I’m absolutely blown away to have found a retrospective that offers genuine critical analysis, rather than a surface-level retelling of the plot. This definitely changed how I view the series. Thank you Radman!
truly one of the greatest media of all time, the storytelling, character arcs, world building, everything about this show is truly special to everyone that has followed it since the beginning and Hajime should be proud of what his first series has done for the world
"our only hope, is to help each other to find a way out of this forest" one of the phrases that stuck with me after AOT finished. This phrase describes a "real"way for peace .... Actual peace , not the politically corrupt version that our world is cursed by today . 1) Admit your cruelty as much as your enemies. 2) Admit the humanity and the suffering that your enemy experienced as much as your own suffering. 3) work your way "together" to end the suffering. Maybe one day we would listen.
To bring forth something new to the discourse of online media, especially through such a competitively volatile medium, is extremely difficult and a rarity to achieve. Most content creators struggle to provide even a minute of worthwhile insight that hasnt already been parroted plentiful times beforehand. However, what you've managed to do is absolutely incredible, to provide an hour of genuine, fresh and unprecedented perspectives to an otherwise, thoroughly dissected piece of fiction. You are the first reviewer I've seen who looked at the entire story through the lense of the ending, and not the other way around. Most youtubers looked at the ending in terms of the series, as opposed to watching the finale and recontexualising everything that had come before it, as intended. Nearly everyone who's spoken about the ending did so on the basis that they already knew the meaning of the story, and then wondered why the ending wouldn't fit their idealised perspective. And yet, you managed to give me a new perspective to the ending, AS WELL as the entire series as a whole. What you've done is shown me why the story and finale should be appreciated in tandem, and my appreciation to Eren's final moments, as well as his journey towards freedom, has increased as a whole. As a long time fan of Attack On Titan, thank you for this incredibly wonderful insight.
I think you perfectly explained the disconnect between me, who loved the ending, and other long time fans who apparently didn’t. I watched it all for the first time in one go after the finale finally dropped. I had no preconceived expectations, theories or assumptions to bank my hopes on. I simply took everything for what it was. But other fans had YEARS to speculate and come up with head-canons and convince themselves of things they could simply never let go of emotionally. Some people straight-up set themselves up for disappointment in this way. And I’ll always greatly pity those fans, because they have no one to blame but themselves for ruining their own experience, and I’ve simply never been able to help any of them reconcile…
Rewatching the series and seeing a series full of sympathetic characters Erens arcs and end is so sad! We legit went on the journey with him! A good person who grew to do evil things
You’ve scratched the itch in my brain perfectly with this analysis. I just finished the series a few days ago and honestly I was devastated by the ending. It shattered my heart and I felt so deeply for the circumstances surrounding Eren’s death and all the events that led up to it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and it really provoked some self reflection that led to me having an existential crisis. The conversation between Armin and Zeke particularly stuck with me, because when he said simply running up the hill with Mikasa and Eren was what he felt like he was born to do, it made me realise that the meaning of life is whatever we decide to give meaning to - you do not need to have a grand purpose but you can simply exist in happiness and peace 💕
i just finished watching AOT in full for the first time and i'm obsessed with its themes. this is a great video, thank you. also appreciate the use of the Garlemald theme in one of your sections :D well done. subbed!
So happy this video exists, you did a phenomenal job talking about the massive concepts and themes aot encompasses. It's not easy to be as comprehensive and cohesive when talking about this series in my experience but you pulled it off. I was also very disappointed by the lack of substantiative discussions and arguments about the series after the ending(in my experience), it's not what it deserves. I genuinely appreciate your efforts in pushing forward that sphere. Cheers!
I think the more time it passes, people's passions will calm down and later generations who will experience the whole story will engage in a more intellectual debate than just hating the way it ended
I never really thought about that relation between Ymir Fritz's desires and the behavior of the pure titans, very interesting. And while it is clear that Armin and Eren seek the outside world for different reasons, I didn't truly appreciate just how self-limiting Eren's perspective of it really is. Whether the obstacle is near (the walls) or far away across the sea, that's all Eren sees. The meaning of the name "Ackermann" and how it relates to Mikasa's character is so cool (not to mention that "acker" sounds similar to an "acre" of land). I should be looking into the names of characters in media more often, because more times than not, a character's name is intentional. Great video!
Attack on titan I think is mainly saying that we have to fight even though it may "do nothing" in the longterm. But it does do something, slowly opening the onion, throwing away the layers of suffering, hatred and destruction. The fact that we don't just kill each other, can talk things out, democracies existing and stuff like that prove that our ancestors fights were meaningful. Altough probably they thought it was meaningless to fight as it was tough to see that tiny progress But the snowball keeps rolling
Exactly. The boy at the end enters the tree, but he does so out of curiosity and because he wants to, unlike Ymir. He also has a dog by his side as a pet, whereas Ymir was being chased by dogs. The cycle continues, but each reiteration is different and a little less terrible.
Thank you for creating a beautiful video with excellent production, writing, and retrospection. Each chapter reframed from the ending's frame of mind each moment, each conversation that much more meaningful. This is one of the greatest videos on AOT's core themes and you represented this once-in-a-generation story masterfully.
Im honestly not a big anime or manga person but I heard about AOT and had to watch it and its probably in my top 3 shows ever. The story is one I enjoy very much.
What a great video! Also excellent choice in the background tracks! I almost recognized all of them (Always great to hear Penkins work. And the Runescape track was a nice unexpected addition!). Still, I have one final issue with this show that was never resolved. What the heck did Eren saw in the Warhammer Titans memories that made him pause for a minute? No really, in the Anime it seemed like it was something important, but we never got to know what.
12:35 i had to rewind that part because i got so distracted by the fact you used a theme from ff14 that i missed a whole minute wondering if i'm going crazy from playing too much 😆 Love your analysis, it's short and precise and you point out all the essential reasons for why the story of AoT is so beloved and successful. Great job!
I saw eren carying the boulder as a reference to sysiphus. The whole message of Keep moving forward and also the cyclical nature of aot not only thematically but literally if we presume it is a time loop is much like Sysiphus pushing the boulder. Furthermore Armin's conversation with Zeke reveals a very absurdist and Camus take. Even if it is all pointless and the boulder comes tumbling down the mundane moments and brief windows in time that bring peace are worth repeating the cycles. Eldia fell and humanity is doomed to repeat their mistakes but it also means armin gets to run in the wind forever, and zeke gets to throw that ball forever, and Eren gets to wrap that scarf around mikasa forever.
It’s been almost a year since I first watched this video, and I couldn’t help myself but rewatch it. In my opinion, this will probably be one of the best videos talking about attack on titan, ever. Thank you Radman, once again, for making this video that so acutely captures how I feel about this show that has gripped me from my first watch and has never truly left me since. I never needed attack on titan to be perfect, but DAMN did it do a phenomenal job of going as close as it could.
I think a lot of people are so focused on the idea of the tragedy of humanity but if we were to just focus on Eren - this really was the only possible happy ending for him and his friends. If were to think of alternate endings and the aftermath we would probably end up with Eren being like Ymir: stuck in the Path. He would be a slave to his ideology of freedom. It is only after Eren's life ends could he consider himself truly free.
I think this interpretation is one of the best ones ever people need to realize Love isnt retconned or an aspect just added to drive eremika its been around since the very first episode it was one of erens driving motives to eliminate the titans his love for his mother turned into regret for not realizing it so soon how much she cared which then turned into anger/revenge. This is also the reason why eren was never destined to free ymir it was always mikasa picture this you are born into a world full of injustice one day your life flips upside down and in the midst you are blessed with unholy power powerful enough to change the entire world. What would you do with it? well most people would be like oh ima be a superhero or like im gonna change the world(eren) however this is not the mindset mikasa nor ymir had. You see both mikasa and ymir are quite simple people all they want is love whether to love someone(mikasa) or to be loved by someone(ymir) they just crave for it however this was where ymir fumbled she wanted to be loved but in order to be loved you have to love them first something ymir couldnt do cause of her situation during her life. she wasnt able to love anything as her only meaning in life was to be a slave to her master but then youd think oh well she could change that with the power she now possessed. wrong In ymirs backstory we see how through her eyes king fritz was what love was like(shown in the panel where he kissed that random women) it wasnt actual love but it was the only glimpse of love she knew. So she wanted it. Which is why she came back to king fritz she wanted to be loved so bad she failed to even realize that she cant be loved by someone she herself doesnt love but she was so blinded by her slave origins she countined to work for him in order to belive he would love her. Obviously she was wrong but she didnt know that which is why even in death she cannot escape that slave mentality cause she wanted to be connected she wanted to be loved by someone. Yet even with all the passing lives she never once felt that she was loved by someone or she loved anybody(she did but she just didnt realize it until mikasa). Now we have mikasa who since the very beginning loved eren and it didnt matter to her if he loved her back she just wanted to be by his side cause she loved him and throughout the series we see how this then evolves to eren finally falling in love with her(he started falling in love after s2 but we dont needa know this). So then the question is why did ymir need mikasa what did she need mikasa to show her? Well unlike a popular belief i belive ymir needed mikasa to show her that you cant force a connection onto someone you cant force someone to love you nor can you force yourself so at the end of the day you have to let them go Mikasa cant force eren to stop now she couldve but it wouldnt have gone with her own morals but that doesnt mean she has stay alongside him she cant force herself to love eren she cant force herself to support whatever hes doing just because she loves him shes going to stop him because she wants to(note that stopping eren and killing are 2 different things so she did not want to kill eren) she killed eren because she knew it was the best choice but that doesnt mean she loved him anyless. this alongside the small chat she had with ymir clicked something inside ymirs brain maybe she did love someone and thats why we got that thought in ymirs brain of what would of happened if she didnt save carl she would have her kids who loved her and she loved she just didnt know it cause she was so fixated on forcing carl to love her. which is why ymir was finally able to be put to rest she finally let go of finding love cause she always had it. While you can make an arguement for eren being the one to free her I think mikasa makes much more sense since shes so much more down to earth then eren probably alongside levi and jean the most down to earth characters in aot.
