After that episode of Attack on Titan aired, it landed like a meteorite in the hearts of Titan fans across Japan and the world.
Looking back across the century-long history of animation in Japan, had there ever been an anime like this?
Seventy or eighty episodes following the protagonist Eren grow from a boy to this point, and then Shirogane does this in the final chapter?
"Hey, can this plot even pass censorship? Having the protagonist destroy the world? Are Japan's animation censorship standards really this loose?"
"It would be hard for other creators, but Shirogane-sensei probably has a degree of special standing, so it might just clear the censorship department."
"This episode made my scalp tingle. I thought after Eren fought Zeke and gained the Founding Titan's power, he would use the Colossal Titans in the walls to negotiate with the world, or go to war with Marley and then stop after winning. Show his power, then shake hands and make peace. Why is he destroying the world? Also, we always assumed that even if there were many Colossal Titans in the walls they wouldn't be enough to rival the entire world, but now it seems... those things really can wash the world in blood?"
"Isn't Eren being too extreme? The suffering of Paradis Island was caused by Marley. The Titans outside the walls were all created by Marley over the past century. But other countries in the world haven't actually done anything to harm Paradis Island. He's not even sparing them? Is this really the Eren we know?"
"Others are coming to kill you and you're not going to act?"
"Others only intended to harm Paradis Island. They haven't acted yet. Is thinking a crime? They're just thinking about it and haven't done anything, yet Eren wants to slaughter them?"
"Shirogane-sensei's plot is definitely too extreme. If it goes like this, can Eren still be the protagonist?"
"Why do I think this plot is amazing? Thinking what others dare not think, that's where the charm of Shirogane-sensei's work lies."
"But is trampling the world really necessary? Since Eren has this power, as long as he shows it a little, countries around the world wouldn't dare invade Paradis Island. This is just too ruthless."
"Naive. Too naive. Those with the power of the Titans can only live thirteen years. Otherwise there would have been no need for the Owl to pass the power to Eren's father in middle age, and no need for Eren's father to pass it to Eren in his forties. It's not that Eren doesn't want to use the power as a deterrent to seek peace. He can't. He's out of time."
"Why is he out of time? When he dies can't he just pass the power to someone else?"
"What are you thinking? Eren can do this because he merged with Zeke's royal blood, bypassing the mental seal of the Vow Renouncing War. If others inherit his power and have royal blood, they'll immediately become catatonic, their thoughts controlled by the First King's suppressed ideology that it's fine if the Eldians are destroyed.
If someone without royal blood inherits Eren's power, they won't be able to control the Founding Titan. Think about it. Will the countries of the world, deterred by Eren's world-ending power, really spare Paradis Island once they find out the island has lost that power?"
"Once you possess a power that can destroy the world, it's best not to lose it. Otherwise you'll understand how overwhelming the world's backlash and malice can be."
"Hearing your analysis, it actually makes sense. This situation has become a choice between Paradis Island and the world. You can only pick one. Whether Eren becomes a sinner to the world or a sinner to Paradis Island, he has no choice."
"Life is made of countless choices. But a good choice doesn't always exist. Often in the moment, a person is only faced with a bad choice and an even worse choice."
"Since the Attack Titan can see the memories of future holders across the timeline, then at the end of Season Three, when they saw the sea, what kind of future did Eren actually see? When he pointed at the sea and said if we kill everyone on the other side of the ocean will we finally be free. Just how much pain was he in at that moment? Had he already seen the future of Paradis Island?"
"There was foreshadowing here too?"
That night, the minds of Titan fans were extraordinarily active.
Once the setting of the Attack Titan's power to traverse memories across the timeline was properly understood, combined with Eren's ability to stack the Founding Titan's power on top of it, allowing him not only to see the memories of predecessors and his future self but to interfere with the timeline itself, many previous plot points that had never made complete sense suddenly became clear.
That sense of satisfaction was like a struggling student finally grasping the mysteries of a subject they had never been able to crack before.
Fans online questioned Eren's actions. But they could only question and condemn him on moral grounds.
