In the entire run of Attack on Titan, the single biggest plot twist could be said to be the reveal of the Colossal and Armored Titans. Over ninety-nine percent of fans had their heads spin for a few seconds when they saw that.
The second major twist was that Marley, which the later stages of the animation had spent so many episodes building up, along with the global coalition of nations, turned out not to be the ultimate antagonist.
The ultimate antagonist of this anime was the protagonist himself.
Eren Jaeger.
The final arc of the story was about the people of the world uniting to eliminate the cruel and violent agent of world destruction. Eren Jaeger.
This episode had not directly and clearly revealed Eren's objective. But anime fans were not slow.
From a flashback in Season Three, the predecessor's predecessor of the Attack Titan's power had passed it to Eren's father before dying, and had spoken the name Eren in his final moments before Eren had even been born. At the time, fans had written it off as coincidence.
But Season Four had revealed that by merging the Founding Titan's power with the Attack Titan's power and bypassing the Vow Renouncing War's mental seal through Zeke's royal blood, Eren could penetrate the timeline and influence the thoughts of all past and future holders of the Attack Titan's power. The foreshadowing from the previous seasons connected.
The forums ran through the night.
"So the reason the predecessor's predecessor chose Eren's father as the successor was because the future Eren influenced that person's thoughts? Because if this power was not passed to Eren's father it could not have been passed to Eren himself."
"Summer Time Rendering, Higurashi: When They Cry?"
"What about Summer Time Rendering and Higurashi?"
"Those are the two new works Shirogane-sensei started broadcasting last year. Both anime dealing with timelines and the concept of restarts. This ability of Eren's to manipulate the past through the future feels very similar to the settings of those two works."
"Eren, no, I should say the Eren of Season Four, is he the director? Did he orchestrate this entire situation himself?"
"Manipulating his father in the past, the predecessor's predecessor of the Attack Titan's power, and even his own past self."
"Does everyone remember why Eren cried when he first woke up on the grass in Season One? Remember why the title of the first episode was 'To You, 2,000 Years From Now'? Do you think the Eren back then might have already been influenced by his future self? Brainwashed by himself?"
"My scalp is tingling. The foreshadowing in this anime is buried this deep?"
"Then what is Eren's purpose for doing all this?"
"Is that even a question? To take control of the Founding Titan's power to save Paradis Island and his comrades. The plot is clear. The technologically backward Paradis Island simply cannot resist the world's hatred toward them. The only thing that can reverse the situation is the Founding Titan's ability to control countless Titans. As long as that power unseals the Colossal Titans within the walls, the global situation reverses completely."
"I can't take it anymore. As someone who barely scraped through their entrance exams, I already have a headache. This plot is more brain-burning than the physics problems I hate most."
"But why did Eren's father want Zeke to stop Eren? What kind of future did he see from Eren's memories?"
"Wait, why can Eren's father see Eren's memories at all?"
"Each of the Nine Titans has its own ability. The memories of the Attack Titan's holders are shared to some extent. The predecessor's predecessor could see fragments of Grisha's and Eren's memories, but many things were incomplete so he was also confused. Eren's father seemed to see more of what Eren would do in the future. Perhaps that is why he pleaded with Zeke in the memory space to stop him."
"So what exactly will Eren do? What kind of future will he create after obtaining the Founding Titan's power?"
"Shirogane-sensei is being a riddler again. I have to wait another week."
Most animation fans had no idea what the answer was.
A small number of quick-thinking viewers thought of something but did not dare believe it. After all, no matter how much his personality had changed, Eren was the protagonist in every sense of the word. Something like world destruction was rare even for the major antagonists in anime. Most villains hated by fans simply wanted to become a dictator or something similar.
Many people arrived at the possibility and then dismissed it themselves upon careful consideration.
But after Rei had accelerated the pace of the Japanese Season Four adaptation and cut out the slower sections of Gabi's development arc, the reputation of Season Four reversed overnight with this episode's airing.
From the information this episode revealed, fans began searching through the foreshadowing buried in the first three seasons with new eyes. Plot points that had seemed inexplicable at the time. Details that had been placed without explanation and left to sit.
Looking at them now, with this episode's revelations as context, it was something else entirely.
Shirogane had already mapped out the current progression of the story's plot from the very first episode of the first season. A work with a theme this grand and a plot this demanding, its entire trajectory set at the beginning of its serialisation, without alteration to characters' fates or story direction based on market feedback.
The Titan fans had a tremendous time this week.
Late at night, Rei browsed through the online reviews and breathed a long sigh of relief.
It seems the people of this Japan are supportive of this level of modification.