This was such an amazing video omg. It made me fall in love with aot all over again. Honestly the story is far from perfect bc there's a lot of conditioning factors outside of the creative process, such as edition, format etc. And I think that also acts in detriment of the storytelling process. But over all, omg I really need to rewatch now. Personally, after seeing the last chapter animated I felt much better about the ending, those little changes (especially on Eren and Armin's last conversation) made me feel so much for Eren, which is also incredible since I've never been on his side and never liked him as a person (always admitted it was a great character but never "liked" him) After seeing this video essay now I want to rewatch and focus more on Eren and Mikasa's journey too bc I've always been ignoring them and I think what you said was so ON POINT in hindsight. AHHHH this just revived my hype to a 3000 level!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥 THANK YOU 🙏🏽
Sorry for another comment but I just got to the end of your video (finally) and I you stole my words: while the conclusion suggests another cycle, but while Ymir was being hunted for death, this kid looks to be coming in as peaceful/relaxed way as possible, just exploring with his dog. Perhaps it isn't doomed to be a continuation of a "cycle of hate/violence"
the endless cycle you could argue about in attack on titan is personally my favorite part of the show. the rest of the world called eldians devils and shoved them onto an island and into camps because they did not feel free under them, then even after eren(and/or ymir) serves them the consequences of their actions through the rumbling and the eldians still save them despite the oppression, they STILL refuse to look at them and see human beings. only eren believed(kind of) the rest of humanity deserved death in exchange for stealing eldia’s freedom, yet after he was killed and stopped by ELDIANS- they barely accept them. you are so right in saying eren was blinded by his rage and ignorance, unable to sense the meaning of actual freedom.
Small correction, in the Golem of Prague story it didn't randomly go on a rampage, on its head was written by the Rabbi the word "protect" and someone or somehow, one of the characters of the word "protect" got erased, leaving the word "destroy" on its stead
I love this analysis. I think that when you talk about Erens God like status it is reminiscent of the golden compass for me. In the book, Lyra’s father opens up the multiverse because he believes in free will and is in rebellion of God aka Destiny. Mikasa’s love, her ties to the boy she knew, eventually gives Eren his freedom when she kills him. In a way, love is the antithesis to destiny/God. Future and past and pain and nature and nurture and destiny are meaningless in the face of the present moment and the love we feel for those moments. It gives life its meaning. In the golden compass, the father says “Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.” Bravo my man
Please make that followup video about the conclusion, I would love to see it. Finding this video has been a breath of fresh air after trying to wade the online fandom to find actual discussion about the themes of the show. Thank you!
I just finished watching AoT for the first time and it was nothing short of phenomenal. Love your analysis. By the way, hearing FFXIV Garlemald music in the background made me smile. My favorite game!
Excellent video, for me you've expressed all the ideas wonderfully and I'm glad to see a perspective with which I agree pretty much on everything. Also, your exposition widened my own perspectives, so lots of thanks for that!!! To leave at leas a small attempt of a contribution I'd like to add a tiny piece about the child finding the tree at the very end of the story. Not only they weren't being chased and running away from the insanity of hate like Ymir was, but it seemed to me like their vibe is much more the one of an explorer. They're a child in the forest without adults to guide, but his attitude reminds me of everything you mentioned about Armin's curiosity and his persue to experience the world for himself. So, maybe this final child is some mixture between Mikasa and Armin, symbolically speaking. And maybe this new character with their own new story to tell suggests some type of representation for two thirds of our main trio, which finally reunites with the last third awaiting for them in a whole new context. Happy 2024, everybody!!!! 😁
My opinion on the final scene is a little darker, as well as a little more final. It is based off of what they discussed in season 1 about war and how men will always be at conflict until there is one person left. I genuinely think that Eren, krueger, ymir, and even Erwin actually succeeded. Yes we see that the cycle of violence continues like it always will. But I think that is why Eren specifically chose to go that far with the rumbling. He knew that he would buy his friends a few generations of peace and then the world would be at war again. That kid is exactly what Erwin said. That kid is the last human. When he walks into that tree, he doesn't find anything. No magic, no powers, no titans. He ironically finds a tombstone. This way the story is actually done. There are no spin-offs to see what the next magical being is. There's no stupid rings of power, House of dragon. This masterpiece of a show will simply stand on its own and despite the cycle of violence and the looping memories, the show ends. Period.
Its been 4 months since i watched AOT and ive heard many analysis and many watched many videos of it. This is by far the most insightful and my favorite. Like you bought so many freaking points to the table. No one else realized the dog being the friend while approaching erens tree being symbols of a hopeful future (good part of life). And the golem of prague analogy. The propaganda and shackles of freedom and the benefit of innocent curiosity. I want to add that i find the current israel/palestine in context of ww2 very similar to AOT, especially s4, and ive seen people also look at it the same. But neither them nor I could identify which side reflected who, because eldians seem to be treated very similar to jews (for the 80 years instead of 2000 years), but the walls and key to a lost house symbolism and quest for freedom is very similar to Gazans, but also eren doing the worst to supposed self preservation is very similar to israel--especially with the story of the golem. This video made me realize that isayama merged the 3 parties into one for a reason, to instead highlight the struggles, the motivations, the crimes, the victim becoming the perpretator and the cyclic nature of violence of any modern war. And i think that is a very insightful way to put it. And maybe isayama never took inspiration from the situation, but to me it was very reflective and thought provoking, and it was special to me as it came from a show that was with me for 10 years.
Please start saying symbolism instead of symbology. -ism is the usage of and -ology is the study of, and it really finishes the quality of your scripts, which I promise are fantastic. I'm only trying to help, not to hate.
I thought the anime had a fine ending. I was satisfied. I was honestly mostly drawn to the show by the absolutely mind blowing world building and revelation. It's just so good
Can u talk about the eyes in bleach universe? why does reio have four, yhwach had two then it changed and became three, mimihagi have one but the other arm (pernida) has two. Can u upload a video telling us why it is different and what does the eyes represent and why yhwach eyes have became three?
I remember watching the first season of attack on titan when I was 13. I finally got around to watch it all from beginning to end recently and I loved the ending I thought it fit the story. It was the ending attack on titan deserved. If the ending isn’t perfect what would you change? Keep Eren as a chad sigma alpha male lol? The whole point was that he was being vulnerable to his best friend in the very last conversation they will ever have. Crying would be expected, he knows he’s going to die at the hands of his friends and he’s walking towards it, he’s about 18/19 when he dies he’s barely an adult. I’m just glad I somehow didn’t get the ending of AOT spoiled even though I was very late to the party.
