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Adapted from the manga of the same name by Hajime Isayama, Attack on Titan has been a staple series for anime fans around the world since its premiere in 2013. What started out as a deadly but straightforward tale about Man vs. Titan, the series changed over the years to something impossibly darker for the characters we all know and love.
For the better part of 2021, fans have waited with anticipation to a conclusion to the War for Paradis and the fates of Eren Jaeger, his friends, enemies, and everyone else in between, with questions and theories abound. If you’re like us, hold on just a bit long, because the end to Attack on Titan is right around the corner. Attack on Titan Season 4 Release DateThe second half of Attack on Titan Season 4 finally has a release date: Sunday, January 9, 2022. Following episode 16, “Above and Below,” Part 2 will resume with episode 17, “Judgement.” It’ll be available to stream on Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu. We also got this cool poster of Eren accompanying the announcement.
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While you wait for the premiere of episode 17, be sure to visit our reviews of past episodes down below for a refresher!
Episode 6: “The War Hammer Titan”
“Eren’s rampage is thwarted by the War Hammer Titan whose tenacity leaves him stumped. With Marley’s military joining the fight, he’ll be hard-pressed to survive on his own.”
Episode 7: “Assault”
“The forces of Paradis begin their assault, but the Warriors stand their ground. As Marley troops close in around them, Eren struggles to break the War Hammer’s defenses.”
Episode 8: “Assassin’s Bullet”
“With no Titans left to threaten their escape, the Scouts retreat on the airship. Determined to make them pay for trampling on her home, Gabi chases after with gun in hand.”
Episode 9: “Brave Volunteers”
“As Paradis deals with the aftermath of the raid on Liberio, Armin looks back in the past to meeting the volunteer soldiers who reshaped their world.”
Episode 10: “A Sound Argument”
“Two years ago, Paradis welcomed their first visitor who was surprised to see one of their own. Obtaining their help will be critical in a three-part plan to protect Paradis.”
Episode 11: “Counterfeit”
“Trapped on the world’s most dangerous island, Falco and Gabi will do anything to survive. Elsewhere, the public demands answers when they learn the savior of Paradis has been detained.”
Episode 12: “Guides”
“While Hange and Pyxis piece together Zeke’s true intentions, tension builds outside HQ where Armin and Mikasa plead for permission to speak with Eren.”
Episode 13: “Children of the Forest”
“Gabi and Falco seek out a fellow Marleyan who’s surprised to see Warrior candidates. The truth of what happened at Ragako may shed some light on Zeke’s secret plans.”
Episode 14: “Savagery”
“Armin and Mikasa speak with Eren, but are astounded by what he says. In the forest, Levi considers feeding the Beast Titan to someone new, but Zeke has other plans in mind.”
Episode 15: “Sole Salvation”
“A look into Zeke’s past shows his struggle to become a Warrior. His plans to end the suffering of all Eldians stems from a chance friendship made in his youth.”
Episode 16: “Above and Below”
“With the Jaegerists now in charge, Zeke’s master plan is revealed. But before it is put in motion, Eren recruits help to flush out any invaders in their midst.”
Episode 17: “Judgement”
I think it's really hard to compare those two anime, especially when they both are my favorites. But I think that there are things that Naruto does better, and some that AoT does better.
Things that Naruto does better:
- Better villains. Naruto has some great villains I’d say, and I am nowhere near Pain. Orochimaru, Sasori, Zabuza, Kimimaro… all of them have unique personalities, emotional backstory and sad death. Reiner and Bertholdt were great and well-written villans, too, but I stopped liking them in Season 3 part 2. I don't know why, but I just didn't like them in S3P2.
- Naruto > Eren. This is only teen Eren, since post-timeskip Eren wasn't in the anime, and I haven’t caught up with the manga so far. I really hated Eren in the anime, especially Season 2 and Season 3 part 1. Naruto in my opinion, started to be less likable after the timeskip, but still nowhere near as useless as Eren in S2 and S3P1.
- Better worldbuilding. This is very subjective, but I think that the world of Naruto is more expanded. I like the different villages with the Kages. Maybe that's because AoT isn't focused at the worldbuilding that much.
