Amazing how eren says that the only option both sides have is to fight, which has been eren's belief and main way to push himself, ever since mikasa took up the knife. Both sides are free, although eren obviously isnt fully free like he wanted or even his friends are, so they can go get what they want by fighting and fighting only. And its also ironic the panels this is being said in show eren and ymir with slave eyes, because the mantra of keeping on fighting can be attributed to a sort of slavery to one's desires

3 years ago today Season 3 Part 2 premiered

134 - In the Depths Of Despair
Truly crazy chapter, a heavy hitter for sure, imagery was thought provoking, art was the best ive seen in aot isayama went batshit crazy on this one.
Chapter starts with isayama trolling us showing historia but for only 1 page, about to give birth. She's crying in pain because of her condition and the reason this is being presented here is soon made clear: its a direct contrast with what comes next. The next pages are straight up something you'd see on devilman, many pages showing a world ending catastrophe that destroys human life in the most horrific way possible.
From a fictional london to fictional japan (being respectively onyankopon's birthplace and hizuru), reaching also a cliff facing the ocean, kinda reminiscent of the rock of gibraltar, which in ancient times was seen as the confines of the world, meaning the rumbling has reached the entire globe. Its also a visual representation of the title of this chapter lol.
The art is hauntingly detailed, the spreads are huge and despite this feel sickening and claustrophobic, the colossal titans are filling up the entire pages and if not them the dead bodies of people are helping fill out the rest.
I particularly liked the imagery in that promontory, found it somehow biblical. A gigantic mass of people have reached the world's end and have nowhere to escape, they can either get stomped by the titans, die by their heat, jump off the cliff or get pushed down the cliff, in any case only death is their fate. Truly horrible stuff, and my favorite moment of this chapter has to be the mother throwing her newborn to the people behind her as she's being pushed down the promontory in hopes that at least that kid, who has done nothing wrong, is innocence and in its purest form, its special because it was born into this world, and its the only hope for humanity's future, can survive this impossible scenario, showing how deranged eren has become, how cruel and unfair the world is and how the children should be kept out of the forest. Even the people who have no relations to that baby want to keep them alive, and the panel with the hands lifting up the baby crying with the menacing titans in the background has to be one of my favorite panels in the entire story.
The baby also is a parallel to that 1st page, as historia is bringing a new life to the world, another baby in another part of the world is about to have their life taken away. All of this without a single dialogue bubble, amazing fr.
And as we get to the end of this chapter, we're in fort salta, as humanity tries its last futile resistance against eren, a general takes up a mic and shares a moment that i found very touching, but i can definitely see people thinking of it as being a bit too on the nose. The general realizes that what is in front of them is a devil, a devil that they themselves created, because 2000 years of hate, violence and war were all being pushed into the conscience of a little kid who had everything taken from him. Even people who had no involvement in the eldian/marleyan history participated in that hate, based on fear, prejudice and racism, and they see this event as a sort of divine punishment, a sort of karma coming to bite them all.
He also states that its the adults fault specifically, because kids are not born with hate in their heart, but are made into hateful beings because of their upbringing and experience, once again tying to a central theme of the story, and id say a central theme in this chapter. Kids are the ones most suffering in this event because they should have no part in it on either side. He also delusionally asks for another chance, that this time he learned his lesson and wont repeat the same mistakes. A little too late, and as such hes human to his core.
I thought his soliloquy was fitting and maybe a bit off putting only in his wording, the reason being its human to see one's faults as death and apocalypse is approaching. Kiyomi said it in the previous chapter, hell even in kendrick's untitled 01 whats happening in here is almost described 1 to 1, he knows what he's helped propagating was wrong but only now realizes it because he hopes for forgiveness to avoid certain death.
After this speech, specifically after the part about adults bringing kids into their own conflicts, we get karina's pov, which was my emotional moment of this chapter, as she realizes she's been using reiner for her own benefits and never really loved him like a mother. Her breakdown was sad, and what made it sadder is reiner only did what he did for his mother, and only thinking about it is making me sad again. What a tragic character.
The last assault of humanity is a total fluke, the ace on their sleeves was about thousands of oil tanks, which are nothing against founding eren and all those titans, and was more an act of desperation as the general knew they would've failed (i liked how the final weapon was useless, shows the situation is dire, although maybe i would've liked for humanity to take at least a dozen titans like the anime did) thanks to the beast titan but not quite, since it seems its more akin to a warhammer created beast, meaning zeke has no control at this point.
But as hope is waning, a kid ironically sees something in the distance - the cringevengers are here, and with a maybe (?) sacrifice onyankopon the goat delivers on his promise and makes our heroes reach the founding and the beast titan specifically, because the plan is to try and kill zeke to stop the rumbling. Whether it will work or not is debatable, we know that isnt zeke and we know that zeke isnt necessary anymore, wonder if it is the case. Anyway, chapter ends with a splash page similar to vol 33 cover, with armin asking eren the same question he asked during the confrontation in paradis: "What about you is free?" and chapter ends in the best way possible.
Overall vol 33 was goated, great stretch of chapters with lowest point being ch 132 first half, and the preview of vol 34 was so hype and mindblowing, ymir freeing the pigs with a smile on her face, was she fr the one who freed them after all????? :damn:

