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Attack On Titan Season 4: Ep 27 Retrospective
706 Plays3 years ago
Zuhair and J Scotty are finally caught up with the current and final season of Attack On Titan just in time to give their weekly reaction to the celebrated anime's penultimate episode before the series finale!
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
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Attack on Titan: Season 4 Catch-Up
00:00:59
Speaker
On another episode of the Animation Deliberation podcast, we are finally cut up on Attack on Titan Season 4 and finally doing weekly coverage. The time has come, even though there's only two episodes left. We made it. This is Episode 86, Retrospective, right after these ads. We have no control over.
00:01:18
Speaker
You're invited to explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and float along the rushing waters of an old-fashioned swimming hole. Plan your journey at visitmississippi.org slash outdoor adventure. Mississippi. Wanderers welcome.
Podcast Hosts & Themes
00:01:49
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. One, two, three, it's time for Animation Deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome back. This is Animation Deliberation, where we take action and animation seriously, but not too seriously. I'm your host, Zuhara Lee. My co-host, Jay Scotty Sinclair. How are you, buddy?
Cultural Insights: Persian New Year
00:02:14
Speaker
doing pretty well, doing pretty well. It's been a busy and tiring week, but it is absolutely exciting to be current with this show that we have been covering for some time now. Yeah. So in my culture, we had Novros yesterday, which is the Persian new year to celebrate the beginning of spring and like the rejuvenation of life. So happy new year to you and happy new year to all of our listeners. Happy new year. What was the name of that holiday again? Novros. Happy Novros. Yeah.
Analyzing 'The Rumbling' Song
00:02:44
Speaker
Cool. So I had a fun fact today. Okay. I noticed that with the song, the rumbling that these episodes have been starting with, it's very like the lyrics are very related to the show. Hmm. Somebody had posted yesterday that this song is actually how Aaron would speak to Mikasa.
00:03:10
Speaker
All I ever wanted to do was the right things. I never wanted to be the king, I swear. All I ever wanted to do was save your life. I never wanted to grab a knife, I swear. Oh, okay, cool. I'm tearless, I'm fearless, I'm burning. You tell me what I've missed. I'm still wandering in the mist.
00:03:31
Speaker
If I lose it all. If I lose it all. And then all I ever wanted to do was know what's out there. I refuse to lose without a fight. We're just too young, ignorant, and innocent. Like kids stay up night in a tent.
00:03:47
Speaker
How do you see me? Am I who I used to be? I was like, whoa. Reading it from that perspective just added so much more to it. It was already just an awesome song, and then it's related to the show, and then you see it's this conversation. It's this inner thought, this inner dialogue of Aaron was like, oh, we got more dialogue of his from the song than we have from the season.
Episode Discussion: Action & Dynamics
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. In this episode, we're going to discuss not to get too far ahead of ourselves.
00:04:16
Speaker
Aaron didn't have any scenes at all, so especially considering the fact that we've got two episodes to go. I'm hoping he has a lot more to say going forward, but that is definitely great insight, very profound, and a lot more poignant than the fun fact I was going to bring up.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's just related to our show specifically. This is episode 69. So go ahead and get it out of your system. Nice. I'm just going to move on from that part now. For sure. Man, I got to say this episode was
00:04:53
Speaker
It was pretty perfect. I loved every second of it. The music after the title card, the stakes, the animation, the action, all of it was stunning. One of the coolest nuances of it is I think that this is the most that we've seen of Cadet Class 104 actually come together and fight together. A lot of that was just really fun to watch. I do want to dive into that, but I do want to focus in on a smaller part of the story.
00:05:20
Speaker
a little more of the development of the Marleyan characters, and I want to open it with what I'm sure is what you're most excited to talk about is the new Jaw Titan. How'd you feel about all that? Yeah, yeah, so I feel like two really big things happened in the episode, the first being the revelation of our Jaw Titan as Falco that I was very excited to see, and then the other one was the sacrifice of a couple of characters, but I'll save that for later.
00:05:49
Speaker
And in terms of you describing this episode as perfect, it was damn near perfect for me. But there were a couple of things that might have just put it over the edge for me. And as far as the jaw Titan goes, I really did like it. I liked the design. I liked how different it was from anything else we'd seen. But
00:06:08
Speaker
It was very very unexpected and it was very bird like so it kind of happy thinking like just because his name is falco is that why they went that direction. Yeah i give actual talons and like a beacon like i'm saying i do appreciate the fact that it looks so different from galleards like lion version or in years more like troll version of the shot titan.