- Backstories. Now, I haven't seen the entire Naruto series, but the backstories I have seen so far are better than the backstories in AoT. Seriously. The only AoT backstory I liked was Grisha’s and that’s it. Whereas in Naruto, every character has a backstory to them. What Kishimoto is really good at is making good flashbacks (altough some of them are repetitive).
- Emotion. Naruto made me cry more than AoT. I will say this once, but I cried a lot in the Kazekage Rescue arc in Shippuden. That's probably because it had Gaara and Sasori, which are amazing characters. So far, I think that arc alone made me cry more than the entire AoT, and that’s just one arc 30 episodes long.
- Better fights. This isn't even a question for me. Naruto is a series with some of the greatest fights in anime. We have Lee vs Gaara, Naruto vs Sasuke, Team 7 vs Zabuza and Haku, Konoha genins vs Sound Five and many others in Shippuden I haven't even seen, so I’m excited. AoT has some good fights, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it can compare to Naruto's fights.
Now, things that AoT does better…
- Better plot twists. In AoT, we had some amazing plot twists, such as the basement one in S3P2 and the betrayal of Reiner and Bertholdt. We already knew that Sasuke leaves village, but we didn't know that Reiner and Bertholdt are evil. And the basement plot twist was just legendary. It also had a phenomenal buildup and we were hyped for it to happen.
- Female characters. Let's stay at the characters for a while. I am saying this because every Naruto female character aside from maybe Temari, Chiyo and Tsunade sucks in my opinion (still looking forward to see Konan). Especially Sakura. Whereas AoT has actually good females that aren’t used for fanservice. Mikasa, Annie and Historia are leagues above every Naruto female.
- Better animation. AoT has a great animation. It's fluent, detailed and sometimes has amazing CGI. Naruto's animation can't even compare with that.
- Better writing. AoT excels at foreshading. The buildup for the basement was legendary. The entire Return to Shiganshina arc was full of hype, because we wanted to see the story to progress. Isayama made more intruguing story than Kishimoto, and I am hyped for the Marley arc to come as an anime. There are so many mysteries that await for me. Naruto does a good job at this one, too, but it's just not as good as AoT.
- More realistic. Naruto is a fantasy battle shounen. It's meant to be unrealistic, and even tho it does a decent job at this one, I prefer more realistic stories. AoT, on the other hand, is more mature and the characters feel more like real people. Take Jean for example. At first, he was a selfish coward that just wanted to go from titans as far as possible. But after his friend Marco died, he wanted to avenge him and became a part of the Scouts instead. He went from a douchebag to a likeable character after like 8 or 10 episodes.
- Better pacing. Attack on Titan is very fast paced compared to Naruto. One arc in Naruto was 31 episodes long. That's like 3 seasons of AoT. Even in the manga, where Naruto had better pacing than in the anime, it's very slow compared to AoT manga’s pacing, too.
Edit: After Pain Arc, I am convinced that Naruto villains are leagues above those in AoT. AoT antagonists cannot even compare with those in Naruto. Also Itachi Uchiha is a phenomenal antagonist too. But, even then, many side characters in Naruto are underdeveloped compared to those in AoT. The inconsistency of Naruto characters made me really hard to decide which is better. The good characters (Itachi, Pain) are really good, but the bad ones (Sakura, Tenten) are really bad.
Now, the soundtrack. I think that Naruto has better and more memorable OST, but AoT has some great music too. The opening songs are better than Naruto’s OP songs.
Overall, I think that Attack on Titan is a better series. I don't think Naruto is bad, no. It's by no means a bad series. It's just that AoT is better in my opinion in terms of writing, character development and storytelling. Those three factors are enough to make AoT a better series.
Arigato gozaimasu
Which character do you hate the most from Attack on Titan, and why?
Contain spoilers from the latest chapters!
I have finished reading the manga and after analysing everything these are the characters that I hate the most.
Mikasa -
One of the worst character I have ever seen in anime. Plain one dimensional, bland and boring. Her only noticeable personality trait is barking Eren thousand times a day. She has absolutely nothing to her besides that. She joined the military for Eren, she was prepared to die for Eren, her motivation IS Eren.
