HUNTER X HUNTER (2011)!!!
Imagine that you go to a new pizza joint that is all the rave. You order your favorite style of pizza and they serve it to you. It's piping hot, fresh ingredients, buttery flaky crust, it's one of the best pizzas you've ever had. And then just as you lift the last piece up, a fat roach that was crawling under the crust scurries out from under it and jumps into your lap, into your pants, and crawls around on your legs. You shake it out and step on it. You're appalled, disgusted, the thing has been crawling on you, all on your food. You demand to speak to the manager and the Manager says: "Sorry about that. I tell you what: We'll give you a coupon to get a free pizza. But, you can only redeem it after Winter of 2022.".
That's Attack on Titan.
It was so close, closer than any anime has been in years to beating Hunter X Hunter as my favorite anime of all time. (A Pizza that was never finished...*sigh*), but at the very last minute, they not only totally screwed the pooch, but they also have the nerve to make you wait almost a year to finish watching them screw it. A season that appeared to be a fantastic final arc of revenge for the citizens of Paradis that we have watched suffer relentless torture for years; suddenly spirals into a quagmire of flawed logic, senseless motivations, and just confusing decisions that make little to no sense whatsoever. Instead of the bloody, brutal, and oh, so fulfilling comeuppance for the nation of Marley you expect (and the anime teases after the first few episodes), you're left at the end scratching your head as to "why?". Or, you would be if you weren't so astonished at the balls of them to actually make you wait nearly ANOTHER YEAR for a conclusion.
Note to Attack on Titan creators: When you say "Final Season", FINISH THE DAMN SEASON. Then you can do your cash grab "After the Final Season Movie." This was nothing but a calculated decision to keep the AoT on the minds of fans for another year, so they can sell stuff before wrapping up the show and seeing their fanbase move on to other things. It's a trash tactic.
But this show will NOT be on my mind, because the ending is so dumb, so bereft of any logic, I have no desire to wait a year to see it play out. And that's really sad to say seeing how much I loved this anime over the years. But, I'm not going to reward stupidity and greed.
HERE COME THE SPOILERS:
So, what makes Attack on Titan: Final Season so stupid? AoT has spent years building up great characters forged by the pure hell that Marley unleashed on them, without them ever knowing why it was happening to them. When Season 3 revealed what the reason was, and what was truly going on, it was one of the most stunning swerves in Anime History. So, when the Final Season comes around, you figure that everything is going to come to a satisfying conclusion from the moment Eren reveals himself to Reiner in the Liberio Internment Zone.
And man, what an enthralling, captivating, and amazing battle that was. Almost as good as Perfect Game in season 3. When the Scout Regime busts in to back up Eren, and you watch them just wreck Marley, it was fantastic to watch. You didn't know how they planned to bring Marley down exactly, seeing how they were a superpower, and Paradis is just a small island, but you figured they'd have some kind of masterplan. After all, it appeared as though Eren and the Scouts had been infiltrating and setting up this attack for years.
But, when a much more sullen and "broken" Eren finally returns to the airship, you could already tell something was amiss. The tearful Mikasa, Armin hesitant to reach out to take Eren's hand, something was wrong. And then when Levi kicked him in the face, you realize this wasn't a part of some masterplan from the Paradis brass to eliminate the enemy that nearly drove them to extinction. It's revealed that Eren has actually gone rouge, joined up with his brother Zeke of all people, and purposely drew Paradis into attacking Marley by making them come and rescue him because he's the Founding Titan and they can't let him die or fall into the hands of Marley.
Okay, okay...I can get with this. My thought was "Clearly, Eren and Zeke have hatched a plan where Eren will eat all of the Titans that Marley has, get taken back to Paradis, then when the world attacks Paradis because Eren killed all their dignitaries, Zeke and Armin (Who is secretly in on the plan, so I thought), would feed Annie to Eren, then sacrifice themselves, allow themselves to be eaten by Eren, and then Eren would become the reincarnation of Ymir or something, and destroy the militaries of the world with his power, ending the threat to all Eldians. Then in some noble sacrifice, do something with his power to eliminate all Titans everywhere (keeping his mission to destroy all Titans from the first season) and then sacrifice himself. Thus destroying the nation that tortured them, saving Eldians from becoming Titans, and dying with a noble sacrifice as a tearful Mikasa cries over his and Armin's grave. The End. Sure, things didn't go according to plan in Marley and they only got one, but during the war, Eren will get the Cart and the Jaw, with the help of the Beast and Colossal titan, and then they'll finish their noble plan."
WRONG.
Instead, Erin sits in his cell for most of the season back in Paradis while everyone tries to figure out why he sided with Zeke, pretty much their greatest enemy. Eren just broods there while the anime focuses more on the Marleyans inside of Paradis. The mysterious and fanatical Yelena, the super irritating Gabi (A brainwashed warrior candidate, who I want to die so badly because of who she killed.) her sidekick Falco, Niccolo (A captured chef), and Zeke. What should have been the war to end all ages, was instead replaced with political intrigue, flashbacks and stories of morality, and choosing peace over bloodshed.
Because Eren stayed locked up by the military so long, a revolution forms around him as a savior type figure, with Eldians seeing him as the savior that dealt a huge blow to their oppressors. Only thing is, this was all a part of the plan. Eren was plotting the revolution with Floch, Zeke, and Yelena. Eren helped to mastermind an assassination and coup plot that not only killed Zachary but nearly killed Mikasa and Armin in the process and killed several scout recruits. Not ONLY this, but the man was actually plotting with Zeke, Floch, and Yelena to poison the military and police with wine tainted with Zeke's spinal fluid. The poison makes it so that if he yells, it turns them into titans that Zeke can control. Something Zeke used to kill ALL of Levi's men. All of them. Eren was actually down with Zeke poisoning the entire leadership of his country that he fought at all costs to protect for years and turning them into the very titans he despised. Historia could've drunk the wine. Pixis DID drink it. Hange, Levi, anyone. Hell, Jean and Connie almost drank it. Eren was suddenly down with the transformation and death of anyone he knew, even close allies.