00:06:32
Speaker
But I almost felt like in some ways it felt like more of a representation of like what I would expect out of like the Beast Titan, like a different narration of the Beast Titan. And I kind of wondered if it was maybe him looking to his brother Colt for maybe some inspiration, you know, given the fact that Colt was set up to be the inheritor for the Beast Titan, but that's just, you know, pure speculation. But yeah, I loved everything about that.
Character Motivations & Sacrifices
00:06:58
Speaker
decision going up to that point like everyone telling him like Peek and Gabby telling him like usually the first transformation doesn't go very well and we saw the ramifications of that when he just started you know almost killed Peek and had to be ripped like removed from the Titan in order to prevent him from doing that but yeah I really enjoyed it. What did you think?
00:07:20
Speaker
I thought it looked really cool. The feathers kind of threw me off but you know the the beak and everything and just kind of how insane he went because I feel like both times that we've seen the jaw Titan it's been like in a controlled environment because they've had experience with it before so this was the first time that we saw the jaw Titan go loose.
00:07:37
Speaker
And it was really cool because like I said last time, this is the first time that I've been like, yes, I can't wait to watch all these scouts die. Screw all. So it was really cool how the Cart Titan kind of just popped up from underneath and ate one of them. And they were like, let's all focus fire. And she's kind of like, you can try. And it was going around, but like, obviously she kept herself a little bit more vulnerable trying to
00:08:02
Speaker
Keep Falco in check. And it wasn't only that like Falco almost killed her, but when she saw and heard that General Magath was running up, like you see in detail that she actually like pins the arms and legs down. So he actually sits still so that he's able to do it without getting hurt. So like her control in the situation and everything was really cool. So from the three that we've seen, Gremlin, Falcon and Lion, how would you rank your favorites?
00:08:31
Speaker
I was just a really big fan of Galliard's version of the Jaw Titan, so I put him first, Falco second, and then Ymir's third. That's my list exactly. Okay, cool. I was just going to say, it's worth mentioning the whole situation that triggered Falco into action, that motivated him to make that decision. It was how badly
00:08:54
Speaker
Reina and Annie were being mutilated without their armor. That was pretty grotesque and pretty rough.
00:09:02
Speaker
Rina hasn't had it easy this season. No, he has not. And at first it was kind of like, yeah, you kind of deserve this, but now I'm like starting to feel bad for him. The last thing that, well, not the last, but the thing that I wanted to say about Peek, because there's similarities between like a little of her character to Rina's. And one of the things that I've really liked about her character is like how big sisterly she is towards everybody. And
00:09:32
Speaker
her like gestures and compassion like really showed a lot more in this to the way that she like holds on them tight, she's really caring about them and it really is big sister like, I definitely appreciate that and as more to how much I like that character. But it also kind of reminds us that like, that's how
00:09:52
Speaker
a lot of these guys looked at Reina when they were in the cadet corps because Aaron even said it's like you were like the big brother to us. We looked up to you like you were the inspiration to us and we see Reina's interaction with the kids as well and how much they look up to him. So it's like
00:10:09
Speaker
Both of those personalities of his that we say the warrior and the soldier was it? Yes. The warrior and the soldier. Despite how different they are and how different they think, it's really beautiful to see that brotherly nature.
00:10:28
Speaker
be for both sides of that, the Marleyans and the Paradaeans. It was just a really cool contrast that I saw because Galliard was what you're like and he was the younger brother, but to see Peake and Reina the way they are and the comparison between that was just really nice.
00:10:47
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. And what made it all the more poignant was looking at the only other female warrior we have is Annie. And we spent such a long time away from her. And now that we're finally back with her, her motivations are just so, so different. She was entirely motivated by saving her father. And that was a big part of the episode too. I said there were
00:11:09
Speaker
two big parts of the episode, but that was the other big part. The fact that they realized this whole mission that they set up in the previous episode is basically a failure in a big way because they do not have the time. It's going to take what they say at least like half a day to get this airship ready. So that means Liberio's already gone. Yeah. And they're basically
00:11:33
Speaker
Just just trying to stop Aaron from destroying the entire earth at this point Marley's pretty much gone for the most part. So That sets Annie up again for that. She questions Mikasa like Will you be able to kill Aaron? Will you be able to stand by and watch if I try to kill Aaron just? Did we get an answer from Mikasa or did she get interrupted? It was Annie busting out in tears saying I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired all of you I don't want to do this anymore. And then that's kind of how it faded off
00:12:03
Speaker
Okay, okay. Yeah.
