That may have been mostly nonsense – well, there’s no “may” about it – but it was certainly entertaining. It was very interesting for MAPPA to bring in Hamasaki Hiroshi, the dean of anime minimalism, to direct an episode of Shingeki no Kyoujin. Superficially you could hardly ask for a stranger fit – though Araki’s bombastapalooza of the early days has become considerably more stylistically diverse over the seasons. But this was definitely the right episode for Hamasaki’s touch – one of the quietest and least dynamic of the series.
Basically, this was a bunch of people sitting in the woods at night talking and staring daggers at each other (though Jean did throw a few punches). Hamsaki’s signature was all over it – if you watched his recent work on Immortal you’ll have seen a lot of the same. There he was the best choice to make do with a comically limited budget. Presumably that’s not so much an issue with Attack on Titan, so this really amounts to the stylistic fit being right for the material. As he pretty much always does Hamasaki-sensei delivers something darkly beautiful and consistently interesting to look at.
That said – ROFL. I can’t be the only one who thought that the characters were all over the map here, even by Shingeki standards. It starts with Hange, whose idealistic ramble about the evils of genocide was so out of character as to be unintentionally comic. And to make me think she must surely be gaslighting, because, I mean – come on. But no, it seems for the moment at least she was playing it straight. To gave Hange of all people be the point woman for idealism in this series is really off the charts even for Isayama.
You also have to kind of wonder what the plan is here, beyond “we can talk sense into (LOL) Eren”. I mean Jean is right – if Eren doesn’t do what he plans to do Paradis is pretty much toast, since he’s just proved every Eldian horror story a Marelyan parent scared bad children with was true. Genocide is wrong, but is mass suicide the best alternative? The rumbling may be a self-fulfilling prophecy Marley brought about through it’s systematic murder of Paradisians and mistreatment of Eldians in their own country, but it basically confirms their racist conspiracy theories. Which is pretty fucking disturbing as an allegory if a history book has ever so much as fallen off the shelf and bonked you on the head.
Ultimately, this is what happens with writing where plot drives characters, rather than the other way round. You can skate by for a good while, but when the time comes to wrap up the story that’s when the piper really demands to be paid. There were some good individual character moments here (mainly from Annie and Yelena, I thought) but mostly it was just nonsense. And it’s hard to see that side of things really improving, especially since we haven’t even delved into subplots like the supremely annoying Levi’s supremely idiotic plan to kill Zeke out of what seems like nothing but petty revenge. There are enough of what passes for good characters in this series gathered here to give me the faintest hope it could all come together, but history doesn’t give us a lot of reasons for optimism.
Marty
March 7, 2022 at 10:38 pmWeirdly enough, I remember soon after S1’s run there being articles that Claimed that Isayama was taken by surprise by how big SnK became and planned to change The ending accordingly.
Looking back at it, if those articles are true, I wonder if the changes were cosmetic or substantive, and how far along the final arc? I struggle to think THIS is the “Optimistic route” to borrow a VN term.
Guardian Enzo
March 7, 2022 at 10:42 pmMaybe he planned to change it to make it nastier, not more optimistic.
Simone
March 8, 2022 at 1:11 amI remember reading somewhere that he was inspired some changes by “Guardians of the Galaxy”, of all things. Makes sense with things going this way I guess.
sonicsenryaku
March 8, 2022 at 1:33 amYea I read that as well, which implies he did decide to change the ending to something more optimistic
Stewart
March 8, 2022 at 2:44 amYeah and the interview where he talks about being inspired by GotG happened in 2017 which was around when the post-time section of the manga had just started. That implies that at least the whole post-timeskip was written with this Gotg/Avengers like team up against Eren in mind. I think that Isayama must be so nihilistic that this genuinely is his best attempt at being optimistic. His original ending before 2013 apparently had all the characters die.
