Review of Attack on Titan: Final Season - The Final Chapters

Kind of a let down. What worked for this show was the spectacle, having genuinely entertaining twists and it seeming like it would have something insightful to say eventually--ultimately it didn’t. In some ways maybe it tried to have elements of something like Evangelion’s avant-garde ending, and again lacked the actual emotional insight that had. The fighting lacked stakes and just felt empty like a bland blockbuster's climactic battle where more enemies supposedly makes it better. The addition of the political conspiracy stuff in season two did end up working by season three, but it’s gotta have the dark fantasy tragedy action to go withit–this was just action, and not even that well-choreographed (though there were some cool moments of course) and just felt like padding. Also Mikasa and Eren’s love story is barely developed so I don’t know why so much time is spent on it.

The best stuff this show had was the simple humanity barely surviving while looking cool as steampunk spidermen-people fighting flesh-mech titans in well-choreographed fights. That stuff rules and when this show is leaning into that and firing on all cyclinders it's phenomenal.

Ultimately it never beat its first season, had a major dip in quality in the second season, took too long to get good again (not until some time in the third season), and then didn't stick the landing in the end.