Character Evolution: Annie's Journey
00:12:07
Speaker
Yeah. This is the most I've ever liked Andy's character. Like, it's more raw. It's more emotional. Like she was just kind of that don't talk to me kind of
00:12:20
Speaker
Um, I'm trying not to use the B word, but the B word early on. So it was like, all right, you're a bad ass. We get it. You don't care about people. We get it. Right. But to see like how much she was actually keeping cooped up, you know, we saw when they first infiltrated parody, we saw when.
00:12:39
Speaker
they had to make the decision to kill Marco. We saw some flashback stuff and now we're seeing like, the genuine Annie. And it's like, I really feel for her on how much that she's just bearing on her shoulders like it's not even just
00:12:55
Speaker
her being a warrior and protecting this and that, like, she genuinely has a relationship with these people that she didn't want to show before. And the fact that all of it is being torn apart is really getting to her and the way that they're conveying that emotion through this character, like the facial expressions, especially like even when she's inside of the Titan is just like stunning to watch. Yeah, 100% agreed. Her and Reina, like,
00:13:24
Speaker
co-Titan butt kicking. Phenomenal. Especially with the music. It was so cool the way they were backing each other up and just double teaming. It is really scary that Titan killing has gotten so efficient that
00:13:42
Speaker
just being a Titan like isn't even that much of a perk anymore. Mm hmm. Like it actually felt like a balanced fight in the way that those thunder spirits were just tearing apart their limbs. And, oh, those are wanting to write a space and just pull apart was like, Oh, yeah. Oh. And then, yeah, Annie got like partially beheaded and she's like just inside the Titan, like, I can't see anything. Why can't I see anything? Like, yeah, you're kind of missing a head and an arm. Yeah.
Speculations & Season Finale Expectations
00:14:10
Speaker
Well, on the subjects of Thunder Spears, I said there were a couple of things that were keeping this episode from being absolutely perfect for me. And Thunder Spears makes me think of the other aspect that just kind of left me wanting a little bit.
00:14:25
Speaker
And that's flock. We've talked about how much we wanted to see him die. And as satisfying as it was to see him taken out in some regard, I didn't feel like it was quite definitive enough. Like we see his body fall into the water, but I really hope that's not the end for him because I need to have him have a more gratifying and personal death. What do you think? I wasn't convinced he was dead. Okay, okay. I'm not either.
00:14:54
Speaker
But I hope that's not all we see from him. Yeah. It looked like, I mean, to me, it looked like more of a shoulder shot, but. Okay. I thought so too. You never know like what's intentional and what's just like, yeah, put the shot like somewhere over there. Like if I'd been over analyzing it, but yeah, I'm, I wasn't convinced he was dead from that, especially with just how quick it was. Do you know who shot him? Was it Keith? I thought it was Gabi.
00:15:19
Speaker
I didn't think the camera ever panned to who it was. I was just watching the episode again, too, and I was trying to pay attention to it, but it just cuts on to the next thing. Really? Yeah. I've only seen it the once, and I was pretty well convinced it was Gabi, but now you have me questioning because, yeah, with the reveal of Keith, I know in terms of the train full of reinforcements, that was never confirmed until, I think, McGath asked
00:15:48
Speaker
Keith directly. You were the one that took out the reinforcements. He was like, yep, that was me. Yeah, General Magath and Jean were the only ones with rifles. Huh. You got me wanting to scrub back through the episode right now, but I'm wary of my Wi-Fi connection.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm, I'm not convinced he's dead, but at the same time, it's just, it's really hard to process the fact there's only one episode left. Like there's gotta be a part three. Do we only have one episode left? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I don't know why my count was off. I thought there was going to be 30 episodes this, this season. Okay.
00:16:36
Speaker
There is one more episode on April 4th, episode 87, titled The Dawn of Humanity. April 4th? So we have to wait. We're going this weekend without a new episode? That's what I'm seeing. No! You heard it here first, guys.
00:16:57
Speaker
No. At least we'll have Young Justice premiering in the meantime a couple of days beforehand. That's true. Yeah. That could be pretty heartbreaking too. Yeah, very true. Very true. It tugs on the heartstrings quite often as well. It doesn't pull punches in terms of sacrifice and characters.
00:17:20
Speaker
But I did mention the Titan-sized hole I've had in my viewing experience last week and how I was filling that up a little bit. And I just happened upon this one.
Other Anime Recommendations
00:17:30
Speaker
The dub version of season five of My Hero Academia is available on Hulu or Country Roller, wherever you get your anime content. So I've already dug in fairly deep into that one and I'm really enjoying being back in that world. Nice. Yeah. I guess I'm due for a rewatch since it's in the dub now.
