"What a cool episode."
"Why did a villain's transformation get my blood pumping this much. I need to sit with this question."
"I genuinely hate this character for what he did. I also feel sympathy for him. Both of these feelings are currently present and I cannot resolve them."
"Reiner developing a split personality to escape his inner condemnation is simultaneously tragic and extrely funny. The human brain doing what it has to do."
"This is where Shirogane-sensei is most impressive. A villain who is purely evil from start to finish is too simple. A character who has genuine kindness in his heart and is forced into evil anyway is what makes a story interesting.
Bertholdt is not doing this because he enjoys it. He knows what he is. He is doing it anyway. That is more disturbing and more compelling than simple malice."
"The forces behind Reiner and Bertholdt clearly have leverage over their families back in the holand. Annie ntioned family too. This was not a choice they made freely as children."
"Sympathising with them does not an forgiving them. The hundred thousand people who died when the wall was breached do not stop being dead because Reiner and Bertholdt had complicated feelings about causing it."
"The Colossal Titan's transformation in this episode. I have watched Titan Shifter transformations across three seasons. None of them looked like this. The scale of the energy release. The specific way it hit the city. The image of the Colossal Titan standing between the buildings afterward. This was different in a way I cannot fully articulate."
"Bertholdt moving through the city at speed on his ODM Gear before the transformation. Nobody associated Bertholdt with that level of physical capability. The series was hiding this the entire ti."
"'Because this world is just that cruel.' Three words that summarise two full seasons of accumulated tragedy. Shirogane-sensei gave the villain the line that explains everything and it landed."
"Another week ending on a cliffhanger. The Colossal Titan is standing in the city. Reiner's Armored Titan is sowhere below. The Survey Corps is in the field. One episode at a ti."
"Shirogane-sensei's cliffhangers are a known condition of watching this series. You never get used to them."
"If the plot was filler I would have sothing to complain about. It is not filler. I have nothing to complain about. This is the situation."
After the episode aired, fan praise was unanimous. The dia response was similarly positive across the board, without the mixed signals that had accompanied the Royal Governnt arc's earlier episodes.
Previously, Rei had not bothered with dia outlets that accepted competitor paynts to write baseless negative coverage, out of respect for their nominal right to express critical opinions.
The Attack on Titan IP was at a critical developnt mont. For those comntators with aningful reach who had been taking money to undermine the work's reputation without substantive grounds, Rei spent money to neutralise them. Competitive promotional spending was a chanism that worked in both directions.
After this episode aired, the resulting public opinion environnt was the cleanest and most positive since the Attack on Titan ani had begun serialising.
In a dia interview during this period, Rei made a deliberate statent to cara with the reporters watching:
"This arc will be the most interesting and best-looking arc since Attack on Titan began broadcasting. It far surpasses everything that ca before. And both Eren and Levi will have incredibly brilliant performances in breaking the current deadlock."
The author of the work had stepped in personally to certify it and had included a partial spoiler in the process.
The characters were in a deadlock. The ones who would break it were Levi and Eren.
Shirogane-sensei, are you finally not planning to have Eren drop the ball and be defeated in tears this ti?
Under the combined push from the dia, the company's promotional machinery, and Rei's personal direct involvent, the Attack on Titan ani's influence spread substantially across Japan's ani fan base.
Viewers who had been planning to wait for the series to finish before binge-watching found themselves unable to hold that position and began catching up through various channels, joining the weekly update community ahead of schedule.
Ti moved into mid-April.
Nearly half a month of high-intensity promotion and distribution had left Rei genuinely tired. Even soone who could serialise three or four ani simultaneously without experiencing fatigue could not sustain this kind of concentrated promotional effort indefinitely. He returned to his Tokyo ho.
Alright. Everything that needed to be done has been done.
He reviewed the latest week's Attack on Titan market data.
In terms of raw viewership figures, there was not much room left for further upward movent. The ceiling the series could reach through promotional effort had been approached.
The remaining question was conversion: how many of the viewers the promotion had attracted would beco genuinely loyal followers of the property. That outco depended on the ongoing work of Shirogane Animation's team and the quality of the episodes themselves. It was not sothing Rei could directly control.
To what extent this ani can develop from here, we can only watch and see.
As the creator, he had deployed his fa, his influence, and his financial resources in full service of the property at its critical mont. The future developnt of the work from this point onward would be a purely market-driven process.
But overall, Attack on Titan in Japan should not fall short of its previous life in terms of popularity and recognition.
He closed the reports.
Within the company, the Attack on Titan ani production was approaching the completion of Season Four's content, with only the Final Season's plot remaining. It could be finished entirely within half a year. After that, Bleach would take over the broadcast slot.
Rei looked at the pile of scattered materials arranged across his study.
He exhaled quietly.
If everything went according to the trajectory he could see from here, after Attack on Titan, the next era of Japan's ani would be ruled jointly by Bleach and Naruto. And according to his current mory recovery progress, One Piece and Dragon Ball were not far behind those two.
Fortunately, the company has cultivated enough talent by now. Once these works are in production, I can create the scripts on a regular basis and leave everything else to my subordinates.
He looked at the streetlights outside the window in the quiet of the night, thinking about where the company was going.
Once the super long-form serialisations of Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece began, it would not be a matter of one or two years. It would be a relay race across ten or twenty years. A sustained handover of creative material that his subordinates would carry forward while new material was being developed alongside it.
Maybe by then I will be sitting in the living room with my own son and daughter, watching their favourite ani premieres together.
He let the thought settle for a mont.
But before that, I have to get married first.
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