misconception of most people about EREN YEAGER They say eren lied to floch and yeagarists and eren was a hero from the start and was only doing rumbling so that his friends could kill him afterwards and have a code geass ending …. …ITS WRONG Eren isn’t lelouch He wasn’t intending to be lelouch His goal wasn’t to sacrifice himself when he started out the declaration of war on Marley and basically massacred them Eren didn’t lied to floch He intended to complete the rumbling Him sacrificing so that his friends could kill him was his EXCUSE and even when armin point out that they can’t be the heroes ..what was eren’s reply ? He ignored and started talking about ymir When he said to armin in the last beach scene that all population is same so paradise can come up with a solution Armin literally told him That it’s a joke You can see from eren’s face that he was slowly realising that he did the rumbling for HIMSELF And eren’s baby scene is also shown to conclude the fact that being free was his BIRTHRIGHT that’s why he said he didn’t knew why he did it It simply was in his nature I am not saying ‘it was in his nature to genocide ‘ But what I am saying that it was in his nature to be FREE If Marley didn’t did those atrocities on eren then eren wouldn’t have genocide on them because he would have been free at that point and not caged by walls and that is why in the end armin also took responsibility because not all was eren’s fault as I said before And historia also says this in the end It’s just not eren’s fault rumbling happened but because of culmination of the world’s fault Eren was just the victim a slave of freedom
Good interpretation , I have a question for you Do you think eren still cared about paradise, as you see his goal is to save paradise but his bigger goal is to gain freedom of course, because we see that eren shows sympathy in some parts also even with the victims of the rumbling And the reason he is disapointed is grisha notebooks that there are humans but hostile towards ELDIANS ( This is from a fan asking isayama about why he was disapointed) And another reason he is disapointed is that it doesn't look like armin's book he was excited to see that scenery but it turn out to be false but instead there are humans but hostile towards eldians I don't see eren motives changed beginning, but the paths and his personality change from an idealistic man who speaks about freedom positively to someone who is cold, distant from his friends,calmer than his old self So what do you say
@@logic8965 yes yes I think eren cared about paradise His whole life he has been seeing deaths of survey corps since he was a child and also the death of the Levi’s squad members which he believes it’s his fault and also countless other survey corps members trying to rescue him everytime he was captured that was the reason of his mental breakdown in s2 ending but mikasa brought him motivation that there was someone who saved her Now when eren since birth always thought about freedom because it was in his nature Because he used to stare at the sky long before armin showed him the book He didn’t had the desire to join the survey corps at that time But when armin showed him the book his freedom nature kicked in and that’s when he realised that he truly wasn’t free at all That’s when he realised how caged he was that there were monsters who were stopping him to see that outside world of plain sight where he and his friends could roam around When the outside world wasn’t the way he had seen in armin’s book He tried to make it like that for his friends and also for PARADISE AS WELL Eren only saw the cruelty in this world The main theme of aot is ‘The world is cruel BUT ALSO BEAUTIFUL’ Eren only saw half of it and he was consumed with rage and cruelty only
I loved this story and then the final chapter happened and they gave a genocider a memory and visited him after death, meaning he got rewarded for what he did. And then the Anime made this even more apparent which again, really ruined it for me. Not even the Emperor visits the Genocide War Shrines. Got immortalised by people I had to accept were moral.
i hope you would make a video dissecting the criticisms made by plasmyte (ruclips.net/video/Hr44dBCWcHY/видео.htmlsi=nkS61TVcP4wcrpK5 ) and odin (ruclips.net/video/5iAOZY1M54A/видео.htmlsi=Q08GxAOG8rSoeLAK ). I think these guys have made the best points regarding the criticism of the ending of aot.
In regards to the loop theory, I don't believe it's a possibility that Eren's forced the relive the events of the story, for the following reasons... - Mikasa's "itterasshai", what does that mean? It's said both in paths and when she beheads him. It's meant to mean that they'll meet again in the afterlife. - Armin saying that he and Eren will meet again in hell, which was added to the anime, I believe, to also drive home that point. - and finally, the final ED, also called "Itterasshai", shows Mikasa meeting Eren again in the afterlife. She's lying down in the same position and is surrounded by flowers like how she passed in the real world, and the butterfly sitting on their hands is the same one from The Rumbling OP, that is crushed and killed, to signify that we are in the afterlife.
I agree with what you said at the end too. I've yet to see someone who dislikes the ending explain why in any meaningful way, it just boils down to "it bad". Eren's not a badass? Bad. Ymir loved the wrong person? Bad. History repeats itself, Paradis is bombed anyway? Bad. No one in the Alliance died? Bad. No depth to WHY it's bad, just... that's not what I wanted, so it's bad, and it's so simpleminded that it's painful.
Its the way the ending was always meant to be, I don't understand how people who liked the story up until that point ever liked the story at all. It was always cohesive, always the same story. Eren was never superman he was boy that had soo much hate. He in a way has Griffith's traits, willing to sacrifice the whole world for his desires, while I see Levi similarly to Guts. "Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes."@@bradleycoates6297
@@AM17titan I don't think it's hell, as I believe Eren and Mikasa meet again in the "afterlife" neither heaven nor hell. Armin just says "hell" due to Eren's crimes and like you said, he doesn't actually know if it exists, BUT, I think it was used to drive home the point that Eren, Mikasa, and Armin will all meet again somewhere "later".
I feel that it is a comentary on fashism and national socialism as a whole. and how any country can get to that point if they are left alone for to long with such trauma. I only see two sides that live the trauma off opression only to retaliat into opressing the other side. I see that with a lot of conflicts in the world we have right now. And mabe on that point attack on titan can be used to teach it how it can look like . the only thing i do not like by the way is that everytime fashism comes up people think of germany. Now we should think about china, jerusalem and maybe the repulicans right now in the usa. The funny thing is that everywhere fashism is really great is mostly co morbid with religion and corruption through capatalistic means.
1:07:46 a role given to you to play, sounds like a persona like your public image but while it is common to say that's the public image and not the "real you", like this analysis seems to lean into, I disagree. Your Persona isn't a fake you it is the other half of you, the face looking outward, while not the face looking inward is still the face of the person. So Eren's break down isn't the real Eren it is just, Eren's breakdown after having so much pressure on him. We have seen this before in AoT, Bertholt's break down before his death, Erwin's break down, Nanaba's break down, Mitch's break down, those aren't "The Real"; like let me be more direct with Erwin, if his break down before his death was "The real Erwin" then one would have to surmise he was basically a sociopath that was just using the survey corps as a tool to discover the secret and the show certainly never supports that, Erwin also put up a persona to lead the last charge but that wasn't "Fake Erwin" that was just his face looking forward. So yes, Eren is both based chad and frightened and lovestruck teenager. Edit:- To continue a bit, not a manga reader but I did dislike the final season with everyone claiming Eren wasn't actually free. Like come on, my boy has tried to be free since he was born, what kind of stupid thing is it to find any excuse to claim he is not free?. It also often also rests of trying to equate meta physical freedom to real, physical freedom. A slave that escapes a plantation is still free even if still a slave to needing to eat and breathe, Eren is free even if his freedom didn't mean being metaphysically unbound by anything.
Yes I agree completely about what you said with the real and "fake Eren" everyone has this quality it's like your inner child and how you are as an adult, both are you but both simultaneously exist in you. However you comment about Eren being free in the final season I somewhat disagree. Yes he was free as in he escaped the walls and could make his own decision without outside interference now, but he has always been a slave to his desires and malice
@@ChaChaRealSm00th I say, this matters and what he was always trying to achieve "Yes he was free as in he escaped the walls and could make his own decision without outside interference now," and this doesn't matter and was never what he was trying to achieve "but he has always been a slave to his desires and malice".
@@LibrarianSankore what you are trying to achieve in life is not everything, the out come is not all that matters. If you are willing to sacrifice your own moral compass and all else dear to you to achieve a goal in life, you are a slave to that goal (In Erens case attaining "freedom") as in it compromise all essence of your being to see it realized. Eren himself was unsure if his closets friends would survive his endeavour, the same friends he was desperately trying to protect because he was so trapped in his own mental framework. The ends do not justify the means.
@@ChaChaRealSm00th As the show itself says, everybody is a slave to something so Eren being a slave to freedom rather than a slave to protecting his friends I don't see as in instory problem.
How could he say that the anime added small dialogue changes that overall made the anime ending feel better than the manga, then praise the manga ending by calling it "near perfection". Like tf the manga ending was trash
if you watch the ending hoping to root for one side against a big bad youll be disapointed, aot is a war story and theres good people on each side who have to do bad things to each other, as a veiwer you're really just a spectator of the war and thats why the ending is sad and uncomfortable, you literally witness mass genocide and are still conflicted about what you want to happen just like all the characters feel. you know eren has to be stopped but you also know thats pointless to an extent. theres no happy ending to war.
I'm not satisfied by this video. I'm not going to be satisfied until I see your criticism video that I think you should make where you talk about your problems with the ending. I personally think the ending betrayed everything that was built up beforehand, and I think there is some places where you can see that the author felt the same.
Agreed. I'm annoyed how he brushes Eren's inconsistencies (he is also inconsistent with who he was before season 4) as "you just didn't understand Eren" when I'm sure that nobody had an issue with Eren crying it was the context it was in. If this was true criticisms would have started in 131 or whenever Eren cries during the series.
