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What Can We Expect From the Staff Changeover for Attack on Titan The Final Season?




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oFFoy



Joined: 11 Dec 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 10:15 am Reply with quote
I just hope it will not be rushed Mad
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Engineering Nerd



Joined: 24 Apr 2008
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Location: Southern California
PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:18 am Reply with quote
My biggest fear for the new season is actually the music composition. Is Sawano only credited because the final season will re-use some tracks from previous season? And no, Sawano is perfectly capable of composing music for political and serious dramas aside from action spectacle he is known for (his pedigree for TV drama composition speaks volume).

That is indeed a big shoe to fill for new music composition Khota Yamamoto (his role is quite similar on Seven Deadly Sins' later seasons, which are workable) ; as well as Mappa itself. while Jujutsu Kaisen is done by an entirely separate Mappa team (same series composition doesn’t count) that utilized lots of Korean outsourcing, they still relies lots of Mappa in-house resources, so how much AOT final season is being done in-house, remains to be seen


Last edited by Engineering Nerd on Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:56 am; edited 3 times in total
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Angel M Cazares



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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:22 am Reply with quote
If the show looks and feels very similar to the first 3 seasons I will not really care who is behind the helm. What I really want to know is how long it would be, 50 episodes, 39?
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Eddy564



Joined: 14 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:26 pm Reply with quote
angelmcazares wrote:
If the show looks and feels very similar to the first 3 seasons I will not really care who is behind the helm. What I really want to know is how long it would be, 50 episodes, 39?


As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.

With MAPPA handling JJK and GoH, I have no doubt that the animation will hold up. Though as someone mentioned above, it’ll be interesting to see how much outsourcing vs. in house production is being done. My money says that the MAPPA staff know how much pressure they’re under and want to deliver a great production. Though, all of that pressure and entitlement from fans can often lead into unprecedented challenges as well.

And with the new series composition leader, I have no doubt he’ll sequence the events of these next few arcs to pad out some of the pacing as he expertly did with the bloated Uprising arc.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:00 pm Reply with quote
Eddy564 wrote:
angelmcazares wrote:
If the show looks and feels very similar to the first 3 seasons I will not really care who is behind the helm. What I really want to know is how long it would be, 50 episodes, 39?


As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.
Is there any fat to trim, or is every page important to the story?
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Eddy564



Joined: 14 Sep 2008
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:50 pm Reply with quote
MarshalBanana wrote:
Is there any fat to trim, or is every page important to the story?


Definitely no fat to trim. If anything, as compelling as the final arc of AoT is, it’s also incredibly dense. And so, I don’t think they should trim any of the story threads, but re-sequencing them as they’ve done in the past has always worked fairly well.
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The Not so Chosen One



Joined: 18 Nov 2016
Posts: 433
PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 10:58 pm Reply with quote
Eddy564 wrote:
As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.

The anime's 1st season covered volumes 1 through 8 and those were 36 chapters in 25 episodes; the 2nd covered 9 through 12 with 16 chapters in 12 episodes, and the 3rd one covers 13 through 22 with 40 chapters, for a total of 22 episodes. The Marley arc has 16 chapters in 4 volumes, and the War for Paradis one has more than 28 chapters compiled in 7 volumes so far, and that's not even counting the upcoming chapters and volumes yet to be published, however much they are. So, for someone that's "read the manga", having the belief that a 24-episode season would cover the remaining manga through its ending is just plain wrong, since this last season would have to adapt 11 volumes for those 2 arcs, plus the volumes/chapters yet to be released, and that's a much bigger volume/chapter/episode ratio the 1st season's 25.

Also, there was a tweet from someone who uploaded a photo of an episode's script, and the cover said "The Final Season: Part One". Make of that what you will.
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Everlasting Coconut



Joined: 22 Jul 2019
Posts: 290
PostPosted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:40 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
At this point, I'll leave the question to the readers: What are you hoping for or expecting from Attack on Titan The Final Season?


