This is it. The conclusion of one of the most mysterious anime in history arrives in the way it was envisioned: as a feature-length movie. Attack on Titan: The Last Attack goes far to finish the story, then goes further than anyone could ever imagine. With no punches pulled and a chilling conclusion, The Last Attack is more relevant than ever. In most theaters for one day (February 10th) but with very select showings still available in the US.
In 2013, the world felt like an entirely different place, and the anime on everyone’s mind was based on the super popular and enigmatic manga Attack on Titan. In 2023, ten years after AoT debuted, Kodansha and Crunchyroll dropped the last two episodes on the platform. Each episode was an hour and change. The whole weeb world was shaken to its core. Only to hear from the director of the series Yuichiro Hayashi, “I originally drew the storyboards [for The Final Chapters] with the idea that it would be watched as a single movie. So, having the opportunity to have everyone watch it in the best possible environment, the theatre is a dream come true for me.” Well then, cue the theatrical release.
Theatrical Experience
Can you imagine the iconic sounds of the Attack on Titan universe booming out of a crystal-clear movie theatre sound system? The hiss of steam from ODM gear tearing through the skyline? That telltale ringing and fission of a titan arriving on the scene? Names being yelled across a battlefield that no one can realistically hear? When those sounds are coming at you so loud your chest rattles, it brings you that much further into the world of Attack on Titan. If you thought watching at home was engrossing, the theatre experience is quite a shock to the senses.
Honestly, it was weird to return to this part of the epic story now. In 2025. The symbolism met up with a little too much real-life synchronicity to ignore. Which, I gather, was always the point of AoT. At this point in the story, Eren is in his villain arc and final form (the skeletal Attack Titan), marshaling his last attack – ‘The Rumbling’. A death march of colossal titans broken free from the walls that made up Paradis Island. Eren intends to trample the world outside Paradis and take the lives of everyone who would threaten the island for generations.
Right out of the gate, the idea of a group of oppressed people in isolation choosing to strike back against their oppressors speaks to me on a few levels. But as we get into the narrative, we learn there is no righteous party here – everybody is doing dirt in the name of freedom and prophecy. The beef between Paradis and Marley has grown to include all the nations of this world, conspiring to keep the Eldians in the open-air prison of their island. As the Eldians learn more about the conspiracy, the more they support Eren’s call for revenge. Leading to a civil war on Paradis Island and a full-scale war against the world.
When A Plan Comes Together
With the final stage set, all the narrative strings are tugged on and strung together and tied up so neatly that you just know it was planned this way all along. You gotta give it up to the mangaka Hajime Isayama for setting us up for every mystery we never thought would be solved. From ‘What’s in the basement?’ to the illest reveal in media history, Isayama brought us here, all for this moment. The Last Attack as an animated feature feels right. The action elements go bananas, and the fluidity of the animation and the fight choreo is just what you’d expect from Attack on Titan’s creative team. If there’s anything AoT is good for, it’s someone going out on their own terms in a blaze of actual glory. The Last Attack does not disappoint.
Alongside the madness of the action are some of the most profound explorations of the human condition in the context of conflict I’ve ever seen. The parables on class, nationality, race, military might, monarchy, migration, lineage – all of it, hit hard. Grasping the fullness of the story forces die-hard audiences to sit with the consequences of all the fighting we’ve watched in the last ten years.
Then comes the twist, the hinge that makes the entire anime make sense from the first episode to this last one.
The Spoiler Section
*HUGE spoiler alert from here on*
That Eren’s gift forces him to see the world outside of time, the past, present, and future all happen at once for him. That he’s been in control of everything from the perspective of his future self. When Bertholdt and Reiner destroyed Wall Maria, a wild Titan that was about to eat Bertholdt needed to be redirected. Future Eren sent that Titan to eat his own mother to ensure the Colossal Titan survived. Eren used his Founding powers to seed his confessions into all of his friends’ minds and made it so that they wouldn’t remember those conversations until he’d been killed. With his death, he used the Founding power to remove the Titan powers from every Eldian alive. The Titans are no more.
Wounds heal and time passes, but series creator Isayama and director Hayashi aren’t done with us yet. The epilogue is a two-parter. As forced peace reigns over the world, tensions on Paradis grow as Jaegerists grow an aggressive and paranoid military, afraid the world will finish what it started in finishing off the Eldian population. The rest of the world is still reeling from The Rumbling, which wiped eighty percent of humanity off the face of the Earth. Revenge is brewing slowly in those recovering nations.
As the credits roll, there is still a story being told. Mikasa buries Eren at the tree they would race to as children. We watch a timelapse with the same canopy-level view of that tree. Years pass in seconds and Mikasa is buried beneath that same tree as an elder. Generations pass and the small steampunk tech town builds out into an electric metropolis. Lights shine and skyscrapers grow into the strata. Then, the fighter planes, helicopters, and explosions dot the city. Now the city is fully lit by smoldering fires until it simmers into an ashen husk of civilization. All this time, that tree is growing and reaching and twisting higher. A young, black-haired boy and his dog explore the dystopian ruins of a long-passed society and come upon the tree. The height of a building with a hole at the roots, the exact shape of the tree that granted Ymir her Founding Titan powers roughly two thousand years before. The boy disappears into the tree.
You are left with a feeling. The feeling that the cycle will begin again, and that humanity is doomed to repeat its tragic history.
The Last Attack is an anime epic that has been more than ten years in the making, and it shows. If you haven’t seen it, now is a great time.
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