sonicsenryaku
March 8, 2022 at 4:44 amYou thought Hange waxing about the wrongs of genocide was out of character for her? Why? Are you implying her character up until this moment has presented as someone who wouldn’t give two shits about whether the world was slaughtered or not so as long as it benefited humanity? Again, I’d have to disagree considering what the series has blatantly established about Hange’s goal within these last 4 years. Hange and Armin since the 5 years after Erwin’s death, have essentially been the frontrunners of the survey corps and acting as ambassadors for Paradis Island for the sake of preventing war with Marley. Throughout the four years, Hange has been presented as refusing to compromise when it came to using the rumbling against Marley. Hell, even doing a test rumbling was something she wanted to shy away from (and directly says so) if she could help it because she legitimately felt as if it wasn’t the best way to resolve the differences between Paradis and the rest of the world (she and Armin both). You would consider someone who up until this point has been trying to refrain from having to use the rumbling to trample people as being out of character for being strongly against the idea of Eren genociding everyone, especially when she never wanted to resort to violence of a rumbling level in the first place?? I don’t know man. Do you feel as if every other character in this show besides Armin is incapable of basic human compassion?
Hange feels at fault for Eren taking this path (this made very clear); she cared about Eren and isn’t happy with him resorting to this level of violence; but moreso, she’s upset with herself for not being able to come up with a better solution as she feels that her thumb-twiddling is what inadvertently led Eren to walking this path. Hange wants to set things straight by stopping Eren because 1. Despite her indecisiveness regarding whether Paradis should commit to using the rumbling, she stands firm in her stance that it was never going to be the right answer and 2. Her goal (besides titan research) was to preserve humanity, which genocide would obviously make difficult.
Guardian Enzo
March 8, 2022 at 7:02 amHange is not the pie-eyed idealism type by any stretch of the imagination – that speech was totally out of left field in tone at the very least, though I would argue in content too. She might materially have gotten there eventually but not like this.
I think you’re just being contrarian for fun now, ROFL.
Simone
March 8, 2022 at 7:14 amThis isn’t extreme idealism though, it’s basic decency. I think while Hange has always been a weirdo, her original motivation was to be a scientist and to save humanity from the Titans. We now know that wasn’t all of “humanity”, but why should her feelings have changed? She’s not a nationalist. Even her most psychotic actions were motivated by wanting to save humanity from monsters and what she considered their enablers – not to further the interests of one country over another.
sonicsenryaku
March 8, 2022 at 9:19 amHahaha it does seem that way these days doesn’t it? But jokes aside, I stand by what I said. As i implied previously, there are characters in this show besides Armin capable of exhibiting basic compassion and decency. Hange’s speech isn’t “pie-eyed idealism;” it’s her being a decent enough human being to immediately see how wrong what Eren is doing is and rallying up her troops as the survey commander to take responsibility for what’s going on. There’s no “might have gotten there;” she already was when she refused to use the rumbling on Marley for four years for no other reason than not wanting to negotiate with force on that extreme, standing her ground on that decision enough so that Eren felt the need to force her hand. At the end of the day, it kinda was her call to use or not use the rumbling and she demonstrated enough decency to want to seek an alternative solution with Armin. This is literally one of the major reasons internal conflicts started to rise within the survey corps and the yeagerists were born
Guardian Enzo
March 8, 2022 at 10:02 amFWIW I did a twitter poll on this (I was just curious) and the consensus seems to be that at the very least, it was oddly staged. I suppose we can argue about the substance of the matter – as I said I think she would get to that position grudgingly – but to me it’s patently self-evident that she would never have made that speech the way she did. Just no way.
I’m not sure why you’re so obsessed with making everything but Armin but he’s not the issue here. In fact I don’t think the current version would have been in my top 5 to have made the Hange speech and make it believable. There are characters in the cast I could see saying more or less what Hange said in more or less the same fashion – she’s (Hange) just not one of them.