In terms of animation, I'm a bit of a pessimist, so I'm keeping my expectations low. Then again, I don't really mind the change in studios that much for two reasons:

a) As much as I loved season 3 part 2, I thought it was the weakest one in terms of direction and animation, and we all know how much Wit Studio struggled during the last stretch of the series. So having a new studio take over may not be such a bad thing. There's this element of unpredictability that makes me even more eager to see how the final season will turn out.

b) Even if the animation turns out to be mediocre, the content itself is still great, so I'll try my best to enjoy the story even if there's a drop in quality.

The Not so Chosen One wrote:
So, for someone that's "read the manga", having the belief that a 24-episode season would cover the remaining manga through its ending is just plain wrong


Nothing wrong there. The whole point of an adaptation is that changes are and must be made. They can always trim or resequence the events in the story to cover the remaining manga in 24-26 episodes, which is a solid number.

Also, making a prediction by comparing the length of each season with the number of manga chapters each one of them covered is not really accurate, because you are not taking into account the adaptation choices made by the anime. Season 1, for example, had 3+ episodes worth of content that either wasn't in the manga or that was stretched out, and then you have season 3, which cut out a lot of stuff.

Mind you, I also hope this final season will have 30 episodes or more, but I'm also ready to accept the fact that changes are probably going to be made. Whether or not those changes are good will depend on the writing team.
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3629
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:06 am Reply with quote
So after where season 3 ends in the manga, there's a time skip? Or is there more in the manga before that?

Engineering Nerd wrote:
My biggest fear for the new season is actually the music composition. Is Sawano only credited because the final season will re-use some tracks from previous season? And no, Sawano is perfectly capable of composing music for political and serious dramas aside from action spectacle he is known for (his pedigree for TV drama composition speaks volume).

That is indeed a big shoe to fill for new music composition Khota Yamamoto (his role is quite similar on Seven Deadly Sins' later seasons, which are workable) ; as well as Mappa itself. while Jujutsu Kaisen is done by an entirely separate Mappa team (same series composition doesn’t count) that utilized lots of Korean outsourcing, they still relies lots of Mappa in-house resources, so how much AOT final season is being done in-house, remains to be seen


A lack of Sawano would be very disappointing.
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The Not so Chosen One



Joined: 18 Nov 2016
Posts: 433
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:36 am Reply with quote
Everlasting Coconut wrote:
a) As much as I loved season 3 part 2, I thought it was the weakest one in terms of direction and animation, and we all know how much Wit Studio struggled during the last stretch of the series. So having a new studio take over may not be such a bad thing. There's this element of unpredictability that makes me even more eager to see how the final season will turn out.

I've been seeing this stupid tendency of trashing Wit Studio not only in this article, but almost everywhere where fans are concerned. Suddenly, everything the show was and the producers did that made it famous is utter crap since the animation will be so inferior to what Wit made, and now MAPPA is the best studio animation ever Rolling Eyes .

Everlasting Coconut wrote:
Also, making a prediction by comparing the length of each season with the number of manga chapters each one of them covered is not really accurate, because you are not taking into account the adaptation choices made by the anime. Season 1, for example, had 3+ episodes worth of content that either wasn't in the manga or that was stretched out, and then you have season 3, which cut out a lot of stuff.

Is accurate enough to have an estimate of the show's remaining length, since the excised material during the previous seasons' run wasn't that much to begin with, and even if the last season cuts out a lot of material, its volume/chapter/episode ratio is still much larger than the previous seasons'.
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Eddy564



Joined: 14 Sep 2008
Posts: 340
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:39 am Reply with quote
The Not so Chosen One wrote:
Eddy564 wrote:
As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.