In reality, what many people did not dare to say out loud was that while they questioned Eren while watching, if they were honest about their own position, if they were in Eren's situation, they probably would not hesitate to trigger the Rumbling either.
If one had to choose between destroying one's home and an unknown outside world, it was difficult to say what kind of person could rationally and objectively choose the latter.
Why had Attack on Titan come so close to achieving genuine landmark status during its serialisation in Rei's previous life?
Because although the protagonist's actions were controversial, he was an ordinary person swept along by fate and his pursuit of freedom, step by step, to this point.
In Rei's previous life, when this part of the manga had come out, because a certain landmark mecha series had already set such a high bar for this particular narrative model, many anime fans had assumed Titan would follow a similar finale structure. A sacrificial resolution in which the protagonist engineers his own death as the price of the world's survival.
As it turned out, the Titan manga did follow that general model, and fans were not dissatisfied with the way the main storyline progressed. The only source of dissatisfaction was the poor handling of details, which caused the characterisation to collapse in the final stretch.
Whether it was Eren revealing in conversation that he had manipulated the timeline, allowing the Titan that had eaten his mother to do so precisely so that the sequence of events would not deviate, ensuring he would ultimately control the Founding Titan's power and trigger the Rumbling.
Or him breaking down in the mental space and telling Armin that he was immature, that he could not think of any other way, that he had simply given up on anything more considered and hoped only that Mikasa would love him alone for the rest of her life after he was gone, or at the very least remain a widow for ten or twenty years.
Remarks of this kind caused a world-class manga protagonist's character, constructed over ten years of serialisation, to collapse in the final chapters.
But if those plot points were deleted and Eren was instead portrayed as a helpless tragic hero in the mould of a classic self-sacrificing protagonist, the main storyline would not have much of a problem.
Fortunately, people in this world have not seen Code Geass. Late at night, Rei was still scrolling through anime comments about Attack on Titan under his blanket.
Praise and criticism. Those who supported Eren and those who opposed him. Self-righteous voices and passionate fans engaged in arguments across every forum simultaneously.
How could an excellent anime be purely black and white?
This kind of discussion, where neither side could convince the other and every argument had genuine merit, was the best way for a work to break into the mainstream.
The following day, the viewership rating for that episode was released.
8.84 percent.
The figure silenced every peer in the industry.
Unprecedented. And there likely would not be anyone to follow it.
In the era of the internet's rise, for a television broadcast to reach this level, the difficulty was simply beyond conventional measurement. Every 0.01 percent increase in Titan's viewership was now making history.
The following week, a new episode aired.
The animation's plot turned to revolve around the consequences of Eren's world-destroying actions. The humans inside the walls had wanted only to survive. They had never reached the point of wanting to destroy the outside world.
Eren's actions had exceeded what Mikasa, Armin, and the Survey Corps' new commander Hange had imagined possible. As an act of self-defence, this had gone far beyond any reasonable definition of the term.
Even the Marleyan warriors on the island, Gabi and the others, fell into despair. Only people like them truly understood what a single Colossal Titan represented as a weapon. And what thousands of Colossal Titans in formation meant for anything in their path.
Within the walls, the factions split. Many on the island, particularly those led by the Yeagerists, supported Eren's actions without reservation. The conservatives condemned him and hoped to find some way to persuade him to stop.
The essence of the world was people. What was the purpose of slaughtering the world, destroying thousands of years of human culture, and leaving behind a landscape of ruins with no one left to inhabit it?
The same debates the fans were having on the internet were being had by the factions of humans inside the anime.
Over the following weeks, the main plot did not advance substantially. Instead it revolved around character-driven scenes covering Marley, Paradis Island, Mikasa, Armin, and Annie, who had been released from her crystal seal.
This section of the plot had been quite controversial in Rei's previous life. Mikasa, Armin, Hange, and many in the Survey Corps began to decide to resist Eren. They did not accept his declaration of world destruction. They wanted to unite with the forces of various peoples around the world to jointly stop the army of Colossal Titans Eren led.
This behaviour was cursed by a significant portion of the Japanese fanbase.
