'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAMDAwMDAwQEBAQFBQUFBQcHBgYHBwsICQgJCAsRCwwLCwwLEQ8SDw4PEg8bFRMTFRsfGhkaHyYiIiYwLTA+PlQBAwMDAwMDBAQEBAUFBQUFBwcGBgcHCwgJCAkICxELDAsLDAsRDxIPDg8SDxsVExMVGx8aGRofJiIiJjAtMD4+VP/AABEIAAUACgMBIgACEQEDEQH/xABlAAEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABxAAAgEEAQQDAAAAAAAAAAAAAgMBAAQFEgYHERMhFBUxAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFBhEAAQMDBQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIDBAARMQUSEyFh/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwCfcKxeN5neXVrlETLW47PG1qy0AhUgWCELj1ERMVKUdE8dfoVd/b3avkALfGA9hDeNtY9/kUpRrU6W086EvKA2osM5Jqj0+NHfiI5G0qtjrwV//9k='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The one-hour Attack on Titan Final Season Part 3 episode 1 special has come and gone for most of the internet by now. The hour-long special had action, nightmare fuel, tearjerking moments, and a general race-against-time feel that permeated throughout.
The Rumbling has continued its ceaseless march, with the remaining heroes of Marley and Paradis racing to intercept. Eren Yeager is at the center of all the chaos, death, and turmoil. While the Attack on Titan manga was able to provide a clue into his mental state and turmoil over the Rumbling, all the death he was causing, and his twisted version of freedom, the anime special surpassed it by leagues.
Trending
Disclaimer: The following article will contain heavy Attack on Titan spoilers for both the manga and the anime. As this series deals with extremely heavy topics, content warnings are advised for descriptions of extreme violence, genocide, and other such topics. The opinions reflected are solely those of the author, which may be subjective in nature.
Why Attack on Titan's one hour anime special did a better job of examining Eren's fractured mental state than the manga
Part 1: Auditory and visual carnage
There's a major difference between reading a manga panel and seeing it animated: there's voice actors, there's music blaring in the background, things are moving around, etc.
In a general sense, seeing a manga panel or series of panels adapted into motion gives off a much better impression of what's going on vs. reading it off the page and Attack on Titan has shown this in spades.
Nowhere is this more evident than witnessing the horrific carnage of the Rumbling set to horrifyingly loud music juxtaposed with the dissonant bright soundtrack and sight of a young Eren flying above the clouds in his mental world. His apology to Ramzi is longer in the animated version, where the audience can witness and feel his anguish a lot better even as he and Halil are crushed to death.
Attack on Titan's anime special is interspersed with the death and destruction happening around Eren. Somber music blaring in the background adds to the carnage, loud wails and screams interspersed with images of people spontaously combusting and dying all around, but Eren himself only turns to Armin and asks if they really made it. Eren even jubiantly rejoices and says that "this is true freedom."
The look of horror on Armin's face says it all before he snaps back into reality. The character, throughout Attack on Titan's anime, has usually been accompanied by reckless actions, emotions, and music that reflected him. Now? It's more subdued, with both his voice being more controlled and sounding dead, and the music rising into horror tones.
Even the remix of the iconic ətˈæk 0N tάɪtn song carries more heavy drums, the guitars sounding like animalistic wails and screams from the episode prior perfectly accentuates the horror happening.
Part 2: Eren's completely broken mental state, visualised
To say Eren's current state of mind is fractured and broken is a huge understatement. The Attack on Titan anime special shows plenty of things from his perspective: a mental world wherein he, Mikasa, and Armin are outside the walls, above the clouds, truly free.
Yet, it's juxtaposed with what's truly happening: clear skies that replace devastated landscapes, green grass replacing the thousands of broken, burning, bloody bodies, with clean air and clouds replacing the fact that the air is so hot that people spontaneously ignite even when not in the direct path of the Colassal Titans.
Eren states that he's seen the death of everyone he passes by, numbly wandering the streets trying to justify not interfering in Ramzi's predicament of being beaten on. He even takes the Marleyan/Paradis united front into the Paths to explain that there's no stopping him via words, and even the heartfelt pleas of his friends are falling on deaf ears.
In other words, Eren is deadset on achieving his own version of freedom for Paradis no matter how many bodies are thrown away or how devastated the land is. Yet, ironically enough, he won't stop his friends or anyone else from trying to stop him and Ymir. They just need to kill him, as he directly says to them.
The problem is he's not entirely there, mentally speaking. Recall that despite Eren having the Attack Titan powers and seemingly having a level head, he was broken looking beyond belief in the flashbacks where they went to see the outside world by boat. The broken voice by which Eren speaks lacks his usual defiant spite, and instead of rejoicing or embracing his newfound evil, he sounds broken by it.
Part 3: "In what way are you truly free?"
At the very tail end of the special, Armin, Mikasa, and everyone else aboard the plane manage to get onto Eren's massive final Titan form. In a feat of scale that even Pacific Rim would be jealous of, the Attack on Titan special shows Eren's massive Final Founding Titan form. It moves like a snake, has its head exposed, and has exposed ribs, spine, and legs.
Armin asks the question that juxtaposes and breaks into everything Eren's been preaching and talking about all along, the question being: in what way is he free? The credit imagery illustrates Eren's "keep moving forward" philosophy by showing his feet moving but looking at the ground. Along one straightforward path was the tree that he had been sleeping under and where he was crying superimposed in the Paths.
In other words, for all Eren's speechifying to the contrary, he's not free. He's moving forward as he says, but he's listless and not lucid. The dialog and imagery chosen for this with Eren and Ymir side by side, the former in kid form, his seemingly clouded eyes when in Founding Titan form, and walking in a single line all inform one conclusion: Eren may think he's achieved freedom, but he's really trapped and stagnant in the ceaseless cycle of death and revenge.
It's no wonder everyone theorizes that Eren wants to die at that point, or wants his friends to kill him at any rate as he directly states to them to kill him. Prior in Attack on Titan, Eren looked pained when ordering Grisha to kill the Reiss family, and he all but told Reiner that his plans are nothing personal against the world, and he's didn't sap the remaining Titan Shifters from their powers. He, in other words, wants one last fight and then to finally die and rest.
There was a lot to dissect in the hour-long cour of Attack on Titan that recently aired. The bottom line is that the anime cour has given much more foreshadowing as to Attack on Titan's ending, and indeed a deeper look into Eren's larger trauma state. Fans are already eager to relive how this all ends, hoping for a better climax.
If nothing else, the Attack on Titan cour shows why the anime is most certainly a step up from the manga: the dialog is delivered with gusto, the music adds to the tension, and several smaller additions paint the picture of the final desperate battle for the world. To think, all that horror started because a young boy lost his mother.