Thank you for the analysis, it was truly interesting and entertaining to look at the narrative from your point of view. I myself believe that all of the ideas Isayama put into his work are pretty much valuable and deserve to live, but implementation of them in the ending of manga really lacks of acuteness and details in many ways, which led to a natural misunderstanding by a part of readers. He did come up with a decent ending, but he couldn't bring the story to a final in a way that the viewer could fully enjoy its meaning. He neglected some very important elements inherent in AoT in the past and quite poorly played the cards he had in hand in the final game, not showing us part of them at all and giving resolution _only_ to his ideas and message. Therefore, his plot finds its true vitality precisely in analyzes like this. Maybe Isayama even should be grateful to you :))
YESS PLSS id love to see what your response would be to ending critics! Of course, there are certain parts of the ending that i found partially abrupt or id like to have seen differently, but all in all i am satisfied with the ending! The amount of AOE believers and ANR followers, who have done nothing but cry over “chad eren” being gone, is funny but sad at the same time! They created a whole new image for eren, creating a new visualization of the anime to themselves, that it made them so shocked and upset, when their dreams didn’t come to life. It surprises me how many fans are still hung up on the ending, when it initially came out two whole years ago! It’s about time they actually learn. This entire video was helpful, and as an obsessive Zeke fan, thank you for mentioning him 10 times in this video! This video deserves a lot more likes!
How far in to the story did you drop it? I loved Attack on Titan from the very beginning but given just how much it changes, I can understand why someone wouldn't be too hooked by the earlier arcs.
@R7dman i am a multi-instrumentalist i loved bass...then i jumped heard first into the well. so I wouldn't say i dropped it, more my it didn't grip my heart nor head. your ZKK video i've seen 4 times and the Ichigo video about 2x in full and 4x in bits. i am an anarcho-Capitalist i love ideologies, philosophy, economics. AOT didnt really say something to me. hell i didnt like Bleach in the beginning, then i saw a "all ichigo forms" from Vasto Lorde it gripped my head...then it consumed my life ever since then. so if this does it for me...ill be happy
The ending is an easier pill to swallow if you know first and foremost that Erin had no power to alter his decisions or the outcome of his decisions. If you're on rails, how do you make terms with that?
hey we dont know each other but i wanna say that GOD still loves u and wants u to be with him all u must do is trust in Jesus and repent of ur sins. GOD loves u more than u can imagine. ☺️☺️☺️🎉🎉❤❤😊❤😊😊❤😊🎉🎉
@@AM17titan Paradise got destroyed and the titans returned the whole show and the story are meaningless and the story didn't amount or resolve to anything but nihilism.
are you dumb? how did titans returned ?you just thought the tree is there and titans return but dont know shit about how titans were made lol I bet you didn’t understood or skipped armin and zeke conversation in the paths and also paradise destroyed? it happened after 1000 of years do you want a disney type of code geass ending where peace is eternal? It’s unrealistic @@yousefsaber1
@@Lesterberne ending critics accurately predicted the destruction of Paradise before the release of the 8 extra pages in volume 34 As a clown anime ending fan you weren't there to witness that.
I'll be honest here. This is easily your worse work and a terrible follow up to the masterclass that was 'Gojo v Sukuna'. Considering that's how I was first introduced to your channel (and subsequently seeing your previous videos, many at that same standard) watching this video was a serious letdown. You don't tread new ground nor do you add any new perspective that wasn't talked about since the manga ended. I think the most egregious issue was your characterization of Eren (obviously) as well as the half-backed attempt to claim moral objectivity while very much being in the "Eren is a psycho and evil" camp. That's fine if that's your opinion, but it's disingenuous to your audience to claim this is "just a retrospective" when you in fact do have an objective in mind. Just a VERY easy point you actively missed (because it goes against your "Eren is a psycho" perspective) is the irony of the "Farmers" being the most skilled at killing and snuffing out life while the "Hunter" does everything he does for the sake of his "family" (most apparent in the Atlas scene, which is focused on him exclusively preserving life rather than taking it) That's literally just a single example (among many) that you ignored because your intention wasn't necessarily to do an actual retrospective, but to be among many to reach for the low-hanging fruit that is "Eren is a psycho; you're just stupid if you don't agree". Whether this was a take you personally agreed with, the fact that it wasn't even acknowledged despite you opening that door is telling. Again, after seeing your JJK, Phantom Blood, and Bleach videos, I was honestly surprised at the quality here. Maybe a remedy could have been to have treated this like your Bleach world building series. Not only would that have resulted in more videos, views, and exposure, but it would have also forced you to potentially spend more time in each major section to round them out. Even if it didn't change your perspective, it likely would have required you to at least comment on things in a more thoroughly nuanced way.
eren was doing evil things but he had his priorities in the ending scene he basically tells that he thought he was doing to protect his friends and then realised that he wanted to trample he wanted to do it not because it was a neccesity but it is because he wanted to do it
I kind of see what you're saying but I disagree with the 1st paragraph Absolutely agree that he didn't take his time to tackle everything in the most nuanced way, but I also understand that he wasn't talking about anything specifically but rather his analysis of the series and its themes more generally, not diving too deep into everything. In regards to eren, mikasa and armin, it's apparent that he didn't tackle their development and just treated them as a sort of archetype that takes a role in the story for this specific analysis. He said and I do agree that eren is a psycho in a sense, but at the same time, he also said or implied that eren was blind to the experiences he had right beside him, which is tackled by Armin and his shell's scene in the final convo, and this is partly because of both his nature and nurture/conditioning, more notably his memories of the future.
Great analysis and a strong and powerful narrating voice, making it an interesting watch. You have quite a fascinating perspective but the ending tainted it somewhat, where (dispite a very meager disclaimer before doing so) you discredit a large part of the fanbase that critique the ending by diminishing their opinion as memes and misunderstandings of the story. As if you're the only one that sees the story 'for what it really is'. You seem to be quite chained to your vision of Eren never escaping the walls and thus ironically never experiencing the true freedom he always wanted. This recurs many times in your vid, but the fact that even outside the walls during the Rumbling he was stuck between the dust & the clouds seems a bit far fetched. How about his infiltration in Marley? Did you conveniently forget about that part of the story? Also your vision of Mikasa being a symbol of true happiness, hence Eren experiencing true happiness in his final moments when Mikasa slices his face of seems a bit of a stretch. Her whole life she's been drawn to this one person. Can you really call this compulsive behavior happiness? Can you even call it love? Another conclusion best drawn by the reader themselves based on their own experiences. Anyway, it was a great piece to listen to but the last couple of minutes made you sound like an arrogant prick and stained the long watch quite a bit for me. You might wanna edit that out. For the rest, great job of keeping it interesting. Good voice, excellent editing, interesting vision. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed listening to it.
I feel like Attack on Titan is a show that will be analyzed for decades
I hope so. This is one story that definitely deserves that. For 10 years at least.
@@CrimsonCharan it should at least be as long as we waited
I see this exact comment in every single AoT video
Decades? How about centuries?
@nishanshrestha3646 anything less than 2000 years won't do.
I’m absolutely blown away to have found a retrospective that offers genuine critical analysis, rather than a surface-level retelling of the plot. This definitely changed how I view the series. Thank you Radman!
you truly have been going crazy this year man. love the hard work and dedication you’ve put in. 2024 your year
Aye! Thank you for the support it truly means the world. I need to go crazier next year!
truly one of the greatest media of all time, the storytelling, character arcs, world building, everything about this show is truly special to everyone that has followed it since the beginning and Hajime should be proud of what his first series has done for the world
Pieck fiction
PEAK FICTION 🐐
@@namelessmonster-fr124 I see what you did there
Was good untill they changed studio then it started to suck .
@@yaasinmbro that’s not how it works especially since they were just following the manga 🤯
"our only hope, is to help each other to find a way out of this forest" one of the phrases that stuck with me after AOT finished.
This phrase describes a "real"way for peace .... Actual peace , not the politically corrupt version that our world is cursed by today .
1) Admit your cruelty as much as your enemies.
2) Admit the humanity and the suffering that your enemy experienced as much as your own suffering.
3) work your way "together" to end the suffering.
Maybe one day we would listen.
To bring forth something new to the discourse of online media, especially through such a competitively volatile medium, is extremely difficult and a rarity to achieve. Most content creators struggle to provide even a minute of worthwhile insight that hasnt already been parroted plentiful times beforehand. However, what you've managed to do is absolutely incredible, to provide an hour of genuine, fresh and unprecedented perspectives to an otherwise, thoroughly dissected piece of fiction. You are the first reviewer I've seen who looked at the entire story through the lense of the ending, and not the other way around. Most youtubers looked at the ending in terms of the series, as opposed to watching the finale and recontexualising everything that had come before it, as intended. Nearly everyone who's spoken about the ending did so on the basis that they already knew the meaning of the story, and then wondered why the ending wouldn't fit their idealised perspective. And yet, you managed to give me a new perspective to the ending, AS WELL as the entire series as a whole. What you've done is shown me why the story and finale should be appreciated in tandem, and my appreciation to Eren's final moments, as well as his journey towards freedom, has increased as a whole. As a long time fan of Attack On Titan, thank you for this incredibly wonderful insight.