After all, Eren had chosen to carry the infamy of world destruction specifically to protect Mikasa, Armin, and his comrades' home. It was one thing not to support him. But to actively work to stop him? Eren bore the weight of being the world's destroyer, and his former comrades were going to use him as a stepping stone to play the role of heroes?
In any world, that kind of plot was going to attract significant criticism.
But because Rei had not drawn this section out longer than necessary, the vast majority of fans could accept it.
And in last week's episode, Armin, Mikasa, Annie, Hange, Reiner, Jean, and the Marleyan military leadership, individuals from across the world who had been killing each other until recently, sat together at night to face the common enemy of the entire world. The final antagonist of the Attack on Titan anime.
Eren Jaeger.
There was no talk of forgiveness. Hatred could not simply dissipate. But they could cooperate temporarily for the sake of the world, uniting against him.
A temporary alliance was formed.
The stage for the final chapter of Attack on Titan had been set.
The fan thread ran through the night.
"So the final chapter is Eren fighting his former comrades? Shirogane-sensei, you are too cruel."
"I'm afraid to watch. Mikasa and Eren fighting each other. How can I watch this."
"It won't end with Eren personally killing all his comrades, will it?"
"Is this the freedom Eren was chasing? Abandoned by everyone for the sake of Paradis Island, the whole world seeing him as a butcher. Is it worth it?"
"No matter what, Mikasa and Armin, you two should be standing by Eren's side. Eren fought to the end and his final enemies are the two of you? How can this be acceptable?"
"The world is cruel. This concept has run through Titan from the first episode to the last."
"The more I watch, the more I cannot bear it, but I cannot stop watching. I am almost getting depressed from this plot."
"They might not necessarily go to war with Eren immediately. Aren't they still preparing to find a plane, catch up to him, and negotiate? Maybe he can be persuaded?"
"How could he be persuaded? Since he saw the sea in Season Three, Eren had already anticipated the current situation and prepared to take the Founding Titan's power. If there were another way, he would not have gone this route."
"Believe in Shirogane-sensei. He will provide an ending we cannot predict."
"Is anyone still expecting a happy ending? That is too naive."
"I don't care anymore if it is happy or tragic. I just hope the final ending is worthy of Eren's journey. Worthy of eighty weeks of following this series. A landmark ending. Shirogane-sensei, do not be swayed by online opinion. Play to your strengths and give Titan the ending it deserves."
"Exactly. The Hikaru no Go ending was open-ended. One-Punch Man's subsequent plot is nowhere in sight. For Hunter x Hunter's Dark Continent arc, Shirogane-sensei said in an interview last year he had inspiration and might begin updating in a few years. Demon Slayer's ending will come with the second movie in the spring holiday season in two months, then the final Demon Slayer movie in two years. Strictly speaking, in Shirogane-sensei's works, there are very few endings that everyone finds fully satisfying."
"With this work, with this chapter, I have a feeling Titan will achieve landmark status."
December arrived.
In Tokyo, heavy snow began to fall.
Rei began to shift out of the leisurely pace of his post-wedding life and gradually became busy again.
Attack on Titan had been confirmed to officially conclude in the winter season after the New Year. On a global scale, large-scale promotional activities for the finale had already begun. Anime Blu-rays, manga volumes, merchandise and related products had entered production and distribution planning with partners according to schedule. If goods were not prepared and stocked in advance, everything would sell out the moment Titan's popularity reached its peak.
The production of a Titan single-player game was already on the agenda. Negotiations for copyright collaborations with several major mobile games in Japan were also underway.
These things could be left to subordinates. But Rei's personal involvement in promotional activities had a visible effect on their success that pure delegation could not replicate.
Then, in mid-December, Rei updated his creator account for the first time in a while.
The update was a single sentence.
[Get ready to welcome the final, and most grand and exciting concluding chapter of Attack on Titan!]
Whether it would truly be the most grand and exciting chapter would be defined by the fans after the anime concluded. But in terms of promotion, Rei had to carry that confidence publicly.
And this was also Rei's first official statement as the creator of the Attack on Titan anime, acknowledging publicly that Titan had entered its final countdown.