Welcome back to World War Titan! The time has come to end things. We are finally watching the final season of Attack on Titan, divided up into three parts. And it really looks like maybe this is the one where our heroes manage to turn everything around! If you are new to our coverage, this is the part where I explain to you that I’ve never been what you’d call a regular anime watcher, but something about this strange and at times horrifying show has continued to captivate me. Attack on Titan is relentless in season 4, episode 27, “Retrospective.”
1. Brutal expression of spacetime
We open on one of those patented <i>Attack on Titan</i> planning flashbacks. You know, where we see a plan go awry, and then check into the briefing to see that actually this was all part of the plan, predicted by Armin or Erwin or Levi or someone. In this case, it turns out that the Eldian Avengers don’t really need to get their airship flying. Instead, they are going to tow it down to Odiha, as shown on a map. This is the first time I remember seeing a map that showed Paradis Island and the rest of the world. It looks maybe the size of Madagascar?
Hange Zoe shares calculations that the Rumbling will cover about 1200 km per day. That’s a real brutal expression of spacetime. Days can be measured in distance, and lives. The goal (presumably in the third part of the final season) is staying one step ahead of the Rumbling long enough to stop it… somehow.
2. Floch’s dumb face
The look on Floch’s dumb face when Mikasa and Hange Zoe launch in to kill all his guys gives me life. Introducing this guy as a sympathetic survivor, only to have him grow into King Dipshit, that’s good writing! Now I can’t wait to see him get annihilated by different war criminals. He suffers a wound that looked pretty fatal, but he fell into the sea, and in story terms that means we haven’t seen the last of Floch yet. Eyes peeled for his once again dumb face.
3. Half the animation budget
If you, like me, have an appetite for <i>Kill Bill</i> style ass-kicking, you really liked this episode. I recall times that the ODM maneuvering looked cheap. Not today. Today is righteous amounts of violence. Mikasa deals death, slicing guys apart like she’s participating in Mortal Kombat. She even does a Scorpion “Get Over Here!” with her ODM cord (before kababing two guys in one skewer).
Reiner on the other hand has a new thing, and it is getting his ass kicked. He’s so good at it, he throws himself in front of Annie to take a hit. And another hit. They both take a tremendous amount of damage. Reiners titan face is blown away by bombs. Annie is delimbed and decapitated. Her fear at being rendered blind was honestly a little scary.
When a train of reinforcements pulls up, you’re certain it’s going to add to the bloodbath, but the train explodes before it can even catch up to the fighting. It’s a massacre.
By the end of the episode you’ve got Connie doing Mikasa shit, so Mikasa has to springs into action to one-up him. Hange Zoe kills a lot of guys. Gaby adds to her prodigious body count. Jean is crouched on a roof and taking down bad guys like some kind of Eldian sniper.
It’s Raining blood! This episode was mostly one long fight.
4. Big Bird
It didn’t take long for Falco to do the, “If only Galliard had survived instead of me” routine. But more than just a tease, we finally saw Falco become the Jaw Titan. He… looks like a big mean bird! It’s a crazy look. I don’t hate it. Falco does a good job at protecting the mutilated husks of Reiner and Annie, but titan shifting is hard to master and he goes berserk. He’s only saved when Pieck fully tackles him and Magath tenderly slices him from the neck of his monster bird body.
What do we think of Falco turning into a big bird? It that too on the nose?
Continued below5. Murderhusbands
I’ve sort of seen the writing on the wall for Magath. He was talking very much like someone two weeks from retirement, and we all know what that means. So whenhe heroically announces that he is staying behind to kick some more ass, I thought I knew where that was going. I was partly wrong!
Because I did not expect to see the return of Keith motherfucking Shadis! He literally may be the highest ranking guy left in the army, a lowly sergeant. But when he saw all his kids working together, he decided to buy them time to escape. That’s who blew up the train! Holy crap.
Nothing changes. Keith and Magath both die, blowing up a ship to stop it from persuing the Eldian Avengers. But in a few minutes, the two old soldiers tell each other a bit about their life story. Keith even says to Magath: “Well, you might not pat yourself on the back, but I’m proud of you.” Then they introduce themselves to each other, then they die. Sniff, excuse me. I’ll be on AO3 playing with my filters.