135 - The Battle of Heaven and Earth
Finally reached volume 34, i know from the cover that ill shed real tears when i'll finish it :jordancry: We getting some real action now, the final battle is on, and oh boy its insane. Chapter starts with the finalized preview page of volume 33, ymir with a smile on her face and a little glance at her eyes freeing the pigs. I dont want to spend too much time talking about this until i read more about ymir otherwise id spend all of this post just for this page, but yeah it changes a lot is all i'll say for now.
Ymir is present at this fight, in a similar way to ramzi's death, i dont know why she's witnessing these events, but it feels scary.
Im glad they realized its fake zeke immediately, would've felt weird for them not to, and armin quickly finds a backup plan, not without a short but palpable hesitation. Hes the leader now tho, he cant hesitate, and he opts for transforming and destroying the founder body to find both eren and zeke. He knows this battle has enormous stakes, and for this reason his own words for describing erwin smith, the man hes always felt inferior to and the absolute point of comparison, come to his mind. If you're not betting anything, you wont change s\*\*\*. Armin will have to once again let go of his dreams, him, the ultimate idealist at that, the dream that eren might come back to them alive and see a world beyond the cruelty and hate.
But even this was not enough, he immediately gets deepthroated by a titan's tongue in a extremely detailed sequence of panels :dash: in order not to transform and dragged away to eren's ass according to levi lol, and armin sees none other than ymir as he gets swallowed :dash:
They're in a pretty f\*\*\*ing s\*\*\*ty situation now, and to make matters worse an army of titans, who're somewhat sentient, intelligent and collaborative, made from the founding powers, are approaching from all angles, but not before my man onyankopon gets saved, and annies dad being a d\*\*\* to anyone not being his daughter and the marleyan general realizing that maybe paradis is going against eren despite not being properly up to the task because they wanna give it all without regrets to try and save the world. I dont know what will isayama do with this, they want to help but they only got 3 cannons, so i'll reserve judgement for now until i see what happens with that, if anything happens.
I did question it myself previously in the chapter, but when pieck confirmed these titans were previous holders of the nine i was so f\*\*\*ing hyped, this was something i really appreciated, never expected and doesnt even feel out of place. I think it was essential to give the alliance a challenge, hundreds of pure titans wouldnt have cut it. The designs are sick, varied, and satisfy my curiosity that i've had for a while now, and only got bigger with falco's reveal 2 chapters ago.
Pieck understandably mindlessly charges, because reasonably it would be extremely difficult to beat them all and the way to armin is blocked by a wall of titans. She wants to use those suspicious explosives to kill eren, unlike the others she has no connection to him so she would want to go at him with no hesitation whatsoever, and i liked that, she was always amazing at a\*\*\*yzing situations, and gives her some action she's been missing.
But she's reached and impaled by the warhammer, specifically the tybur wh, and porco's jaw follows attacking reiner, and if that wasnt enough even marcel's jaw enters the scene. I dont expect it to happen, but if at some point grisha and Kruger's titans join too because at this point why not have anyone i would love it so much. I think the comparisons to naruto may come out, but the difference here is that these titans are just that, titans, the characters themselves are not being explored anymore, their deaths arent really reverted, if anything they're puppets whose only acts of consciousness is using their brains to make formations. Its fanservice in good taste at worst and great implementation of known factors at best. I personally loved it.
What armin says as hes in the sunken place is what i always suspected but wasnt sure of, as soon as i saw ymir's eyes in ep 80 and the initiation of the rumbling, i knew there had to be at least some form of resentment, anger and desire for revenge in her, and armin confirming it was great. I cant wait to get more ymir, shes so mysterious while already having "said" a lot about her personality.
The imagery here is not so subtly similar to the end of rts when armin gets the colossal titan's powers, only this time bertholdt (who btw is a great, underrated character) is crying, and soon after we see bertholdt's colossal entering the battle. I have to say that the paneling in the sunken place particularly was cinematic like only isayama knows, and it goes without saying the action sequences are always great, despite isayama's relative technical limitations compared to the greats of action manga. He still brings originality and dinamysm when it comes to battles so that is appreciated.
Reiner gets saved again at the last second from bertholdt's grab nothing new here, and really in this battle everyone is getting hard carried by the ackermanns, mikasa specifically, who here is a devil on earth, slicing and dicing dudes left and right. Even levi suffered injuries, she's a menace. But what we get towards the end of this chapter is a grim scenario, the most reminiscent of trost's hopelessness since rts, with everyone at their wits end, all at the end of their strengths, and while im at it i legit laughed when jean poked fun at reiner, exposing his weak ass combat abilites and how hes always getting his ass handed to him.
What made the trost parallel stronger though was mikasa trying to act as the toughest in the room trying to hype herself up and s\*\*\* when she's not in better condition than others, but doing it to give herself and maybe the others too the strength to give it all despite the chances being against them until death, like jean said to reiner and in true spirit of the survey corp. Its at this moment though that like when titan eren at trost saved the day when there wasnt any hope left, falco's glorious flying titan comes at the last second to save their asses, foreshadowed by his wings being behind mikasa, this being also a fantastic visual metaphor of the wings of freedom (and of the survey corp) as they could be seen as mikasa's wings too.
Chapter ends with annie back, a fantastic spread of falco flying away from the battle like he told the hawks at the beginning of season 4 (but i guess only momentarily here) and amounts of hype i cannot contain.
Chapter title definitely represents perfectly the grandness, importance, almost mythological scale of this last war, the battle heavily reminds me again of the armageddon, isayama has been switching between norse and christian imagery a lot these past chapters, and im a fan of that, always loved religious/mythical representation in fiction.
Only 4 chapters left f\*\*\* but i havent felt a drop off yet, what i did feel though was the pacing got noticeably faster, i cant see the battle lasting more than 2 other chapters, and i think this battle should've gone for like twice the chapters that im imagining it will last, although right now it sounds stupid as criticism since i dont know whats next. Feels like isayama really loves the numbers 13 and 9 and didnt want it any other way lmao. But im sure pacing isnt the reason the ending is hated. I am thoroughly enjoying the ride though, more than i anticipated, the chapters have all been great imo.