00:17:50
Speaker
They just wanted the slower season, so I don't know. I've noticed that they're definitely dragging out the matches without saying too much. Yeah, it's like I want to keep watching Arcane and that other show that I started whose name I forgot. Dota? Yeah. Okay. I want to watch Arcane, I want to watch Dota.
00:18:14
Speaker
I need to start Vox Machina, but then like I want to rewatch Demon Slayer. Oh, did you know that there is a movie called Attack on Titan Chronicles and it's basically the first three seasons just crammed into a movie? I had no idea this is news to me. Yeah, because I was like I really want to watch more and I typed in like Attack on Titan movies and that was the only animated one that came up. Interesting, interesting.
Themes of Sacrifice
00:18:37
Speaker
Well, to bring it back to Attack on Titan and this episode in particular, we did mention McGath and Keith, and that was the other big part of the episode that I mentioned at the beginning, and that was their sacrifice there at the end to get rid of the Marleyan ship that could have pursued our heroes, as well as the Jaegerists that were assembling there. So I think Keith himself said he was looking for a good time to
00:19:06
Speaker
to die. And they just had this very mutual respect and admiration for each other right there at the end. And it was a noble and worthy sacrifice, in my opinion. Yeah, just, it was interesting the first time that we saw Maggot, it was reminding me of Keith, just because the way they did the eyes and everything. So of course, we're standing right next to each other. It's like, you guys really are the same, not only in life experience, but in looks.
00:19:35
Speaker
So when he was talking about like how he had to put his morals to the side so that he could train children to be weapons like Mm-hmm That was that was honestly really rough to listen to and the way that Keith felt the same Yeah, I'm just kind of like what he had to endure in his life and the fact that he felt joy I was wondering who was looking out the window and made eye contact with Annie and we found out that it was him hmm and
00:20:04
Speaker
for them to...
00:20:07
Speaker
I guess really enunciate like how much it meant to him and how much it is for these characters to be working together for the greater cause. Despite everything that's going on. And for him to go out of this world knowing that that was like a win for him. Right. And then maggot also having like, just being proud of the warriors that he has with them. Currently, you know, we're just praising Reina and Pete, but
00:20:38
Speaker
Man, I won't even lie, I teared up at the end of that episode. All of that bundled up together between Annie's conversation and then Commandant Keats. It was a lot. It was a really good episode. Yeah, it was. And that sacrifice came kind of full circle there at the end. I can't remember who gave the speech, but speaking about Annie and her kind of giving up, that's when they were able to say like,
00:21:04
Speaker
He sacrificed his life for people whose names he will never know. He knew Liberia was lost, but he still made the sacrifice so that this fight could continue. It's really motivational. Save the people whose names we don't know, and that was your girl, Hange. Hange, of course, of course. Really stepping into that leadership position day to day. Exactly, exactly.
00:21:32
Speaker
Well, thinking of Hanji and her leadership skills and her cooking skills, this is really dumb, but I thought of a remix to that whole rumbling intro.
Humorous Interlude
00:21:46
Speaker
Are you familiar with Winnie the Pooh at all? Somewhat.
00:21:49
Speaker
You know how he says his tummy is rumbling? I just want to do a video with Winnie the Pooh. My tummy is rumbling.
Mikasa's Battle Sequence
00:22:13
Speaker
one visual that we've seen a lot is Mikasa with blood all over her face hmm just from you know savage Titan slang and whatnot mm-hmm and I was thinking like oh yeah we're used to seeing this and
00:22:29
Speaker
But she's also used to it being like steamed off. So you've never had to like look at her actually wipe it. So the fact that she actually had to like actually clean that off of her eyes and they, you know, made the effort to put that detail in. I was like, oh, yeah, this this blood is actually sticking on that white shirt and is actually like a nuisance in her eyes. And this is human blood that's just sitting in that water and all over that port for eternity. Like, oh,
00:22:58
Speaker
It was, like, disturbing, but because it's her and how cool it was watching her just massacre all of them was insane. Like, she chopped off the one dude's head, pushed it in the guy that was trying to shoot her, then stabbed the sword through both of them. Oh, yeah, that was badass. Oh, my God. Yeah, that was intense. You should not have practiced doing this. Like, what do you do in your spare time?
