa is supposed to separate from Eren. This ending contradicts so many of the things Isayama has said in the past and I don't think it's fair to accuse him of lying to his audience for almost a decade. That's too long for him to keep up the act and you can tell that the story did in fact line up with what he's said before this ending ruined all of it. With how tight-lipped authors can be due to contracts, we'll likely never know for sure what drove Isayama to write an ending like this. --------------------------------------------------------- What are your thoughts? |
| I'm not reading that but I mean, he did write the ending on purpose...and it just happen to suck. So I guess...probably? |
| bruhh my comment was deleted lmao, but i guess the ending was kind of rushed. Atleast thats what it felt like, I think Isayama probably just wanted to finish the aot series and move on. |
| Bro where's "IT ISN'T HORRIBLE " option?? And no one's reading that essay shit |
| Your opinion is trash just sayin |
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| ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS DROP THE DAMN ANIMÉ CJ |
| Now it's all coming together. Well I agree with this, even I sometimes think that ending could have been less horrible if some plot points would have been executed properly. In the end it felt like isayama just didn't cared. |
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| On purpose? As much as it seems like you're making out the author question his own work's integrity, the ending likely could've been compromised by external influence (editorial board, contractual term and conditions, etc.) but even with existing interventions, the core concept should and will still be determined by the author himself. The changes could be made in the logistic area or in-story: events and decisions, for example, but these are nothing more than filters and adjustments that still follow the original idea, or in this case, the ending Isayama envisioned. |
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| The whole story after introducing Avenger's team is ridiculous and horrible. |
| Um, sorry. I just don't see why a best-selling manga like Attack on Titan should cater to the delusional opinions of some neo Nazi supporters from Reddit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ monsen198 said: Turning Eren into a mindless robot that only thinks of Mikasa all his life the way she thinks of him would've made the reveal that he was the father of Historia's child fail, which would've also made his reason for wiping out the entire world for his family and to spare future generations of this conflict fail.
In case you forgot, Eren's mission has always been "to save Mikasa, Armin, and everyone..."; anything else is just head canon. |
I just realized that all of my favorite characters, beside being stunningly beautiful, also happen to be exceptionally skilled murder machines. \('-')/ I'm level  on mal-badges. View my badges. |
Yeah definitely no joke he's doing this on purpose, in the end, Isayama just wants to open up a spa after AOT fans cry about the last chapter.  |
| tf are yall even going on about at this point |
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| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6GmVCD7cxk&t=1s I haven't watched the video as I didn't want any spoilers. But this video might really change how you see Eren based on some positive comments I've read. |
 Scordolo's Recent Reviews To your eternity Vanitas no Karte |
| Well he managed to make the entirety of the story preceding it horrible unintentionally, so I doubt it. |
| Well I for one already loved Lain. |
| here's a good idea since this long ass analysis is about the manga why not just post it in the manga forum? it's as simple as that |
“this world is merciless, and it’s also very beautiful”  |
| Waiting for the thread to be deleted. Mods do justice! |
| Man this conspiracy theory stuff is good. I do have a feeling that maybe he was forced to change the ending and in doing so wanted to let out his anger and completely drop the ball towards the end. The last few chapters feel very weird and if I'm correct I think his editor had been changed somewhere around chapter during 122-132? I remember seeing this somewhere so someone correct me if I'm wrong. There's also another part of me that thinks he just really didn't have a clear idea on how to end it and instead his editor/s got control of it and introduced there own ideas with some of Isayamas and it just becomes a huge mess of clashing ideas. I honestly think Isayama should've taken a break from this manga, 10 years at least. (Sorry I just had to do it). Anyways that's my take on this. |
| it's good lmao u just don't understand eren ps im not gonna read that essay lmaooo |
| I actually liked the ending. I don’t understand where the hate is coming from at all. |
| Anyone who thinks he didn’t is out of his mind. |
MironBiron said: Anyone who thinks he didn’t is out of his mind. so what do you think will happen now? |
Zprotu said: so what do you think will happen now? It depends on the reasoning. If editor-kun is at fault for this ending, we won’t see a thing of Isayama’s real ending. If it was planned, we’ll see an alternative ending in the manga, as well as the anime. What we definitely won’t see, however, is an Anime Original Ending, or an ending in which |
| He prolly had plans where eren won, but he was getting death threats as to not kill the alliance characters. He was in a pinch. |
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