136 - Dedicate Your Heart
With a title like that you cant expect anything but greatness, meaning got flipped so many times its great its final meaning is the same as what it was at the beginning of the story.
The first pages arent that interesting, story wise or storyboard wise, it starts to get interesting when annie fakes not being interested in Armin's conditions, its so good to see her being a normal person idk, her cold side was cool too but this side of her is my favorite. Mikasa doesnt buy it for a second though, she knows annie too well at this point. This chapter really funny and meta, annie pokes fun of the main characters always getting captured and shes not wrong at all lmfaoooo, aot when you really think about it is the same story told over and over again only that the ones captured changes.
Levi tries to put up a decent plan, citing as objectives both armin and the founding's nape. The second target doesnt make mikasa too happy, since what levi is implying and what connie and jean are expressing means eren will die, there's no possibilty to save him, you'll have to sacrifice something to change s\*\*\*.
Isayama went mad with mikasa this chapter, i've praised his portrayal of mikasa the whole time but i cant say it enough, as a previously disappointed mikasa fan im glad she gets visual development. As levi details the plan and the members of the alliance get clearer about their intentions with eren mikasa's expression gets rougher and hopeless, she may have to do it and she will, not because a certain someone spoilered it to me thinking i never thought about it, but isayama in the last 10 chapters has been heavily hinting it. And it would be a great end to eren and mikasa's character, not to mention true to isayama's writing.
Annie tries to be a friend and distract her by making her follow her and connie in saving armin, thus jean and reiner will go for eren. Before we get back to action, gabi randomly brings up what she saw after shooting eren, and its clear its an important deal that will be the clue to defeat eren and hell maybe even end the curse of the titans
We get another look at the liberio survivors, and yeah, it was too good to be true, like pyxis, eren and erwin had always thought, not even when facing extinction will humanity unite for a better cause. Before hell breaks loose though, this dude whos apparently called muller who made that marley guilt speech steps up, i think trying to put his words into action, maybe as if doing this would grant him redemption.
Warhammer titans are just too good, the best power tbh, that s\*\*\* is fun you can create any sort of weapon with it, and in this case a whole bunch of them created bows to try and hit falco, and conveniently he dodges all of them. Expected, and didnt really take me out of the action. I understand if it did to some people, but i doubt that even if it falco wouldnt have reached eren, hes good until an arrow hits his nape but from that position it was impossible, especially at his speed. Battle resumes, and pieck especially shows her ass out, she was going in she surprised me ngl, and her ability didnt even feel like a deus ex machina, her insane durability was known. I also loved her ability to get propelled out of her titan, if this doesnt solidify titans being flesh mechs, i dont know what will. Her chemistry with jean is great, loved those two. Reiner is being reiner, not standing out too much but being b\*\*\*\* slapped left and right.
I didnt expect annie to care about bertholdt but the fact she did only know makes his character even sadder, man just cant win. Loved also how annie corrected connie on the nature of that titan. Yeah i had to google what an okapi was. Isayama loves throwing stupid jokes at the worst moments, i love it too. If it was a pig though, would make the situation very ironic, since that titan seems to be controller by ymir who has her deal with pigs and all. Wonder why that titan is special, it was even getting protected by other titans. Maybe its nothing though, it just was the closest cart titan near armin and ymir took control of it not to activate armin's nuke.