I think you perfectly explained the disconnect between me, who loved the ending, and other long time fans who apparently didn’t.
I watched it all for the first time in one go after the finale finally dropped. I had no preconceived expectations, theories or assumptions to bank my hopes on. I simply took everything for what it was. But other fans had YEARS to speculate and come up with head-canons and convince themselves of things they could simply never let go of emotionally.
Some people straight-up set themselves up for disappointment in this way. And I’ll always greatly pity those fans, because they have no one to blame but themselves for ruining their own experience, and I’ve simply never been able to help any of them reconcile…
Rewatching the series and seeing a series full of sympathetic characters Erens arcs and end is so sad! We legit went on the journey with him! A good person who grew to do evil things
You’ve scratched the itch in my brain perfectly with this analysis. I just finished the series a few days ago and honestly I was devastated by the ending. It shattered my heart and I felt so deeply for the circumstances surrounding Eren’s death and all the events that led up to it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and it really provoked some self reflection that led to me having an existential crisis.
The conversation between Armin and Zeke particularly stuck with me, because when he said simply running up the hill with Mikasa and Eren was what he felt like he was born to do, it made me realise that the meaning of life is whatever we decide to give meaning to - you do not need to have a grand purpose but you can simply exist in happiness and peace 💕
i just finished watching AOT in full for the first time and i'm obsessed with its themes. this is a great video, thank you. also appreciate the use of the Garlemald theme in one of your sections :D well done. subbed!
So happy this video exists, you did a phenomenal job talking about the massive concepts and themes aot encompasses. It's not easy to be as comprehensive and cohesive when talking about this series in my experience but you pulled it off.
I was also very disappointed by the lack of substantiative discussions and arguments about the series after the ending(in my experience), it's not what it deserves. I genuinely appreciate your efforts in pushing forward that sphere. Cheers!
I think the more time it passes, people's passions will calm down and later generations who will experience the whole story will engage in a more intellectual debate than just hating the way it ended
@@LuisSierra42I’m inclined to agree!
Attack on Titan is one of my favorite stories ever
It's been a 10 years hell of a ride
I never really thought about that relation between Ymir Fritz's desires and the behavior of the pure titans, very interesting. And while it is clear that Armin and Eren seek the outside world for different reasons, I didn't truly appreciate just how self-limiting Eren's perspective of it really is. Whether the obstacle is near (the walls) or far away across the sea, that's all Eren sees. The meaning of the name "Ackermann" and how it relates to Mikasa's character is so cool (not to mention that "acker" sounds similar to an "acre" of land). I should be looking into the names of characters in media more often, because more times than not, a character's name is intentional. Great video!
You've saved me brother, I will give it a reread
"Eren IS Attack on Titan", I mean, literally, since the Japanese title can also be translated into "the attack titan" which is Eren
Absolutely amazing video man. You're killing it this year.
Attack on titan I think is mainly saying that we have to fight even though it may "do nothing" in the longterm. But it does do something, slowly opening the onion, throwing away the layers of suffering, hatred and destruction. The fact that we don't just kill each other, can talk things out, democracies existing and stuff like that prove that our ancestors fights were meaningful. Altough probably they thought it was meaningless to fight as it was tough to see that tiny progress
But the snowball keeps rolling
Exactly. The boy at the end enters the tree, but he does so out of curiosity and because he wants to, unlike Ymir. He also has a dog by his side as a pet, whereas Ymir was being chased by dogs. The cycle continues, but each reiteration is different and a little less terrible.
Thank you for creating a beautiful video with excellent production, writing, and retrospection. Each chapter reframed from the ending's frame of mind each moment, each conversation that much more meaningful. This is one of the greatest videos on AOT's core themes and you represented this once-in-a-generation story masterfully.
This video deserves more views. Job well done❤
Damn.. Another banger analysis after the Jjk one. It was really great to see such earnest love for Aot throughout the video
Im honestly not a big anime or manga person but I heard about AOT and had to watch it and its probably in my top 3 shows ever. The story is one I enjoy very much.
What a great video! Also excellent choice in the background tracks! I almost recognized all of them (Always great to hear Penkins work. And the Runescape track was a nice unexpected addition!).
Still, I have one final issue with this show that was never resolved.
What the heck did Eren saw in the Warhammer Titans memories that made him pause for a minute?
No really, in the Anime it seemed like it was something important, but we never got to know what.
Love to see someone recognise the RuneScape music 😅
@@R7dman They are some banger after all.
You never get to see memories so suddenly and early on, so I'd assume it's just a dramatic montage of eren receiving a new power
12:35 i had to rewind that part because i got so distracted by the fact you used a theme from ff14 that i missed a whole minute wondering if i'm going crazy from playing too much 😆 Love your analysis, it's short and precise and you point out all the essential reasons for why the story of AoT is so beloved and successful. Great job!
Great video I hope it gets the love it deserves
I saw eren carying the boulder as a reference to sysiphus. The whole message of Keep moving forward and also the cyclical nature of aot not only thematically but literally if we presume it is a time loop is much like Sysiphus pushing the boulder. Furthermore Armin's conversation with Zeke reveals a very absurdist and Camus take. Even if it is all pointless and the boulder comes tumbling down the mundane moments and brief windows in time that bring peace are worth repeating the cycles. Eldia fell and humanity is doomed to repeat their mistakes but it also means armin gets to run in the wind forever, and zeke gets to throw that ball forever, and Eren gets to wrap that scarf around mikasa forever.
It’s been almost a year since I first watched this video, and I couldn’t help myself but rewatch it. In my opinion, this will probably be one of the best videos talking about attack on titan, ever. Thank you Radman, once again, for making this video that so acutely captures how I feel about this show that has gripped me from my first watch and has never truly left me since.
I never needed attack on titan to be perfect, but DAMN did it do a phenomenal job of going as close as it could.
I think a lot of people are so focused on the idea of the tragedy of humanity but if we were to just focus on Eren - this really was the only possible happy ending for him and his friends. If were to think of alternate endings and the aftermath we would probably end up with Eren being like Ymir: stuck in the Path. He would be a slave to his ideology of freedom. It is only after Eren's life ends could he consider himself truly free.
This is probably the best video i've ever seen on Attack on Titan.
I think this interpretation is one of the best ones ever people need to realize
Love isnt retconned or an aspect just added to drive eremika its been around since the very first episode it was one of erens driving motives to eliminate the titans his love for his mother turned into regret for not realizing it so soon how much she cared which then turned into anger/revenge.
This is also the reason why eren was never destined to free ymir it was always mikasa
picture this you are born into a world full of injustice one day your life flips upside down and in the midst you are blessed with unholy power powerful enough to change the entire world. What would you do with it? well most people would be like oh ima be a superhero or like im gonna change the world(eren) however this is not the mindset mikasa nor ymir had. You see both mikasa and ymir are quite simple people all they want is love whether to love someone(mikasa) or to be loved by someone(ymir) they just crave for it however this was where ymir fumbled she wanted to be loved but in order to be loved you have to love them first something ymir couldnt do cause of her situation during her life. she wasnt able to love anything as her only meaning in life was to be a slave to her master but then youd think oh well she could change that with the power she now possessed. wrong
In ymirs backstory we see how through her eyes king fritz was what love was like(shown in the panel where he kissed that random women) it wasnt actual love but it was the only glimpse of love she knew. So she wanted it. Which is why she came back to king fritz she wanted to be loved so bad she failed to even realize that she cant be loved by someone she herself doesnt love but she was so blinded by her slave origins she countined to work for him in order to belive he would love her. Obviously she was wrong but she didnt know that which is why even in death she cannot escape that slave mentality cause she wanted to be connected she wanted to be loved by someone.
Yet even with all the passing lives she never once felt that she was loved by someone or she loved anybody(she did but she just didnt realize it until mikasa). Now we have mikasa who since the very beginning loved eren and it didnt matter to her if he loved her back she just wanted to be by his side cause she loved him and throughout the series we see how this then evolves to eren finally falling in love with her(he started falling in love after s2 but we dont needa know this).
So then the question is why did ymir need mikasa what did she need mikasa to show her? Well unlike a popular belief i belive ymir needed mikasa to show her that you cant force a connection onto someone you cant force someone to love you nor can you force yourself so at the end of the day you have to let them go
Mikasa cant force eren to stop now she couldve but it wouldnt have gone with her own morals but that doesnt mean she has stay alongside him she cant force herself to love eren she cant force herself to support whatever hes doing just because she loves him
shes going to stop him because she wants to(note that stopping eren and killing are 2 different things so she did not want to kill eren) she killed eren because she knew it was the best choice but that doesnt mean she loved him anyless.
this alongside the small chat she had with ymir clicked something inside ymirs brain maybe she did love someone and thats why we got that thought in ymirs brain of what would of happened if she didnt save carl she would have her kids who loved her and she loved she just didnt know it cause she was so fixated on forcing carl to love her. which is why ymir was finally able to be put to rest she finally let go of finding love cause she always had it.
