Review of Attack on Titan Season 3

The first half of Attack on Titan Season 3 is, without a doubt in my mind, the worst 12 episode stretch of the entire series to date. It's slow, boring, bloated with talking and severely lacking in action and honestly it feels like we're watching a different show entirely. As opposed to humans against titans we're now watching humans against humans and a boring political intrigue subplot. The first and only titan fight in the entire first half of this season does not occur until 8 or 9 episodes in and then when it finally does the titan is fought almost entirely with cannons/artillery andis only fought for a few brief moments- just enough to land the killing blow- by actual humans.

I understand that the intended structure of this season is part one is the buildup and part two is the payoff, but in this case the buildup was way too slow and boring, there's way too much of a difference between the quality and engagement level of part one and part two and the pacing of this season as a whole is just a mess. As a whole, there's simply way too much exposition dump/information overload in this season. It introduces way too many characters and plot points and key pieces of information at once. Not only is it a complete overload making it overwhelming and hard to follow, but it's spaced out pretty terribly in such a way where you're either getting way too much information in a short time or you're getting no information at all. There's zero subtlety in this season- there's a clear "this is where we tell you stuff" and "these are the action episodes we know you've been wanting" divide going on here and it's completely unmissable.

Honestly, if this were my first Attack on Titan experience I would not have continued with the show and likewise if I weren't such a HUGE fan of the series, as reflected by my perfect 10/10 score for season one, the first half of season three would have been bad enough for me to have dropped the series outright.

OBJECTIVE RATING- 5
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 4.5