Levi's part was one of the 2 highlights of the chapter, holy f\*\*\* i love when levi gets introspective. Happens like 5 times but precisely because its rare its that more powerful. Levi has always been defined by his comrades. He acts cold around them, but they're his family, the only people who can understand him and he can count on. He lived most of his life with the scouts, he made his strongest friendships, and he shared the same experiences with them. And the fact his best friend and commander's last order still hasnt been fulfilled is driving him crazy, because he feels he's disrespecting and dishonouring his dead comrades souls. What have their sacrifices been for if the results were the one man they saved countless times for being the back then believed to be only hope of humanity, just for him to bring the world to its end, and the last enemy who destroyed most of the survey corp including the great erwin smith still around not atoning for their sins?
But, he realizes their sacrifices werent worthless. The idealistic, dream world the survey corp always dreamed and fought for can still be reached, and the proof is the idealistic armin. He doesnt regret his choice because armin always had the same eyes he had as a kid, those eyes that saw the light at the end of the tunnel and a world worth living in after the bloodshed. He truly represents the spirit of the survey corp and the wings of freedom, and i cant help but agree. Love my man armin.
More action follows, okapi reaches bertholdt and the 3 tasked to kill it are trapped. I dont think its a coincidence armin's carrier is approaching the previous colossal holder. And speaking of, were back at the sunken place, this time there's a detached from his body armin, who sees his self unconscious as his comrades are getting destroyed, and has another breakdown, this time he doesnt hold any punches tho. He snaps at himself, outing all his self hate, and i cried to this for real, real f\*\*\*ing tears. I always supported armin, he was a truly sympathetic character on all fronts, and a overall good person with great talent, so seeing him kick himself down was always discouraging.
When he first sacrificed, that was when he felt the most proud of himself, becoming someone like erwin who did sacrifice something for the greater good, and the courageous boy he always doubted of being. But his biggest curse maybe was being brought back to life, this time having on his shoulder a much bigger responsibility, of both erwin and bertholdt. His insecurities slowly crawl back, his imposter's syndrome gets stronger and stronger, his responsibilites keep on being more, and none of the things he's obsessed over where imposed by anyone by himself.
The contrast with levi previosly is clear as day: levi never resented armin, never regretted his choice (its his defining trait after all), same can be said about erwin, hange, eren, mikasa, jean, but he always felt indebted to all of them and never felt truly worthy. But if what eren said in rts is true, armin will be the one to save the world with one of his plans, and despite him voicing his frustrations at himself, in a scene similar to the armin/titan eren scenes in trost and rts, his head gets clearer and he starts to do what he does best - think. He realizes he's in paths, and he could see his friend's conditions. That means he can do something from that realm, and thus his gears start going.
But he meets zeke, standing there in paths, looking depressed and s\*\*\*, and asks him if hes been eaten by ymir too. Now this comes out of nowhere like always with this man, and what i got from it was only that while ymir is outside touching grass and seeing the destruction she's seemingly causing, zeke is the one building titans in paths, which is an a\*\*\*\*\*\* move by her btw. Dont know what being eaten by ymir means, but next chapter is titled titans so i expect some lore.
overall i loved chapter yeah, but this is one of those chapters i expect in one piece. Isayama continuing all the threads he opened or kept going in last chapter and slowly moved them forward. Nothing happened, and a lot happened at the same time, kinda like oda chapters when there's a lot going on. Still, levi/armin introspection is always goated, art was good to great, action was cool, especially pieck, and the ending provided a twist very engaging.