While you can make an arguement for eren being the one to free her I think mikasa makes much more sense since shes so much more down to earth then eren probably alongside levi and jean the most down to earth characters in aot.
This was such an amazing video omg. It made me fall in love with aot all over again. Honestly the story is far from perfect bc there's a lot of conditioning factors outside of the creative process, such as edition, format etc. And I think that also acts in detriment of the storytelling process. But over all, omg I really need to rewatch now.
Personally, after seeing the last chapter animated I felt much better about the ending, those little changes (especially on Eren and Armin's last conversation) made me feel so much for Eren, which is also incredible since I've never been on his side and never liked him as a person (always admitted it was a great character but never "liked" him)
After seeing this video essay now I want to rewatch and focus more on Eren and Mikasa's journey too bc I've always been ignoring them and I think what you said was so ON POINT in hindsight. AHHHH this just revived my hype to a 3000 level!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥 THANK YOU 🙏🏽
Sorry for another comment but I just got to the end of your video (finally) and I you stole my words: while the conclusion suggests another cycle, but while Ymir was being hunted for death, this kid looks to be coming in as peaceful/relaxed way as possible, just exploring with his dog. Perhaps it isn't doomed to be a continuation of a "cycle of hate/violence"
the endless cycle you could argue about in attack on titan is personally my favorite part of the show. the rest of the world called eldians devils and shoved them onto an island and into camps because they did not feel free under them, then even after eren(and/or ymir) serves them the consequences of their actions through the rumbling and the eldians still save them despite the oppression, they STILL refuse to look at them and see human beings. only eren believed(kind of) the rest of humanity deserved death in exchange for stealing eldia’s freedom, yet after he was killed and stopped by ELDIANS- they barely accept them. you are so right in saying eren was blinded by his rage and ignorance, unable to sense the meaning of actual freedom.
i heard somewhere that titans eat people because they are looking for a shifter, so they can turn back into a human by eating them
I like this theory
Small correction, in the Golem of Prague story it didn't randomly go on a rampage, on its head was written by the Rabbi the word "protect" and someone or somehow, one of the characters of the word "protect" got erased, leaving the word "destroy" on its stead
i love this analysis great work!
Amazing analysis!! I especially loved the addition of wonderful OSTs from other anime like Made in Abyss and FMA
Magnificent analysis. Thank you from Japan.
I love this analysis. I think that when you talk about Erens God like status it is reminiscent of the golden compass for me. In the book, Lyra’s father opens up the multiverse because he believes in free will and is in rebellion of God aka Destiny. Mikasa’s love, her ties to the boy she knew, eventually gives Eren his freedom when she kills him. In a way, love is the antithesis to destiny/God. Future and past and pain and nature and nurture and destiny are meaningless in the face of the present moment and the love we feel for those moments. It gives life its meaning. In the golden compass, the father says “Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die.” Bravo my man
Incredible watch
Thank you, glad you enjoyed
Regarding the ending, for every fan you please, you'll disappoint another. And usually when you try to please everybody, you please nobody
Absolutely incredible work here ❤ thank you
Please make that followup video about the conclusion, I would love to see it.
Finding this video has been a breath of fresh air after trying to wade the online fandom to find actual discussion about the themes of the show. Thank you!
This was one hell of a ride folks.
Fascinating, this the most distinct AOT analysis, Perfect, just perfect
I'm about halfway through and I'm really enjoying this. Thank you for the hard work.
Great video !! Loved the deep analysis
Thank You.
I just finished watching AoT for the first time and it was nothing short of phenomenal. Love your analysis. By the way, hearing FFXIV Garlemald music in the background made me smile. My favorite game!
This is a great vid, i also love your pronouncing of these characters names.
nice FFXIV music on here was a good fit.
42:24 Yup, I was wondering what the hell was going on inside his head.
Beautiful job
35:45 I feel like a lot of people don’t get that imo
Excellent video, for me you've expressed all the ideas wonderfully and I'm glad to see a perspective with which I agree pretty much on everything. Also, your exposition widened my own perspectives, so lots of thanks for that!!! To leave at leas a small attempt of a contribution I'd like to add a tiny piece about the child finding the tree at the very end of the story. Not only they weren't being chased and running away from the insanity of hate like Ymir was, but it seemed to me like their vibe is much more the one of an explorer. They're a child in the forest without adults to guide, but his attitude reminds me of everything you mentioned about Armin's curiosity and his persue to experience the world for himself. So, maybe this final child is some mixture between Mikasa and Armin, symbolically speaking. And maybe this new character with their own new story to tell suggests some type of representation for two thirds of our main trio, which finally reunites with the last third awaiting for them in a whole new context.
Happy 2024, everybody!!!! 😁
Good video
My opinion on the final scene is a little darker, as well as a little more final. It is based off of what they discussed in season 1 about war and how men will always be at conflict until there is one person left. I genuinely think that Eren, krueger, ymir, and even Erwin actually succeeded. Yes we see that the cycle of violence continues like it always will. But I think that is why Eren specifically chose to go that far with the rumbling. He knew that he would buy his friends a few generations of peace and then the world would be at war again. That kid is exactly what Erwin said. That kid is the last human. When he walks into that tree, he doesn't find anything. No magic, no powers, no titans. He ironically finds a tombstone. This way the story is actually done. There are no spin-offs to see what the next magical being is. There's no stupid rings of power, House of dragon. This masterpiece of a show will simply stand on its own and despite the cycle of violence and the looping memories, the show ends. Period.
Its been 4 months since i watched AOT and ive heard many analysis and many watched many videos of it. This is by far the most insightful and my favorite. Like you bought so many freaking points to the table. No one else realized the dog being the friend while approaching erens tree being symbols of a hopeful future (good part of life). And the golem of prague analogy. The propaganda and shackles of freedom and the benefit of innocent curiosity.
I want to add that i find the current israel/palestine in context of ww2 very similar to AOT, especially s4, and ive seen people also look at it the same. But neither them nor I could identify which side reflected who, because eldians seem to be treated very similar to jews (for the 80 years instead of 2000 years), but the walls and key to a lost house symbolism and quest for freedom is very similar to Gazans, but also eren doing the worst to supposed self preservation is very similar to israel--especially with the story of the golem. This video made me realize that isayama merged the 3 parties into one for a reason, to instead highlight the struggles, the motivations, the crimes, the victim becoming the perpretator and the cyclic nature of violence of any modern war. And i think that is a very insightful way to put it. And maybe isayama never took inspiration from the situation, but to me it was very reflective and thought provoking, and it was special to me as it came from a show that was with me for 10 years.
Please start saying symbolism instead of symbology. -ism is the usage of and -ology is the study of, and it really finishes the quality of your scripts, which I promise are fantastic. I'm only trying to help, not to hate.
18:28 we are the reason those moments exist 😵💫🤯😳🥹
I thought the anime had a fine ending. I was satisfied. I was honestly mostly drawn to the show by the absolutely mind blowing world building and revelation. It's just so good
Wow nice video. I think I should be taking notes
Thank you. ☕
Can u talk about the eyes in bleach universe? why does reio have four, yhwach had two then it changed and became three, mimihagi have one but the other arm (pernida) has two. Can u upload a video telling us why it is different and what does the eyes represent and why yhwach eyes have became three?