So, surely, there has to be some kind of heroic motivation that Eren has for all of this. And it has to be a pretty good one, because not only is he killing Eldians, threating to turn people into titans and throwing the whole country into turmoil after making them a target for extermination by all nations of the world, he also beats the living hell out of Armin, and tells Mikasa he's hated her since she was a child, because she's a slave to Ackerman blood and only protects him because of the memories of previous generations of Ackermanns.
Clearly, he's being so villainous because he knows that the will and memories of the founder and previous titans are controlling their fates, so he wants to free them from it. Or, he has to separate himself from his friends so they don't get caught up in his coup to destroy the nations of the world using Paradis as a staging ground. They have to live on free after he's dead and not be punished, right? It has to be something REALLY noble. Like, Lelouch Lamperouge's "Zero Requiem" noble.
What could be this noble plan for which the heroic Eren, who has been willing to sacrifice everything to free his people from the threat of the Titans and now the threat from Marley and the nations of the world, has thrown away all his friends and the respect they had for him? What magnificent plan has he fomented that is worth him being willing to watch any ally die and laugh at their deaths?
GENOCIDE.
But, not genocide targeting the Marleyans. No.
He intends to commit genocide via mass-sterilization against the ELDIANS. His own people.
Because somehow, Eren Yeager, the dude you've watched for years fight to save his people from the brink of extinction time and again, has come to the conclusion that the only way to save his people is to prevent them from having children. If there are no Eldians born, then no Eldians have to suffer. The man who fought for years to prevent the extinction of his people has suddenly decided the best way to save them is...extinction. Logic +100.
That's the masterplan that Zeke and Eren have cooked up. Zeke, who they led you to believe was a loyal Marleyan puppet from a child, actually found out that if the Founding Titan touches a Titan with Royal Blood, then the Founding Titan (Eren) can alter the DNA of all Eldians. He decides that the best way to save Eldians is to prevent them from having babies. But, he can't make that decision, that decision has to fall to the Founder. And so, with amazing ease, Zeke convinces Eren this is the best way to go about saving Eldians and the people of Paradis.
And so that's why Eren has gone full-on villain. Because killing off your own people is the best way to save them from their oppressors. And that's just science, man. 9 out of 10 doctors agree.
If you've been watching AoT for any amount of time, I don't even have to point out to you the reasons why this is senseless. If you've followed the Eren Yeager character this long, you already know this is dumb beyond belief. This whole premise is just stupid. Why do you even have to make it so complicated? Just have them kill Marleyans until they die, have a great ending, and go down as the best anime ever made. Why did you have to screw it all up with this stupid "We have to end the cycle of violence" theme that makes NO SENSE?
And that theme is all throughout the anime. The Eldians repeat over and over how sick they are of all the mindless deaths. They act as though they've been killing Marleyans as often as Marleyans have been killing them. Marley was orchestrating their deaths for generations and Paradis only just found out they even existed four years ago. They've never done anything to them. Even if they wholeheartedly accepted the myth that Eldians suppressed the world centuries ago, it's illogical that people who have nothing to do with that would want to seek peace with their oppressors. As though they've been slaughtering them in warfare the past four years or something. Their only encounters with Marley since they knew they existed was to take the sailors they sent hostage. They didn't even kill them. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't Jean tell his men to throw an enemy out of the air balloon after what Gabi did? What does he mean by "Will the cycle ever end?" What cycle? You never attacked Marley before that moment. What does a certain father mean by "My little girl invaded another country and got shot?", she went to rescue one of her own and died in the process. She was fighting the people who filled your orphanage with orphaned kids whose parents died brutal deaths. What the hell are you talking about?
This illogical mindset is amplified in Eren and Zeke to the point of sheer ludicrousness. End the suffering of your people by ending your people? It's so dumb and half-baked they couldn't even bother to name the plot correctly. They kept calling it "Euthanasia Plan". Euthanasia is the assisted suicide of a person seeking to die. What you are doing is genocide via mass-sterilization. At least name the end-game plot of your anime correctly. Geez... To draw a comparison, they kept using imagery that compared the Eldians to the Ashkenazi Jews and Marley to Nazi Germany. Imagine if the Ashkenazi's said: "Hey, the best way to stop the suffering of this holocaust is to make ourselves go extinct.". How dumb is that?
There's a second half to all of this coming all the way in winter of 2022. (I thought it was only going to be a final episode.) But, unless they do some equally ridiculous turnaround of everything they've built up in this half, I can't see how they can salvage this nonsense. I can't even wrap my mind around how such a fantastic anime, an anime that has been one of the best ever for a long time, could end in such a ridiculous and infuriating fashion.
Literally, all you had to do was have one war. All you had to do was the same thing you've been doing since 2013: Have a series of mind-blowing fights. That's it. Have the Eldians rise up and kill the Marleyans and free themselves. Or, even a dark ending where they fail and die, opening up the possibility for a sequel down the road where Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Levi, etc...are martyrs and a new generation must rise up to follow in their footsteps. You didn't have to complicate things with needless coups, senseless character changes (seriously, what the hell was up with Floch?), ridiculous lessons in morality and peace, or convoluted alliances that switched at a moment's notice. All you had to do was keep it simple. As simple as putting down roach traps in your pizzeria.
