Shingeki no Kyojin - The Final Season - Episode 61 - 10 Second Anime

Winning the war offers the Marleyans and Eldians no respite as they refocus on recapturing the Founding Titan.

#61 – “Midnight Train”

Hmm.

Shingeki no Kyojin is making me impatient to get back to Paradis Island, and not in a clever way. I don’t subscribe to the idea of building interest in the main characters by showing us background, exposition, and what the supporting characters do and think. That works on the written page and graphic novels, because it’s easy to skim the important points and get back to the characters you like. That doesn’t work for serial and episodic television.

Audiences watch weekly shows because we like the characters and want to know what they do next. Attack on Titan is spending time with people we don’t know, we don’t like, and in a place that we don’t care about. This is boring. A good television adaptation would find a way to include this background and the motivations of the minor characters through staccato musings and flashbacks during scenes where they would matter most.

Right now, Shingeki no Kyojin is doing a massive info dump that might be important later but telling us this stuff in a narrative fashion includes extraneous details that won’t matter to the main characters we’re expecting to see. I see lazy directorial choices where the animation studio is using the manga source material as its storyboards. Boring!

Meh.

Speaking of the animation studio, the final season of Attack on Titan switched from Wit Studio to Mappa. The change in animation style wasn’t that noticeable in the first episode, because we saw new characters in a different setting. Plus, the same 3DCG director who handled the Titans in the last season came over to the new season too. However, the signature style of thick lines and contrasting colors even within a drab color palette are gone.

Even worse, the hand drawn character movements in this episode were noticeably odd, with limbs flailing around. I already don’t want to look at these minor characters, so making them uglier, less dramatic-looking, and not even walking around properly adds to my frustration. Come on, Zeke! Get you and Reiner back over to Paradis island as soon as you can!

Heh.

Not-Hitler is not happy. The world continued to innovate against Titan power and now the world has anti-Titan shells that can kill a Titan Power. That’s no good for Marley since those Nine Titan Powers randomly appear in Eldians like reincarnation if a Titan doesn’t receive the Power by eating a Titan Warrior. What happens if one Titan holds all Nine Powers at the same time? That’s my next big question that needs answering before the end of Shingeki no Kyojin. Weird. Why is this war council holding a meeting in a severely damaged home? The Marleyans recognize that air power will supersede the Titan land power soon, so Zeke says it’s time to get back the Founding Titan. He only has a year left in his lifespan, so he’s feeling pressure too. Not-Hitler wants Titans with wings… why not? Zeke wants to make amends for his failure four years ago and to avenge the actions of the devil Grisha Jaeger as his son.

Ugh. I will need to become used to the new art style. It’s so flat compared to the previous animation studio. Har. Zeke openly discusses how Titan Powers pass on their memories to their successor. The new kid will know how he wipes his ass! Commander Magath tells us that Paradis Island has sunk, or captured, every scout ship they tried to send there for the last three years. Armin and Eren are on the job!

Reiner still has nightmares of Levi and Mikasa slicing him up as the Armored Titan. This Jaw Titan guy has Ymir’s memories. So, now we know what Ymir’s Titan Power was. Big Head Titan was Jaw Titan all along. This means the new Jaw Titan ate her. Ymir is the name of the Founding Titan Goddess, which the cult named the orphan girl. Ho. The Transport Titan is a messy haired mousy girl. Guh. She’s gone two months without reverting from her Titan form. She forgot how to walk upright!

Here’s the bunch of kids I don’t care about. One of them will defect to the Paradis side, obviously. The camera movement tracking the character blocking is distracting. Reiner’s memory flashbacks to previous characters is another obvious pander to the audience. How about we just go where Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are, and we flashback to the Marleyans? Bah, I’ll just grit my teeth through this preamble stuff.

Oh. Here’s the midnight train in the episode title. The Eldians are traveling back home and a bunch of them got drunk. Do we need a drunken recap of last episode? Grr. The Marleyans drink the good stuff. This blonde kid complains about the short lives of Titan Powers and Reiner needed to remind him to spout the politically correct propaganda. Falco will become the defector. The eye catch tells us all about the colored armbands the Eldians need to wear. Yeah, this is Jewish Ghetto stuff in Nazi Germany, except instead of going to gas chambers, the Eldians become Pure Titan terror weapons.

Please stop referencing the main characters! Let’s just show the main characters! I don’t need Reiner talking about Potato Girl! Just show Potato Girl! These 3D pans into characters sitting around talking does nothing for me. Reiner just described the main cast of the first season. He called Eren “a single-minded fool” and Mikasa and Armin as “the chumps who followed him.” He sounds like he misses all of them.

The Titan Powers have their own strategy meeting, but Zeke knows there are listening devices in the room. Thanks for that obvious shot at the phonograph. It will take a while before I become used to how these characters move. It just feels off. Crap. We’ll be looking at these side characters for a while yet. The collaborators want to get the Warhammer Titan Power working for them. We’ll need to find out how the Marleyans never subjugated the family that owns it. According to official reports, they drove away King Fritz to Paradis Island during the Great Titan War. We’ll see about that! Deliciously ironic. They call the Eldian ghetto “Liberio.” Zeke knows the Marleyans are listening in on their strategy meeting. Surprisingly, only Magath suspects this. Will the Warhammer Titan come to Paradis Island too?