Review of Attack on Titan Season 3

My perception of of Season 3 part 1 has changed since rewatching it. The first two seasons were already finished airing when I started watching the show, so this was the first one where I was watching week to week rather than binging it all at once. The result was that I thought this season felt slower paced and a bit boring compared to the first two. In actual fact the story is just as tightly written and well executed as anything that came before. Admittedly there is a shift away from large battle set pieces toward more political drama, but they even find a wayto make that exciting. The military's coup was a supremely satisfying end to the bureaucrats that were ruining life inside the walls, and sets the tone for how the series would progress and continue to tear down corrupt powers in order to secure more freedom.

If all the bird imagery and the rhetoric of Eren Yegar wasn't blunt enough for you, the central theme of this series is freedom. People complain that this season strays too far away from Titans and just has humans killing humans, like later seasons of Walking Dead where it forgets it's a zombie show. But even while the Titans fade into the background they're still essentially fighting against the same forces. An oppressive government can make the common man feel just as helpless as a Titan can make you feel.

So, I think that I'm going to up my grade for this season to match what the rest of the series as a whole deserves: 10/10. It's a masterpiece all in all and even if it seems like some parts are slower or not as dramatic, when taken in the context of the greater story it's all just so good.