Bump
I remember watching the first season of attack on titan when I was 13. I finally got around to watch it all from beginning to end recently and I loved the ending I thought it fit the story. It was the ending attack on titan deserved. If the ending isn’t perfect what would you change? Keep Eren as a chad sigma alpha male lol? The whole point was that he was being vulnerable to his best friend in the very last conversation they will ever have. Crying would be expected, he knows he’s going to die at the hands of his friends and he’s walking towards it, he’s about 18/19 when he dies he’s barely an adult. I’m just glad I somehow didn’t get the ending of AOT spoiled even though I was very late to the party.
great analysis
misconception of most people about EREN YEAGER
They say eren lied to floch and yeagarists and eren was a hero from the start and was only doing rumbling so that his friends could kill him afterwards and have a code geass ending
…. …ITS WRONG
Eren isn’t lelouch
He wasn’t intending to be lelouch
His goal wasn’t to sacrifice himself when he started out the declaration of war on Marley and basically massacred them
Eren didn’t lied to floch
He intended to complete the rumbling
Him sacrificing so that his friends could kill him was his EXCUSE and even when armin point out that they can’t be the heroes ..what was eren’s reply ? He ignored and started talking about ymir
When he said to armin in the last beach scene that all population is same so paradise can come up with a solution
Armin literally told him
That it’s a joke
You can see from eren’s face that he was slowly realising that he did the rumbling for HIMSELF
And eren’s baby scene is also shown to conclude the fact that being free was his BIRTHRIGHT that’s why he said he didn’t knew why he did it
It simply was in his nature
I am not saying ‘it was in his nature to genocide ‘
But what I am saying that it was in his nature to be FREE
If Marley didn’t did those atrocities on eren then eren wouldn’t have genocide on them because he would have been free at that point and not caged by walls and that is why in the end armin also took responsibility because not all was eren’s fault as I said before
And historia also says this in the end
It’s just not eren’s fault rumbling happened but because of culmination of the world’s fault
Eren was just the victim a slave of freedom
Good interpretation , I have a question for you
Do you think eren still cared about paradise, as you see his goal is to save paradise but his bigger goal is to gain freedom of course, because we see that eren shows sympathy in some parts also even with the victims of the rumbling
And the reason he is disapointed is grisha notebooks that there are humans but hostile towards ELDIANS
( This is from a fan asking isayama about why he was disapointed)
And another reason he is disapointed is that it doesn't look like armin's book he was excited to see that scenery but it turn out to be false but instead there are humans but hostile towards eldians
I don't see eren motives changed beginning, but the paths and his personality change from an idealistic man who speaks about freedom positively to someone who is cold, distant from his friends,calmer than his old self
So what do you say
@@logic8965 yes yes I think eren cared about paradise
His whole life he has been seeing deaths of survey corps since he was a child and also the death of the Levi’s squad members which he believes it’s his fault and also countless other survey corps members trying to rescue him everytime he was captured that was the reason of his mental breakdown in s2 ending but mikasa brought him motivation that there was someone who saved her
Now when eren since birth always thought about freedom because it was in his nature
Because he used to stare at the sky long before armin showed him the book
He didn’t had the desire to join the survey corps at that time
But when armin showed him the book his freedom nature kicked in and that’s when he realised that he truly wasn’t free at all
That’s when he realised how caged he was that there were monsters who were stopping him to see that outside world of plain sight where he and his friends could roam around
When the outside world wasn’t the way he had seen in armin’s book
He tried to make it like that for his friends and also for PARADISE AS WELL
Eren only saw the cruelty in this world
The main theme of aot is
‘The world is cruel BUT ALSO BEAUTIFUL’
Eren only saw half of it and he was consumed with rage and cruelty only
I feel like The Last of Us 2 had a similar split reaction about the ending. So much so some actors got threats
I loved this story and then the final chapter happened and they gave a genocider a memory and visited him after death, meaning he got rewarded for what he did. And then the Anime made this even more apparent which again, really ruined it for me. Not even the Emperor visits the Genocide War Shrines. Got immortalised by people I had to accept were moral.
This is such a dumb comment
You can use this argument for nearly every character in the series
@ 49:45 is the song in the backround Brothers from FMA2003?!
i hope you would make a video dissecting the criticisms made by plasmyte (ruclips.net/video/Hr44dBCWcHY/видео.htmlsi=nkS61TVcP4wcrpK5 ) and odin (ruclips.net/video/5iAOZY1M54A/видео.htmlsi=Q08GxAOG8rSoeLAK ). I think these guys have made the best points regarding the criticism of the ending of aot.
I’ll see u all in 2000 years
In regards to the loop theory, I don't believe it's a possibility that Eren's forced the relive the events of the story, for the following reasons...
- Mikasa's "itterasshai", what does that mean? It's said both in paths and when she beheads him. It's meant to mean that they'll meet again in the afterlife.
- Armin saying that he and Eren will meet again in hell, which was added to the anime, I believe, to also drive home that point.
- and finally, the final ED, also called "Itterasshai", shows Mikasa meeting Eren again in the afterlife. She's lying down in the same position and is surrounded by flowers like how she passed in the real world, and the butterfly sitting on their hands is the same one from The Rumbling OP, that is crushed and killed, to signify that we are in the afterlife.
I agree with what you said at the end too. I've yet to see someone who dislikes the ending explain why in any meaningful way, it just boils down to "it bad". Eren's not a badass? Bad. Ymir loved the wrong person? Bad. History repeats itself, Paradis is bombed anyway? Bad. No one in the Alliance died? Bad. No depth to WHY it's bad, just... that's not what I wanted, so it's bad, and it's so simpleminded that it's painful.
Its the way the ending was always meant to be, I don't understand how people who liked the story up until that point ever liked the story at all. It was always cohesive, always the same story. Eren was never superman he was boy that had soo much hate. He in a way has Griffith's traits, willing to sacrifice the whole world for his desires, while I see Levi similarly to Guts. "Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes."@@bradleycoates6297
i think eren went to hell but tbh first of all we dont know if hell exists in aot armin said they will go to hell IF IT EXISTS
@@AM17titan I don't think it's hell, as I believe Eren and Mikasa meet again in the "afterlife" neither heaven nor hell. Armin just says "hell" due to Eren's crimes and like you said, he doesn't actually know if it exists, BUT, I think it was used to drive home the point that Eren, Mikasa, and Armin will all meet again somewhere "later".
@@bradleycoates6297 yea ig
They finally found peace in the afterlife but not in the real world which is just heartbreaking
Am I the only one who noticed the Fullmetal Alchemist music in the background
I feel that it is a comentary on fashism and national socialism as a whole. and how any country can get to that point if they are left alone for to long with such trauma. I only see two sides that live the trauma off opression only to retaliat into opressing the other side. I see that with a lot of conflicts in the world we have right now. And mabe on that point attack on titan can be used to teach it how it can look like . the only thing i do not like by the way is that everytime fashism comes up people think of germany. Now we should think about china, jerusalem and maybe the repulicans right now in the usa. The funny thing is that everywhere fashism is really great is mostly co morbid with religion and corruption through capatalistic means.
Another random video with Runescape music, just had to make another comment on that lmao @29:25
1:07:46 a role given to you to play, sounds like a persona like your public image but while it is common to say that's the public image and not the "real you", like this analysis seems to lean into, I disagree. Your Persona isn't a fake you it is the other half of you, the face looking outward, while not the face looking inward is still the face of the person.
So Eren's break down isn't the real Eren it is just, Eren's breakdown after having so much pressure on him. We have seen this before in AoT, Bertholt's break down before his death, Erwin's break down, Nanaba's break down, Mitch's break down, those aren't "The Real"; like let me be more direct with Erwin, if his break down before his death was "The real Erwin" then one would have to surmise he was basically a sociopath that was just using the survey corps as a tool to discover the secret and the show certainly never supports that, Erwin also put up a persona to lead the last charge but that wasn't "Fake Erwin" that was just his face looking forward.
So yes, Eren is both based chad and frightened and lovestruck teenager.
Edit:-
To continue a bit, not a manga reader but I did dislike the final season with everyone claiming Eren wasn't actually free. Like come on, my boy has tried to be free since he was born, what kind of stupid thing is it to find any excuse to claim he is not free?. It also often also rests of trying to equate meta physical freedom to real, physical freedom. A slave that escapes a plantation is still free even if still a slave to needing to eat and breathe, Eren is free even if his freedom didn't mean being metaphysically unbound by anything.
Yes I agree completely about what you said with the real and "fake Eren" everyone has this quality it's like your inner child and how you are as an adult, both are you but both simultaneously exist in you. However you comment about Eren being free in the final season I somewhat disagree. Yes he was free as in he escaped the walls and could make his own decision without outside interference now, but he has always been a slave to his desires and malice
@@ChaChaRealSm00th I say, this matters and what he was always trying to achieve "Yes he was free as in he escaped the walls and could make his own decision without outside interference now," and this doesn't matter and was never what he was trying to achieve "but he has always been a slave to his desires and malice".
@@LibrarianSankore what you are trying to achieve in life is not everything, the out come is not all that matters. If you are willing to sacrifice your own moral compass and all else dear to you to achieve a goal in life, you are a slave to that goal (In Erens case attaining "freedom") as in it compromise all essence of your being to see it realized. Eren himself was unsure if his closets friends would survive his endeavour, the same friends he was desperately trying to protect because he was so trapped in his own mental framework. The ends do not justify the means.
@@ChaChaRealSm00th As the show itself says, everybody is a slave to something so Eren being a slave to freedom rather than a slave to protecting his friends I don't see as in instory problem.
