Review of Attack on Titan Season 3

The season has three arcs, each with vastly different levels of quality. The first arc is, honestly, quite good by the series' standards. It follows a plotline that, for once, develops more or less naturally on its own. Most characters behave logically based on what they know, and their actions show a basic level of human competence. It’s still fairly predictable, which cheapens the impact of character deaths—you can see them coming from a mile away. (As soon as a new character was introduced in Episode 1, I jokingly asked out loud, 'How are you going to die this episode?'—and sure enough, I got my answerby the end of that episode.)

While there are some interactions driven by plot convenience, they don't pull the audience out of the experience. The main character remains a rare positive outlier in the series, seemingly immune to the writers' worst tendency to ruin characters in service of the plot.

Then arc two happens, and every small flaw gets amplified, while the good elements are gradually abandoned. We fall back into the show's typical habit of forcing characters into imbecilic behavior to make the plot work. The writing clearly wants certain dramatic moments to land, but doesn't always earn them through natural progression.

Once again, characters are violated to force the plot in a direction the writer clearly wanted, but couldn't achieve organically. Even previously well-established side characters are bent out of shape just to keep the plot moving. It becomes painfully predictable, frustrating, and, most of the time, just plain boring. The drawn elements looked good, but the generated ones looked terrible.

Arc three is essentially a multi-episode exposition dump. To the show's credit, it does resolve a lot of worldbuilding questions that had been hanging over the series since the beginning.

Overall, the first arc deserves genuine praise for its structure and character work, but the second arc drags the season down significantly. The final exposition arc is important, but nothing remarkable.

7.2/10