Wow, chapter 137

Tf is all that spoiler talk

Its my impressions on the final chapters of the manga🙂

It’s cool that you doing these

No other anime can fill this void. I think Chainsaw Man might be that next one for me but until then, none of this other s*** compares.

That battle of heaven and earth title is something else

@Stardust do you study a lot of media or literature with how in depth you go in these reviews/reactions?

feller putting more effort in these posts than i have in my professional career

they're nice to read though

Not at all💀
I think there are many factors to why i like going in depth at a***yzing the things i love. One of my favorite forms of entertainment is reading/watching critical pieces on any type of media from people who are more knowledgable than me on their media of preference, and those may have influenced my way of looking at art. My posts are nothing compared to the articles/videos these people make though, that get way more in depth on the technical side too, for example in manga it would be paneling, art, perspective, bubbles positioning, storyboarding, linework, screens, etc. Those can only be fully grasped by people who've spent their lives studying comics, while someone like me can only understand these concepts on a surface level. I also havent read or watched as much to grasp every interpretation and to understand the author on first try. I had to read these chapters multiple times, and even then i still miss something.
But ultimately it comes down to this story being a favorite of mine and my passion for this art form being so strong. If i didnt care i wouldnt spend 30 minutes of my life for those internet forum essays, but i love expressing and seeing other people express their passions, in fact i also went back to the earlier pages of this thread to read other people's reactions to these latest chapters lol

yes. Ymir freed the pigs lol I remember laughing when reactors were talking s\*\*\* saying the adults lied on her (even though it’s still f\*\*\*ed up to do to a kid) because I knew she did that s\*\*\*, guilty as f\*\*\*.