How could he say that the anime added small dialogue changes that overall made the anime ending feel better than the manga, then praise the manga ending by calling it "near perfection". Like tf the manga ending was trash
The manga ending was the best ending and your comment is genuinely dumb
So it’s God Emperor of Dune in Anime form?
if you watch the ending hoping to root for one side against a big bad youll be disapointed, aot is a war story and theres good people on each side who have to do bad things to each other, as a veiwer you're really just a spectator of the war and thats why the ending is sad and uncomfortable, you literally witness mass genocide and are still conflicted about what you want to happen just like all the characters feel. you know eren has to be stopped but you also know thats pointless to an extent. theres no happy ending to war.
I'm not satisfied by this video.
I'm not going to be satisfied until I see your criticism video that I think you should make where you talk about your problems with the ending.
I personally think the ending betrayed everything that was built up beforehand, and I think there is some places where you can see that the author felt the same.
Agreed. I'm annoyed how he brushes Eren's inconsistencies (he is also inconsistent with who he was before season 4) as "you just didn't understand Eren" when I'm sure that nobody had an issue with Eren crying it was the context it was in. If this was true criticisms would have started in 131 or whenever Eren cries during the series.
Thank you for the analysis, it was truly interesting and entertaining to look at the narrative from your point of view. I myself believe that all of the ideas Isayama put into his work are pretty much valuable and deserve to live, but implementation of them in the ending of manga really lacks of acuteness and details in many ways, which led to a natural misunderstanding by a part of readers. He did come up with a decent ending, but he couldn't bring the story to a final in a way that the viewer could fully enjoy its meaning. He neglected some very important elements inherent in AoT in the past and quite poorly played the cards he had in hand in the final game, not showing us part of them at all and giving resolution _only_ to his ideas and message. Therefore, his plot finds its true vitality precisely in analyzes like this. Maybe Isayama even should be grateful to you :))
YESS PLSS id love to see what your response would be to ending critics! Of course, there are certain parts of the ending that i found partially abrupt or id like to have seen differently, but all in all i am satisfied with the ending! The amount of AOE believers and ANR followers, who have done nothing but cry over “chad eren” being gone, is funny but sad at the same time! They created a whole new image for eren, creating a new visualization of the anime to themselves, that it made them so shocked and upset, when their dreams didn’t come to life. It surprises me how many fans are still hung up on the ending, when it initially came out two whole years ago! It’s about time they actually learn. This entire video was helpful, and as an obsessive Zeke fan, thank you for mentioning him 10 times in this video! This video deserves a lot more likes!
w
Question.
Can you...convince me to start AOT again?? Lets find out.
Also, I knew eva was gonna in this ....video. well seems I was right.
How far in to the story did you drop it? I loved Attack on Titan from the very beginning but given just how much it changes, I can understand why someone wouldn't be too hooked by the earlier arcs.
@R7dman i am a multi-instrumentalist i loved bass...then i jumped heard first into the well. so I wouldn't say i dropped it, more my it didn't grip my heart nor head.
your ZKK video i've seen 4 times and the Ichigo video about 2x in full and 4x in bits. i am an anarcho-Capitalist i love ideologies, philosophy, economics. AOT didnt really say something to me. hell i didnt like Bleach in the beginning, then i saw a "all ichigo forms" from Vasto Lorde it gripped my head...then it consumed my life ever since then.
so if this does it for me...ill be happy
letting you know i want you to address the crappy criticisms. liked and subbed
55:40
The ending is an easier pill to swallow if you know first and foremost that Erin had no power to alter his decisions or the outcome of his decisions. If you're on rails, how do you make terms with that?
Dude I didnt know the ending of AoT was even hated until people kept saying that it was hated. I thought it was near perfect, at least in the anime.
Hahahshshs AOT pulled. Code Geass
hey we dont know each other but i wanna say that GOD still loves u and wants u to be with him all u must do is trust in Jesus and repent of ur sins. GOD loves u more than u can imagine. ☺️☺️☺️🎉🎉❤❤😊❤😊😊❤😊🎉🎉
Rainer is the King of AoT. Mikasa is a worthless slave.
make a long format video on gazagenocide. Why people are so inhumane ,why this is still going on and why people don't care.
This show sucks
Hate to say because I get you have an accent but the way you say Eren and Armin made me have to stop watching I was genuinely getting annoyed haha
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Literally no one cares or has probably noticed but why you saying their names like that??
You are wrong, The entire plot is that eren is edgy and is very cool. All other theories beyond that point are misconceptions
None of the show nor its themes make any sense after the ending, starting with Carla's death we all know now that Eren killed her 🤡🃏🎪.
you probably dont know why he had to kill her lol
@@AM17titan Paradise got destroyed and the titans returned the whole show and the story are meaningless and the story didn't amount or resolve to anything but nihilism.
are you dumb? how did titans returned ?you just thought the tree is there and titans return but dont know shit about how titans were made lol
I bet you didn’t understood or skipped armin and zeke conversation in the paths
and also paradise destroyed?
it happened after 1000 of years
do you want a disney type of code geass ending where peace is eternal? It’s unrealistic @@yousefsaber1
@@yousefsaber1this is embarrassing man. At least try to show you understood something even if it’s not true
@@Lesterberne ending critics accurately predicted the destruction of Paradise before the release of the 8 extra pages in volume 34
As a clown anime ending fan you weren't there to witness that.
I'll be honest here. This is easily your worse work and a terrible follow up to the masterclass that was 'Gojo v Sukuna'. Considering that's how I was first introduced to your channel (and subsequently seeing your previous videos, many at that same standard) watching this video was a serious letdown. You don't tread new ground nor do you add any new perspective that wasn't talked about since the manga ended.
I think the most egregious issue was your characterization of Eren (obviously) as well as the half-backed attempt to claim moral objectivity while very much being in the "Eren is a psycho and evil" camp. That's fine if that's your opinion, but it's disingenuous to your audience to claim this is "just a retrospective" when you in fact do have an objective in mind.
Just a VERY easy point you actively missed (because it goes against your "Eren is a psycho" perspective) is the irony of the "Farmers" being the most skilled at killing and snuffing out life while the "Hunter" does everything he does for the sake of his "family" (most apparent in the Atlas scene, which is focused on him exclusively preserving life rather than taking it)
That's literally just a single example (among many) that you ignored because your intention wasn't necessarily to do an actual retrospective, but to be among many to reach for the low-hanging fruit that is "Eren is a psycho; you're just stupid if you don't agree". Whether this was a take you personally agreed with, the fact that it wasn't even acknowledged despite you opening that door is telling.
Again, after seeing your JJK, Phantom Blood, and Bleach videos, I was honestly surprised at the quality here. Maybe a remedy could have been to have treated this like your Bleach world building series. Not only would that have resulted in more videos, views, and exposure, but it would have also forced you to potentially spend more time in each major section to round them out. Even if it didn't change your perspective, it likely would have required you to at least comment on things in a more thoroughly nuanced way.
eren was doing evil things but he had his priorities
in the ending scene he basically tells
that he thought he was doing to protect his friends and then realised that he wanted to trample
he wanted to do it not because it was a neccesity but it is because he wanted to do it
L take this was one of his best
I kind of see what you're saying but I disagree with the 1st paragraph
Absolutely agree that he didn't take his time to tackle everything in the most nuanced way, but I also understand that he wasn't talking about anything specifically but rather his analysis of the series and its themes more generally, not diving too deep into everything.
In regards to eren, mikasa and armin, it's apparent that he didn't tackle their development and just treated them as a sort of archetype that takes a role in the story for this specific analysis.
He said and I do agree that eren is a psycho in a sense, but at the same time, he also said or implied that eren was blind to the experiences he had right beside him, which is tackled by Armin and his shell's scene in the final convo, and this is partly because of both his nature and nurture/conditioning, more notably his memories of the future.
Great analysis and a strong and powerful narrating voice, making it an interesting watch. You have quite a fascinating perspective but the ending tainted it somewhat, where (dispite a very meager disclaimer before doing so) you discredit a large part of the fanbase that critique the ending by diminishing their opinion as memes and misunderstandings of the story. As if you're the only one that sees the story 'for what it really is'.
You seem to be quite chained to your vision of Eren never escaping the walls and thus ironically never experiencing the true freedom he always wanted. This recurs many times in your vid, but the fact that even outside the walls during the Rumbling he was stuck between the dust & the clouds seems a bit far fetched. How about his infiltration in Marley? Did you conveniently forget about that part of the story?
Also your vision of Mikasa being a symbol of true happiness, hence Eren experiencing true happiness in his final moments when Mikasa slices his face of seems a bit of a stretch. Her whole life she's been drawn to this one person. Can you really call this compulsive behavior happiness? Can you even call it love? Another conclusion best drawn by the reader themselves based on their own experiences.
Anyway, it was a great piece to listen to but the last couple of minutes made you sound like an arrogant prick and stained the long watch quite a bit for me. You might wanna edit that out. For the rest, great job of keeping it interesting. Good voice, excellent editing, interesting vision. Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed listening to it.