Attack on Titan: The Final Season (進撃の巨人 The Final Season, Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season) is a 2020 television anime series based on Hajime Isayama’s manga series Attack on Titan. The season was produced by studio MAPPA, and the staff credits include director Yuichiro Hayashi, screenplay writer Hiroshi Seko, character designer Tomohiro Kishi and music composer Kohta Yamamoto. The season was first broadcast in Japan on December 2020.
This is the fourth season of Attack on Titan, so any images and details mentioned below will be considered as major spoilers for those who have yet to watch or read any of the story aspects covered in Seasons 1 to 3.
Background:
“The Scout Regiment have just discovered the existence of Marley, a nation determined to eradicate their people. Now with the dark history of the Titans uncovered, they plan to set out for the world beyond their walls. Will Paradis finally know freedom?”
Plot Synopsis via Funimation, March 2022.
Attack on Titan is one of the most popular anime of the past decade. Even despite a few years gap between the first two seasons, the series still managed to get new attention and with its latest episodes also continues to temporarily cause server issues for streaming platforms due to high demand.
Now we are in its fourth season, which is now known as Attack on Titan: The Final Season, which basically takes a different direction to what you would know from the first three seasons with different characters, different perspectives and more insane twists to come as we approach the endgame. In addition, WIT Studios is no longer animating the fourth season, but rather studio MAPPA. MAPPA have had crunching issues and a lot of questionable stuff behind the scenes, but I am really loving the direction they have done for the series in terms of character design and approach. It does take time to adjust but I honestly prefer this art style than the previous.
Funimation acquired the rights as they have done for the previous anime seasons, and kept the series available for simulcast on both Crunchyroll and Funimation as well as Toonami broadcasting the English dub. Attack on Titan: The Final Season is also a bit longer in episode count as this first half covers 16 episodes rather than 12, and started in December of the Autumn season line-up rather than January in the Winter season, though it does qualify more as a Winter title.
Despite the subtitle, the series was split into parts. Part 1 covers Volume 23 to half of Volume 29 (chapters 91 to 116), while Part 2 covers the remainder of Volume 29 to 32 i.e. 117-130. In addition Part 2 also slows the pace down with one chapter per episode, and we have no idea how they will adapt the final 9 chapters (2 volumes). Many speculate it’ll be a film but who knows.
Going back to the discussion of licensing, the series is being released on home video by Funimation who are now rebranded as Crunchyroll, but the first half was packaged and approved with the Funimation name beforehand. The UK got the release a month later and fortunately was able to bring the US limited edition over for consistency.
Limited Edition Contents:
Attack on Titan: The Final Season keeps consistency with the previous three seasons. The limited edition release is presented as a digibook packaging with the Blu-ray and DVD discs housed on each side of the set. In-between the discs is the 32-page booklet called Notes Beyond the Walls Part VI which contains character designs and information, as well as chibi comics.
Also included with the set is a separate cardboard filler box that houses the show’s digital code, 3 enamel pins and 5 Art Cards that are pretty shiny.
The artwork is free of any information and the info sheet that wraps the set covers the information and specification like previous Funimation UK limited edition releases have been doing. Unit count wasn’t specified for this release, while the SRP was £79.99. A standard edition Blu-ray & DVD was also available on the same day as the limited edition release. I pre-ordered the set over on United Publications for £43.99 plus postage.
Part 2 will also get a limited edition, however because there was a large gap between the two halves in Japan, it is not expected to receive a UK & US release until 2023.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Digibook with clean artwork
- Info sheet for specification
- 32-page Notes Beyond the Wall Part VI Booklet
- 3 Enamel Pins
- 5 Art Cards
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Funimation UK
Released: 28th March 2022
The limited edition release for Attack on Titan: The Final Season contains episodes 1-16 across three Blu-ray discs and three DVD discs, with the encode & authoring done by Funimation. The audio options available include Japanese with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub.
The white subtitles are locked during Blu-ray playback, and the regions are locked to Blu-ray players set to B and DVD players set to 2.
All of the discs feature Marathon Play mode which is basically watching all of the episodes from beginning to end of the disc without any interruptions like opening & closing sequences.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | 3 BD-50s |
DVD Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 |
| Video | Standard Definition in NTSC format 1.78:1 aspect ratio |
| Region | 2 |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 3 |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 3:
- Attack on Titan Final Season Part 1: Voice Actor Panel
- Attack on Titan Chibi Theater 1
- Attack on Titan Chibi Theater 2
- Behind the Scenes Footage from Production – 3DCG Animation
- Behind the Scenes Footage from Production – Staff Discussion
- Promo Video
- Commercial
- Eyecatch Gallery
- Textless Opening Song “Boku no Sensō”
- Textless Closing Song “Shōgeki”
DVD On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 3:
- Eyecatch Gallery
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
The limited edition release for Attack on Titan: The Final Season is available to order on Amazon UK, MVM’s Anime-on-Line and United Publications. A cheaper UK standard edition Blu-ray is available to order on Amazon UK.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
Leave a comment