Loving these reviews tho

137 - Titans
Im not gonna lie and i dont care if i sound hyperbolic - this is one of my favorite chapters of the entire manga. The first half of the chapter is the essence of attack on titan told in a most beautiful way. I love stories that deliver uplifting and positive messages, but not in a simplisitc, overly happy way. Attack on titan with this chapter delivers exactly that with 137, and using 2 of the best, most interesting and diametrically opposed characters.
I knew i was in for some goat tier interaction with armin and zeke, but what i didnt expect was for it to be philosophical. The true origin of titans being a product of evolution was something so simplistic and in no way mystical or divine like i initially thought.
Zeke gives armin a lecture on life and how it started, and what his lecture boils down to is that life is one of the countless random reactions that came and went at the beginning of it all, but unlike anything else, it strived for survival through multiplication. This forms the basis for zeke's lifelong nihilistic ideology. To him, life is the act of reproducing and then dying once having fulfilled this mission. To help with this mission, life has also given us the curse of fear, a feeling that ensures our survival and multiplying. What fear inevitably does though is cause suffering.
Thus to him, the act of death isnt that bad of a concept, in actuality the final moments before death to him may be the best moments of someone's life: when you realize you're being freed from a task you were given to for no particular reason, a task that brings you immense suffering, you find solace in death. From this look at life, we can deduce that like every lifeform, that parasyte evolved from being a primordial form of life to a symbiotic parasyte that can give its host the supernatural powers of titans, through the act of multiplying.
This way, through humans reproducing, it can survive, and since titan powers are that powerful, it also has a most insormountable defense mechanism. And in a casual encounter, as casual as the beginning of life out of the billions of chemical reactions, a girl who feared death and suffered a long line of abuse and violence found herself a perfect companion. She wished to be immortal, stronger and bigger, all because of that fear inside all of us, and the parasyte gave her exactly that.
I love this explanation for the origin of titans, its not the usual divine power, and its not that realistic that i need a thorough explanation of all it can do. Its an explanation that isnt bullshit and, most of all, is coherent to the story's message. Cant stress enough how much i love the true origin of this story being a random encounter that became what we know out of a evolutionary need. I realized this chapter that the hallucigenia, the creature this parasyte is inspired by, is funnily enough almost identical to founding titan eren, and in a way also metaphorically - just like the hallucigenia in aot, eren also keeps moving forward in order to survive, just like how life tries everything it can to keep existing.
I found funny how zeke was actually building sand castles, so what i previously thought was wrong, hes not building the titans. I also loved how we got the first contact between ymir and hallucigenia from another angle, in particular how we get a three layered shot of the hallucigenia, ymir and the fusion of the two, the founding titan. With the contact, ymir got an armour to defend herself from any harm, and another world where death doesnt exist, just like what she wanted.
And in all honesty, we would've all wanted that. Many believe in spirituality or religion because they usually provide a possible afterlife that would make death a more simple concept to grasp, and so many attach to these beliefs, understandably so. Ymir is no different, and she succeeded.
Yet, despite knowing ALL OF THIS about ymir, we ultimately dont know what shes doing right now; we've seen her finally being free, then we've seen her watch ramzi at his last moments, then her witnessing the battle of Heaven and Earth, then she brought armin to paths. We know so much about her psychology, but still dont know some essential aspects of her. Neither armin, nor zeke, who had enough time to think about existential questions, came to a conclusion. Why did she never rebel against king fritz, why did she sacrifice for him? I always thought i had the answers, but maybe i was wrong, and i think the next chapters might provide the final answer, so i wont make any theories - the story is finished, there would be no reason to. Eren though understands her, so they may not be that different.
Maybe instead i was right. Who knows, i'll either find out tomorrow or 2 days from now lol. We heard from zeke enough, now its armin's turn. And armin starts immediately in a positive, optimistic note: he wont give up like zeke did. Zeke doesnt understand this, because to him, since we're all gonna die at some point, why should we even care if we win or lose, live or die? Losing and dying might be our saving grace actually, our true chance of freedom. But a leaf manifests to Armin, what to zeke will be a baseball, and armin goes on to give my favorite speech of the story. He gives context to the beautiful volume 34 cover finally.
That leaf reminds him of a warm day, during sunset, with a gentle wind breezing, as he was racing with his best friends eren and mikasa, the three of them acting like they always did - eren starting it all and rushing in first place, like he would also do in shiganshina in the markets, mikasa would follow behind on purpose, obviously, to look out for him, and armin, as always, in last place (loved this detailed description of that moment, this in particular is what the trio has been described as by everyone around them, from hannes to jean, and it rings true for the entire story, even this final stretch). And in that race, armin was truly living in the moment, glad of being born in the world that gave him that precious moment in his life.
Isayama here is celebrating life, life as the act of living, not for a purpose, but to reel in every moment of it, like it was the last, like it was the best, from something as little as reading a manga about killing huge zombies to something as big as sharing a holiday vacation with your best friends. And maybe in these relatively little moments lies the true freedom eren was seeking all along. Freedom from any duty or purpose, free from any responsibilities, free from any of the harsh realities of the world, free to enjoy the life you were given, the life you deserved because you were born into this world.
When armin was reaching that tree at the top of a hill, he wasnt thinking about the walls, about the titans, about the ignorance of the people in the walls, he was thinking of spending a great day with the people he loved the most. Even if these moments were practically useless to his goal of multiplying, they were the most precious to him. Like i previously said, what is to armin a leaf is to zeke a baseball, and he too reminisces of the days he would play catch with ksaver. We know, and he knew, those moments were the most geniunely happy for zeke, as he was a kid whose only desire was to be a kid and play with his parents, so you and zeke both feel what armin said.
Zeke became too obsessed over his goal, you could even say enslaved to that goal, that he forgot to live life, to its fullest, from the very little, meaningless moments. And to us, that object who can take many forms could be anything we value. I dont know what the object truly is, but it doesnt matter, although i think ymir had a hand in it. Still, what isayama is portraying here is a utter celebration of life, despite the cruelties of the world, despite our inevitable death and the sad mission we were created for. The world is cruel, but its also very beautiful, and in that beauty we find the reason to fight, to live, to stand up and to move forward. Yeah, maybe total freedom isnt possible, ultimate peace will never be obtianed, and we'll always suffer, but its also true that there will always be something worth living for.