Her life revolves around the protagonist so much that her big character arc was just based on moving on from him - and she failed even at that. She is still mourning his death like a widow even after 3 years. She is everything that a person shouldn't be. She has the personality of a stone. She even started seeing him in birds which show how pathetic and delusional she really is. I hate her even more after the ass pull parallel Isayama drew between her and Ymir, which made no sense.
Eren -
Ah yes… the shitty tsundere who we once thought was one of the best MC ever created. His characterization was pretty phenomenal post time skip only for Isayama to do a complete U turn. He turned into a pathetic incel. “Noooo I don't want Mikasa to find another man. I want her to remember me even after I am gone.” Bitch what? Chapter 139 ruined everything. From Eren's character development to his conviction - all was tossed in the garbage.
He was just speaking random bullshit. Everything he said and did was just a facade. He was doomed from the start. He didn't even know what the hell was going on. He didn't even know why he did the rumbling, his reasonings were, “idk, just felt like it lol”. We all thought he was doing the rumbling to protect Paradis but later for him to say that he didn't know why he did that automatically makes him the worst scum in the series.
Not only that but he also left Paradis in an even worse shape. The power of Titans have been destroyed leaving them nothing to defend themselves with. Their small insignificant military can't protect shit. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world completely annihilate Paradis.
Armin -
What to say about Armong Arlert. His character was just as worse Eren. A complete hypocrite and a traitor to Paradise. Even when the whole world was planning to amass their military and invade Paradis, this moron believed that they could still talk it out and ended. We all knew how that turned out.
Famous for his talk no jutsu. He even managed to talk no jutsu' the past veteran titan shifters to help them fight Eren. Isayama wanked Armin endlessly. The worst part is the moronic author builds him up as some sort of Jesus who will save everyone from doomsday, and that happened. I believe Armin is Isayama's self insert.
Levi -
This overrated midget is just as worse. This double standard douchebag hated Zeke for killing Erwin and the other scouts and was hell bent on killing him, but later turned a blind eye to Annie, Reiner, Maggath who did the same, and Pieck was directly involved in titanizing Ragako. And he was completely fine with them killing other soldiers of his country. Zeke was killed off for sheer fan-service.
Erwin, his old comrades and his old squad died fighting the Titans to achieve freedom, only for this moron to piss on their graves and side with the very people who killed them - all just for a grudge against Zeke. That was his achievement. And people believe he had the best character conclusion of all. He even started acting as a surrogated father figure to Gabi and Falco.
Annie -
She didn't even have a role in the last arc. She was there just for the sake of being there, like Armin. She was reduced to being Armin's girlfriend.
She pretty much said that she is willing to do killings once again if that means she can return to her father but the moment she learnt that Eren is rumbling the entire world the bitch started screeching peace. She got away with everything she did in Paradis, nobody gave a shit about all the killings and atrocities she commited.
Ymir -
This loli had the weirdest fetish I have ever seen. She was in love with her abuser. The same guy who raped her, slaughtered her village, made her a slave and forced her to bear his children. She wanted to end the titan curse and it will only break is she watch Mikasa kill Eren, which makes no sense and the only explanation is only Ymir knows. All the 2000 history titans and blood shed was because she couldn't move on from Fritz.
We thought it was Eren she was waiting for to save her from the shackles but NO! It was Mikasa she was waiting for all along!
Pieck -
Don't know why she liked so much. She doesn't stand out as a character at all, she is just your typical waifu fan service. She got away with everything she did in the Paradise like Annie.
Hanji -
Hanji was a moron. She started off as a comic relief character and died an insignificant character. She opposed Eren's rumbling because it was morally wrong, well yes, and props to her for holding onto her humanity but it was absolutely not feasible for Paradis. She couldn't give a better alternative route herself. The whole world has already declared war against Paradis and were already gathering their resources and preparing for an invasion.
She knew she was dooming Paradis if they succeed in stopping Eren and did it anyways whilst having absolutely no backup plan in case. She proved herself to be a moron in the end.
Connie -
I don't even need to say anything about this moron. He was the most irrelevant character in the series. He contributed absolutely nothing. Isayama could have killed him off and it wouldn't affect the manga in the slightest.