00:23:22
Speaker
Yep, yep. While Levi is on the sidelines nursing his injuries, Mikasa has stepped up in a huge way to deliver those really, really gripping action sequences in this episode delivered on all fronts in that regard. We see some cool kills from Jean and Connie too. And for Connie, it was hilarious because I was like, have we even seen you kill a Titan yet? And you're just like with the most class just slaughtering all these humans.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yup. Yup. Have we seen him kill a Titan? I don't think we have. I don't think we have. Interesting. I think we've only seen Historia and Eren kill like one Titan. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Very interesting. I'm not sure if Armin's killed one. No, not directly. I don't think just, um, I mean, the obvious. It's just your job. Your job is literally just to kill and study Titans.
00:24:18
Speaker
Well, yeah, it makes you think back on Levi's squad. You had the certain members that had very high numbers of kills and then the other ones that were counted as, you know, assist for lack of a better term. Yeah, exactly. That action seems so good. I really can't think of a flaw this episode.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was definitely a strong entry.
Setting Up the Finale
00:24:41
Speaker
The few gripes I had, I think were pretty justifiable and really just setting up things for what is going to, has to be like a extended finale with everything that we have to cover at this point.
00:24:59
Speaker
I think it is a lot of just me winding so much the last couple of episodes by not enough happening or just being super confusing the fact that it was just clear cut what was going on. I guess that was the fun part for me. Yeah. And man, this really does make me appreciate
00:25:17
Speaker
like weekly coverage and it is like the con of a binge, especially as a podcaster because so much gets mixed together that to be able to just spend a little bit of time to just break down like the 20 minutes that we saw. I absolutely love it.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely a little bit of a change up. Before we went into recording this, I was kind of wondering, do I have enough to say about this episode because we've been covering at least, I think the shortest episodes that we've done have been maybe eight episodes. This was definitely a fantastic episode to start our deep dive.
00:26:01
Speaker
week by week coverage, even though there's only one week left. You ready for it? Oh, I'm ready. I want to see if it has at least like an episode time. So the Jujutsu Kaisen movie is in
00:26:16
Speaker
Theaters right now the show itself is on season one and I was I haven't watched the show at all yet either I was watching a trailer just to get an idea for the visuals and I was like, oh this looks really cool and Lo and behold.
Jujutsu Kaisen & Studio Connections
00:26:29
Speaker
It is the same studio that made attack on Titan production IG Mappa ma PPA Okay Or I guess they're the producers. Yeah, I don't know if there's always multiple studio I feel like there's always multiple studios involved with every
00:26:46
Speaker
every anime, so it's tough to tell who's like the distributor versus the producer versus the production team, but yeah. MAPPA is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Suginami, Tokyo. Okay. They did Kids on the Slope, Terror in Resonance, Yuri on Ice, in this corner of the world, Zombie Land Saga, Dororo, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Attack on Titan, the final season. Oh, the final season, okay.
00:27:18
Speaker
Word.
Listener Engagement & Feedback
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're kind of ready to wrap it up about the episode of Typical Anime.
00:27:31
Speaker
Indeed, indeed. So yeah, as we're wrapping up here, I will encourage all the listeners. We've got one episode left to go, so if you've been enjoying our coverage and want to submit some feedback, now is the perfect time to do so. You can send your audio feedback or a written-in email to animationdeliberationpodcast.gmail.com, as well as our Instagram, which is just animationdeliberation. You can find us on Facebook.
00:27:59
Speaker
Just search for animation deliberation and we should come up. And I would also encourage you to leave us a review and share us with your friends. Just increase our visibility and get us out to that many more people. Because we are the podcast that takes action animation and cartoons seriously, but not too seriously. So, for J. Scottie St. Clair, thanks for tuning in. It's T-O-O-N-I-N.
00:28:28
Speaker
And Zoo always says, stay low. I love the third person.
00:28:36
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Animation Deliberation Podcast, a proud member of the Strandepanda Network. If you would like to contact us, you can email animationdeliberationpodcast at gmail.com or follow us on Twitter at animationdelib1. For this and other great shows, you can visit Strandepanda.com or join the great community that is the Strandepanda Chat Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash spchat. Tune in next time and remember, stay well.
00:29:06
Speaker
You're invited to explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and float along the rushing waters of an old-fashioned swimming hole. Plan your journey at visitmississippi.org slash outdoor adventure. Mississippi. Wanderers welcome. You're invited to take a vacation.
00:29:24
Speaker
from everybody else's vacation to a place where you can explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and see a 65 foot waterfall that once powered an old mill that you can walk through today. Or just float along the cool rushing waters of an old fashioned swimming hole. See the places and plan your journey at visitmississippi.org slash outdoor adventure, Mississippi. Wanderers welcome.