The anime's 1st season covered volumes 1 through 8 and those were 36 chapters in 25 episodes; the 2nd covered 9 through 12 with 16 chapters in 12 episodes, and the 3rd one covers 13 through 22 with 40 chapters, for a total of 22 episodes. The Marley arc has 16 chapters in 4 volumes, and the War for Paradis one has more than 28 chapters compiled in 7 volumes so far, and that's not even counting the upcoming chapters and volumes yet to be published, however much they are. So, for someone that's "read the manga", having the belief that a 24-episode season would cover the remaining manga through its ending is just plain wrong, since this last season would have to adapt 11 volumes for those 2 arcs, plus the volumes/chapters yet to be released, and that's a much bigger volume/chapter/episode ratio the 1st season's 25.

Also, there was a tweet from someone who uploaded a photo of an episode's script, and the cover said "The Final Season: Part One". Make of that what you will.


Listen. I’m speaking realistically. MAPPA would likely want a 24-episode final season to cap things off. I’m not ignoring the fact that the last portion of the series is incredibly dense, as I said just that. The cynicism I feel from you is definitely not necessary. We can’t expect the way WIT adapted things will transfer over to the MAPPA folks. That’s why those observations, while interesting, don’t tell us much.
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The Hansond Jaysond Lee



Joined: 16 Dec 2015
Posts: 36
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:29 am Reply with quote
There were leaks that this season's gonna be split. 16 episodes for part 1 and x episodes for part 2 (or a possible movie to close the series). Many speculate that this split is mainly because Kingdom S3 is coming back in Spring 2021. Which make sense since AoT and Kingdom share the same time slot on NHK. (Btw, poor Kingdom got delayed for almost a year because of COVID.)

Eddy564 wrote:

As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.

24 episodes won't be enough unless they're planning to Uprising Arc-ed this season. This season by far have the most chapters to adapt and there's little to no filler (and Isayama didn't "regret" these arcs as he did the Uprising Arc). So it should be AT LEAST longer than S1 but hopefully with S3P2's pacing. So preferably 27-30 episodes. And with the rumors that the season is gonna be split, those numbers can still be achievable.

I have no doubt that in terms of animation, MAPPA will deliver. We might get some dip in quality here and there, but let's not pretend that S3 didn't had some inconsistent animation quality throughout its airing time. I'm not crapping on WIT, but you can really tell that they were struggling hard behind the scenes to finish S3.

But I do worry about the character design consistency with MAPPA. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kyoji Asano was both the character designer and the chief animation director for the previous 3 seasons right? From what I understand, if a character designer is also the chief animation director, then the characters would look more on-model when they're moving or having expressions. WIT nailed this with the past 3 seasons. Sure the animation can be inconsistent at times, but the characters were always so well-drawn and on-model.
But this time around the character designer (Tomohiro Kishi) isn't the chief animation director. Kishi is a very talented character designer. His design for the characters that we saw in the 2nd key visual looked so detailed (especially since they aren't wearing cloaks anymore). Waaaay too detailed in fact, I can almost bet that they won't be able to maintain those details in every frames of the actual show. They gotta cut some corners with the character design. No hecking way the characters would look as good as they look in that key visual at all times. Instead of simplifying the design, Kishi went all out to make it as manga accurate as possible. It ain't gonna be pretty for the animators.

I do have faith in Hayashi as the director. Every forum/website that I visit that talks about the Final Season, they always praised Hayashi as a visionary director. And after watching Dorohedoro (and bits of Garo & Kakegurui) now I understand why. I was a big fan of Tetsuro Araki's direction in S1, I thought his bombastic, in your face directing style really fits AoT. However I do find Masashi Koizuka's direction in S2 & S3 to be lacking in a lot places. So Hayashi might just be an upgrade that we needed.

I'm not too bothered with the music. The track that Yamamoto composed for the PV was actually pretty good and Sawano will still be there. Plus we know that those two are basically buddies and has worked together numerous times. So I don't see any reason to get worried.

