Attack on Titan’s final season is coming, and after months of rumours, we now not only
have the details on the new season, but also a brand new trailer.
The most notable announcement was that the entire show would now be created at MAPPA
instead of the team at WIT Studio.
So let’s recap what we’ve learnt and find out the 5 Things You Need To Know about Attack
on Titan: The Final Season.
WIT Studio dropping their most popular franchise might seem like a big shock.
It was clearly a big money maker that helped establish the studio’s brand.
But that’s not necessarily what the team wanted.
WIT was developed as a way of creating new projects without having to be constrained
to working on Production IG properties.
They got lucky with Attack on Titan, but having to allocate so much time and resources to
it meant that they couldn’t proceed with new ideas.
So it’s likely the case that they passed the show over to be able to try new things.
Funnily enough, MAPPA was also created with the premise of creating exciting original
projects, but that seems to have mellowed in the last few years.
Despite the show moving on, author Hajime Isayama has a lot of respect for the team
at WIT Studio and has worked closely with the team for a long time to get this series
out.
On the Attack on Titan website, there’s a post from the creators of the new and old
seasons thanking each other and one from Isayama himself as well, thanking Director Tetsuro
Araki, WIT Studio, and the “Animation corp.”, his name for the animators working on the
show.
He even drew this illustration thanking the staff.
The new team is one built from the Dorohedoro team, including the director Yuichiro Hayashi
and character designer Tomohiro Kishi.
Directors changing is one thing, but character designers changing are going to be the most
noticeable of changes.
For example, even though the director stayed on between Log Horizon Season 1 and 2, the
change of designer was seriously noticeable and turned a lot of fans off.
Attack on Titan’s aesthetic is kind of iconic, and character designer Kyoji Asano has even
held exhibitions for his work on the show.
It’s gonna take a lot to get used to the change.
However, one thing that will remain consistent is the writing.
Screenwriters generally don’t belong to animation studios, so writer Hiroshi Seko
is continuing in production.
He was the writer of the Lost Girls novel and also the screenwriter for several episode,
but he’s participating as series composition, essentially the person in charge of the scripts,
for the Final Season.
Back during the third season, mangaka Hajime Isayama was highly critical of the upcoming
content and thought that that part of the manga was particularly slow.
He approached Hiroshi Seko and they worked together to restructure the story so that
it felt faster and more interesting.
So we can be sure that the writer in charge of the Final Season is someone who Isayama
trusts a lot.
The show was initially slated for Fall of this year, although more recent announcements
haven’t mentioned the airdate.
Usually, an animated trailer would mean the show’s close to being done, but in fact,
this was pre-animated.
This means that the scenes in the trailer were specifically animated to be in the trailer
and were created separately from the main show’s production.
The trailer was directed by Attack on Titan 3D Director and Vinland Saga director Shuhei
Yabuta.
So although the show likely won’t all look as good as this trailer, hopefully, they end
up using these stellar shots in the Final Season itself.