Ending sucked

Ive seen people disappointed that armin used talk no jutsu on zeke, but i see it differently - the baseball was always important to zeke, its a defining character trait of his and the strongest bond he created was thanks to it, but his obsessive dedication to follow his goals distracted him from what truly mattered to him, and thanks to armin, who by the way is the ultimate mediator in the story and always been described as such, hes the narrator after all, and that object certainly made by ymir, zeke found the will to rebel to eren, because even if death awaits us all, there are things in life worthy of experience. (Also it mirrors one of the main points of the series - trying to talk it out, understanding eachother, and unlike with marco, they had the time in paths. Also in naruto it always was a deus ex machina that removed any consequence, which were already not that serious) He manifests himself to the real world, and finally is able to see life through a more positive lens, and he notes its not that bad, although maybe undeserving for him because of what he did.
He gets immediately killed by levi, a perfect head chop, and levi doesnt look too happy about it. Ill wait for an explanation, if there isnt one ill make my own interpretation. Also, despite what armin said zeke still feels he was in the right at the end of the day with his euthanasia plan, also because what armin said doesnt necessarily invalidate it. Now his plan makes even more sense too, its the ultimate rebellion against life and its befitting of zeke. What a great antagonist. I loved his portrayal in this chapter: starts with a sorrowful, almost apathetic look in his eyes, true to his nihilistic persona, and slowly changes to a bittersweet look, fitting of his change.
In paths though we see one final thing, besides ymir looking at armin - she was complicit in some way, waiting for a closure to her character - zeke and armin come into contact with the spirits (?) of previous holders and, much like what eren said to ymir in episode 80/chapter 122, through compassion, love and empathy, asked to lend them their power.
We get some cool action. Jean activates bomb, eren head falls off, he's still alive there for sure, he's also probably just a head like we saw in 131, reiner still kicking trying his best against the hallucigenia, and final splash page of armin saying goodbye to eren, with the transformation spark almost looking like tears coming out of his left eye. Mikasa looks shook lol. Oh yeah, rumbling stopped, so zeke was important to the activation of the rumbling after all. I probably misinterpreted or forgot something, this series needs another re-read. And finally, i got grisha and kruger titans, plus extra look at ksaver's beast titan.
Main complaint of the chapter would be extremely fast pacing, but i think the anime will make it flow more naturally. I thought it would've seriously gone naruto 4th great ninja war at some point, with the paths s\*\*\* with the previous shifters, but thank god they didnt utter a single world and it was clear they were only spirits in paths, just like ymir was, because of paths nature being a sort of purgatory where neither life nor death exist.

And if i maybe didnt make it clear, i dont think that isayama is saying that fighting for something is useless and meaningless because whats important is only the little moments, but that our lives are defined mostly by them, and we shouldnt sacrifice ourselves and become slaves to our own desires and beliefs, these shouldnt be the d\*\*\* that moves us forward. And that even if our deepest desires are unattainable because the world is unfair, we still have people we love, our favorite hobbies and passions to live for

@Stardust you finishing the manga today??

No lol, im reading one chapter a day, finishing on tuesday!

lookin forward to your next couple posts

138, i dont even know what emotions to feel, that was a f***ing rollercoaster, stendhal syndrome in full effect im still shaking