Main spoilers for Assault on Titan down beneath! For those who’re not caught up, cease studying now!
There are anime that I join with, after which there’s Assault on Titan. This anime has had a chokehold on my life, and when AOT got here to an finish in 2023, and most of the people discovered concerning the ending, it was divisive. However after I spoke to English dub actors Bryce Papenbrook and Trina Nishimura about what they ended up considering of the ending, they set the document straight fairly rapidly. I completely get it.
For many who do not know, Papenbrook and Nishimura carry out the English voices of Eren and Mikasa, arguably the 2 predominant characters of the anime, and so they by some means averted spoilers for the entirety of the present (not like me who caved and skim the manga). In honor of the compilation movie, Assault on Titan: THE LAST ATTACK releasing, I knew I needed to ask the 2 about their ideas – and Papenbrook immediately mentioned he liked the ending and did not know the way else it might finish:
I like the ending. While you’re constructing this extremely layered and complicated story and telling it from all these views, I could not determine how one can finish the story. I could not guess what was going to occur, nevertheless it felt like all of the items matched so superbly, so extremely effectively, virtually like Isayama-sensei wrote the story backwards. That is how unbelievable I assumed it was. So I completely liked it, and I do not assume each story wants a cheerful ending. I believe Assault on Titan had the proper ending.
Nishimura took that stance as effectively, though the voice actress overtly admitted that, in fact, she needed the completely happy ending everybody else needed – nevertheless it was simply the ending that “needed to occur:”
I do not assume the story might have ended every other means, and carried out it justice in my coronary heart of hearts, which is commonly essentially the most heartless. Sure, in fact, I needed them to remain on the cabin. ‘Can we simply chill right here for a minute?’ All through all the sequence…they by no means received a second to exist and be okay. And after we had been recording it, and so they had been on the cabin, I used to be like, ‘Was all of it a dream? Are they okay? Is all the pieces okay?’ However the ending was so stunning and so transferring, and so had been so many different elements of Assault on Titan.
Nishimura is referring to the second when Eren takes Mikasa to a cabin in what followers theorize is an alternate actuality the place they may have run away collectively from all of the chaos—a second of peace. Nishimura had no concept it could occur, however in fact, it ended up changing into only a imaginative and prescient.
You are hoping for the most effective, after which you don’t need the worst factor imaginable occurring, however then it has to occur. And it needed to occur precisely that means. It was how the story needed to finish. And I imply, I needed a cheerful ending, however that is the ending that needed to occur.
The 2 voice actors have been with the well-liked darkish anime because it aired in 2013, so it isn’t that stunning to listen to they agree with the sequence’ ending, as they’ve had such a longtime reference to the present. Papenbrook even had the possibility to fulfill with creator Hajime Isayama, and I can solely think about what it was like.
Nonetheless, followers on-line have been crucial of the ending, typically giving theories as to what else might have occurred or how they may have averted the Rumbling and all the pieces else. In my thoughts, I’d name AOT’s ending extra life like than something—Eren is now useless, and many of the world has been worn out, however his mates are alive, and so they can rebuild, however at what value?
It is bleak. However on this world the place Assault on Titan’s most heartbreaking deaths will rip your soul in half, I will take many of the predominant characters surviving till the top, even when it was at the price of all the pieces else. Hell, many of the AOT arcs have splintered my spirit sufficient that the conclusion, to me, is sort of a cakewalk at this level.
Whereas they agree on the ending as I do, I am positive it will likely be a hotly debated matter for years to come back amongst followers, and it is solely a matter of time earlier than we get one other huge concept video on whether or not “Eren was proper” or not. Regardless, it is nonetheless one of many greatest anime to start out on, it doesn’t matter what you consider the ending, and like Papenbrook and Nishimura’s iconic voice performances, the sequence will stay on without end.