After all, it was a work of this calibre. Even knowing that, even knowing the quality of what he was adapting, Rei had still been nervous about the changes made to some of the original's poorly-received sections.
This work is also just about at its final stages.
His thoughts drifted forward.
Once these few weeks of plot passed, Season Four's story would end, followed by the Final Season. The Final Season's plot was not long. Looking at the timeline, it would conclude in the first quarter after the New Year.
Then would come the serialisation of Bleach in the second quarter of April, followed by Naruto. Once those two long-running works were properly on track, Rei planned to release works with lower commercial value but stronger reputations in the spaces between the long-running serialisations. Steins;Gate. Slam Dunk. JOJO. Sword Art Online. Among others.
In any case, as time accumulated and the number of works Rei released grew sufficient, Shirogane Animation would turn into a version of a major IP holding company, but one operating at a scale beyond anything the industry had previously seen.
By that time, Rei would only be around thirty years old.
"The burden is heavy and the road is long." Rei let out a long breath.
In the animation industry, although it was highly profitable and carried enormous influence, establishing an IP and spreading it always required time to build. It took at least a few years, sometimes a dozen, sometimes longer.
But for now. "Let's first do our best to make the Attack on Titan IP well. In my previous life, its manga ending was mocked by everyone. In Japan..."
A pause.
"I hope that after it concludes, it can at least become one of the milestone works in the history of Japan's animation industry."
Otherwise, if the ending's reputation collapsed, the IP development and adaptations after its conclusion would be significantly affected.
A week passed.
After a week of fermentation, Titan's reputation had soared. Online opinion had shifted from the mixed reviews of earlier in the season to something approaching unanimous praise.
By Thursday, a massive number of Titan fans were active at a level far exceeding anything in recent weeks. Fans who had followed a lot of anime had a premonition. The latest episode broadcasting this week should be a decisive one. One that determined the direction of the ending.
The Titan fans who had followed this anime to this point could not even describe how nervous they felt.
Many of the most dedicated among them left frantic messages in Rei's comment section, asking Rei and the staff of Illumination Production Company to review the subsequent plot with maximum care. The theme of Titan was too grand. A work with a grand narrative, when created well, was genuinely on another level. But once a single element was mishandled, it triggered an avalanche. A grand narrative was a double-edged sword.
These veteran anime fans had watched too many series that were exceptional in their early and middle stages but fell apart completely at the end.
"Attack on Titan, hold on for me. Whatever you do, don't have a bad ending!"
Ryota Tanaka posted the comment, then looked at the television in his living room.
It was seven fifty.
Ion TV was currently broadcasting a one-hour variety show in which two of the station's well-known hosts had invited the director and producer of Attack on Titan onto the stage to promote the anime.
In earlier years, similar variety appearances would have included Rei himself. But Rei was no longer what he had once been. He was no longer simply an anime creator. He was a major figure in the global animation industry. A TV appearance of this level could no longer secure his attendance in person. Not because Rei had become arrogant or unwilling, but because Misaki, as the IP manager, would not permit it.
The most valuable asset at Shirogane Animation was not Demon Slayer, or Attack on Titan, or any single work. It was the pen name itself.
Shirogane.
Just as a celebrated actor would not go to a casual livestream to sell merchandise, the actual owner of the Shirogane IP would not appear on a variety show with this level of commercial entertainment energy, laughing and joking alongside hosts. It would be undignified in a way that damaged what the name represented.
But from what the director and producer were saying on screen, one could infer something.
"The ending of Attack on Titan is very unexpected."
"The final outcome for the protagonist Eren and his comrades will shock all Titan fans."
"Even now that the world-building has been fully analysed, the final concluding arc will still offer the audience a huge amount of emotion and passion."
Ryota watched the director speaking eloquently on the variety show with a complicated expression.
Emotion, certainly. But passion?
This anime was only depressing. Where exactly was the passion?
Surely no one actually found the plot points of Levi's subordinates all dying, the revenge on the Female Titan Annie, Erwin's tragic death, or Levi's revenge on the Beast Titan to be passionate. That was nothing but sustained tragedy.
Although Ryota had been a working adult for three years, his inner sense of dramatic complaint had not diminished in the slightest, and he was running through all of this in his head at considerable speed.
Eight o'clock.
The latest episode of Season Four began broadcasting.
Strictly speaking, Ryota felt that for Attack on Titan specifically, the openings for the first and second seasons were the best. Ten out of ten. Could listen to them a dozen times without getting tired. The third season was a small step down. And the fourth season's opening, he could only give a seven. It did not have that quality where repeated listens never diminished it. There was a gap compared to the first three.