Again, for me it’s just symptomatic of a long-standing tradition in AoT of characters saying and doing whatever they must to get the plot where Isayama needs it to go (and this mini-arc is a striking example, not just Hange). As I said, plot driving characters rather than the other way around. If Isayama indeed changed the ending that could be part of the problem for obvious reasons, but I think it’s mostly just a function of the way he writes (and not just him by any means).
sonicsenryaku
March 8, 2022 at 12:17 pmRight; but stating that the setup for the speech was oddly staged and that it’s out of character for someone to feel a particular way about something are two different things. You were implying both; which is fine if you are; I just disagree on the aspect that it’s completely out of character for Hange to feel that way, and at the very least, your poll sort of kinda shows that people aren’t quick to call her feeling that way as such. To be honest, you could have set that poll up a bit better to get much stronger results on the matter. When 1/5th of your poll base is answering, “I like potatoes”, the validity of the results kind of become questionable. As someone who does statistical analysis, the poll leaves a lot to be desired as your options skew the poll’s validity. If i had made it, I would have focused it up and either made the poll based on two or three choices: either it’s in character or out of character; or the third choice: it’s awkwardly staged.
On a side note, I wasn’t trying to make anything about Armin; I was just using him as an example to drive the point home that the general cast of AoT are capable of basic human decency and that it’s not an exceedingly rare trait. I don’t know where you’re getting the “obsessed with making things about Armin” narrative from or that I’m making him the issue of discussion. My subject of my comment has nothing to do with him
Sonicsenryaku
March 8, 2022 at 4:26 pmActually, four clear choices would have made for a better poll: totally in character; totally out of character; in-character but awkwardly staged; out of character and awkwardly staged. Now the poll has strong internal and external validity/reliability and also removes any kind of ambiguity as to what someone’s response could indicate. Strong surveys/polls should have questions that counterbalance each other so as to eliminate as many confounding variables as possible. Oh well; It doesn’t matter anymore but just thought id give my two cents on the matter if you ever do this again for any show you’re watching with a debatable topic
Guardian Enzo
March 8, 2022 at 4:48 pmI think the fourth choice was totally valid…
Sonicsenryaku
March 9, 2022 at 1:02 amYou’re kind of right; the question serves as the “i don’t care” portion of a survey, which works especially if you were trying to test for a “survey engagement/disengagement” variable. The “potatoes” question isn’t the real issue with the poll, i was just being silly. As stated already, the poll’s weakness comes from a lack of strong internal and external validity. The option, “a little bit of both” runs counter to the other two questions. It’s either totally in character or out of character (“out of left field” as you phrased it). Why make an option that combines two options that are meant to be binary? That kinda muddies the poll and skews things from an analysis standpoint and it also defeats the point. If you wanted to measure ambivalence to the topic at hand, a “im not sure” option would be a lot clearer than “A little bit of both”, as at the very least it’s not canceling out the other two options. Or you could have measured a deeper variable with the other two questions are suggested.
Sorry for getting all pedantic about this by the way: evaluating statistical models, data collecting, math, and hypothesis testing was something I used to do quite a bit of so i tend to get a bit critical when it comes to the effectiveness of a data collecting tool. It is what it is, but i do give you props for at least trying to gauge what the consensus was on the whole Hange thing. It was a very conscientious and proactive move
Stewart
March 8, 2022 at 9:59 amWell to be fair part of her reluctance over using the rumbling was because she didn’t want to make Historia and her offspring into livestock to allow Paradis to be able to use it as a deterrent if need be forever. Always found it a bit weird that neither Hange or Jean even mentioned that option here but then again neither agreed with. Isayama has presented the characters with three at least temporarily fixes to this situation(Eren’s plan Zeke’s plan and royal blood livestock) but they rejected all of them because they rightfully see them as all evil for different reasons. They do not know a non-evil solution to this conflict but they refuse to end it with any of those means. I don’t know if I would call it idealistic because they know the potential consequences of this though I would say they still have hope for a better way but are aware there is no guarantee. I fully believe that’s Isayama’s point here that even in the dark and bleak world he created to fight to do good and search for that possibility unreachable solution. “We have to get out of the forest( forest represents war,hate discrimination etc)and even if we can’t must always keep trying” is what a character told Gabi a few episodes ago. The characters were also sitting in a literal forest this episode as they discussed the bitter history between them.