The opening song ended.
The plot picked up from the previous week inside the Coordinate. Zeke had partially understood what Eren was doing.
Although Eren was being bound by chains emerging from the ground through the rules of this space, his expression remained calm.
Then he revealed everything.
Ever since he had fully inherited the Attack Titan's power four years ago, Eren had seen fragments of future scenes through that power whenever he made contact with Historia, a person of royal blood. It was precisely because of the future he had seen that his temperament had changed completely. Turning him into the cold and distant person he was now.
Zeke, hearing this, became furious.
He abandoned any pretence of continued negotiation. Using his status as a person of royal blood, he commanded Ymir directly inside the Coordinate space to strip all Eldians of their reproductive ability.
Ymir obeyed. She turned and began walking toward the Coordinate. Once she reached it, she could carry out Zeke's command.
Eren, still bound by the chains, began preparing to tear himself free. Even if it meant tearing his own arms off through sheer force.
Then a flashback appeared.
Ymir Fritz. Her origin. A slave to the Eldian King, she had fallen into a lake inside a hollow tree. There, she had been parasitised by a creature called the Source of All Living Matter. And through that contact, she had become the Founding Titan.
But despite possessing the power of a Titan, she had not resisted the Eldian King's enslavement. Her longing for him had overridden everything. Instead she used that power to help him establish the Eldian Kingdom, became his woman, and bore him several children.
Then, after she voluntarily stepped in front of a fatal attack to save the Eldian King from death, her corpse was consumed by her own children.
This was the origin of the first holders of the Nine Titans' power.
The origin of all Titan power had been filled in.
The Source of All Living Matter.
As for what the Source of All Living Matter itself had originated from, tracing that back would lead to an endless regression, so Ryota instinctively did not dwell on it.
But the most crucial part of this episode did not lie in Ymir's memories.
It lay in what came after.
After Ymir's flashback ended, the question the episode posed was this: what was the goal of a will that had wandered the space of the Coordinate for two thousand years? Was it simply to continue obeying the commands of the Eldian King's descendants after death and help them access the Founding Titan's power?
Or was it something else entirely?
Eren gave the answer at the episode's end.
Just before Ymir was about to carry out Zeke's command and destroy the reproductive power of all Eldians, Eren embraced her.
She had been a slave. Even after death, her slave mentality had kept her bound, submitting to her King. She had hoped, across two thousand years of waiting, that someone would understand her. That someone would give her an answer and help her find release.
Eren was perhaps the only person who could enter this space and sense what she wanted. The words he spoke to Ymir after embracing her were these.
"You are not a slave, nor are you a god. You are just a human being. You don't have to obey anyone. You are the one who makes the decision."
"You choose."
"The one who guided me here was you, right? You've been waiting for someone. Since two thousand years ago."
Ymir's lifeless eyes became animated. Tears fell from her expressionless face.
In the real world, flesh and blood began reconstructing on Eren's body. The neck that Gabi had shot through began to rebuild itself. A Titan far larger, more terrifying, and more powerful than anything that had previously existed grew from Eren's head. A being born of the merged power of the Attack Titan, the Founding Titan, royal blood, and a will entirely its own.
The countless Colossal Titans that had been buried within the three great walls as the walls' structural backbone broke free from their stone restraints. They stepped out from the crumbling walls one after another and fell into formation behind the massive Titan Eren had become.
In a display that was grand and overwhelming and final in the way that only genuinely irreversible things can be, they turned toward the ocean and began to march.
Then came Eren's declaration, issued to every Subject of Ymir simultaneously through the Founding Titan's power.
To all the subjects of Ymir:
My name is Eren Jaeger. I am using the power of the founding titan to adress all of ymir's subjects.
The hardening of all the walls present on Paradis island has come undone. And all titans entrapped within them hace started marching.
My objective is to protect the people of Paradis, the place where I was born and raised. However, the world wishes for the annihilation of the people of Paradis.
The hatred that has been swelling up for so long will certainly not end, until not just the paradisians, but all of Ymir's subjects have been eliminated.
I reject this wish. The wall titans shall trample all earth outside of this island underfoot. Until all life existing there has been exterminated from this world.
Ryota's eyes went wide.
His mouth opened.
His scalp was tingling in a way he had no category for.
Eren.
What are you saying.
You are the protagonist of this anime.
Are you going to destroy the world?
And you have issued a declaration of world destruction directly to every living person on the planet without any concealment whatsoever.
...
You can support me on patreon and read upto 50 chapters ahead p2treon.com/c/Ashnoir