Bottom line, despite the staff change and all the negative rumours surrounding the hellish schedule that MAPPA's currently facing, I'm fairly positive that they're gonna pull it off. I'm actually more worried with how Isayama's gonna end the series. Hopefully he nails it.
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Eddy564



Joined: 14 Sep 2008
Posts: 340
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:27 am Reply with quote
The Hansond Jaysond Lee wrote:
There were leaks that this season's gonna be split. 16 episodes for part 1 and x episodes for part 2 (or a possible movie to close the series). Many speculate that this split is mainly because Kingdom S3 is coming back in Spring 2021. Which make sense since AoT and Kingdom share the same time slot on NHK. (Btw, poor Kingdom got delayed for almost a year because of COVID.)

Eddy564 wrote:

As someone that’s read the manga, I feel as though a 24-episode season would be sufficient enough to cap out the series. Though they might opt to split the two cours as they’ve done in the past. That would help production considerably. But we’ll see how things are handled.

24 episodes won't be enough unless they're planning to Uprising Arc-ed this season. This season by far have the most chapters to adapt and there's little to no filler (and Isayama didn't "regret" these arcs as he did the Uprising Arc). So it should be AT LEAST longer than S1 but hopefully with S3P2's pacing. So preferably 27-30 episodes. And with the rumors that the season is gonna be split, those numbers can still be achievable.

I have no doubt that in terms of animation, MAPPA will deliver. We might get some dip in quality here and there, but let's not pretend that S3 didn't had some inconsistent animation quality throughout its airing time. I'm not crapping on WIT, but you can really tell that they were struggling hard behind the scenes to finish S3.

But I do worry about the character design consistency with MAPPA. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kyoji Asano was both the character designer and the chief animation director for the previous 3 seasons right? From what I understand, if a character designer is also the chief animation director, then the characters would look more on-model when they're moving or having expressions. WIT nailed this with the past 3 seasons. Sure the animation can be inconsistent at times, but the characters were always so well-drawn and on-model.
But this time around the character designer (Tomohiro Kishi) isn't the chief animation director. Kishi is a very talented character designer. His design for the characters that we saw in the 2nd key visual looked so detailed (especially since they aren't wearing cloaks anymore). Waaaay too detailed in fact, I can almost bet that they won't be able to maintain those details in every frames of the actual show. They gotta cut some corners with the character design. No hecking way the characters would look as good as they look in that key visual at all times. Instead of simplifying the design, Kishi went all out to make it as manga accurate as possible. It ain't gonna be pretty for the animators.

I do have faith in Hayashi as the director. Every forum/website that I visit that talks about the Final Season, they always praised Hayashi as a visionary director. And after watching Dorohedoro (and bits of Garo & Kakegurui) now I understand why. I was a big fan of Tetsuro Araki's direction in S1, I thought his bombastic, in your face directing style really fits AoT. However I do find Masashi Koizuka's direction in S2 & S3 to be lacking in a lot places. So Hayashi might just be an upgrade that we needed.

I'm not too bothered with the music. The track that Yamamoto composed for the PV was actually pretty good and Sawano will still be there. Plus we know that those two are basically buddies and has worked together numerous times. So I don't see any reason to get worried.

Bottom line, despite the staff change and all the negative rumours surrounding the hellish schedule that MAPPA's currently facing, I'm fairly positive that they're gonna pull it off. I'm actually more worried with how Isayama's gonna end the series. Hopefully he nails it.


I agree with everything you said. 24 to 30 episodes sounds suitable. I was just making speculations from a business point of view.
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Everlasting Coconut



Joined: 22 Jul 2019
Posts: 290
PostPosted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:43 am Reply with quote
The Not so Chosen One wrote:
I've been seeing this stupid tendency of trashing Wit Studio not only in this article, but almost everywhere where fans are concerned. Suddenly, everything the show was and the producers did that made it famous is utter crap since the animation will be so inferior to what Wit made, and now MAPPA is the best studio animation ever Rolling Eyes .


I apologize, but I'm a little confused... Trashing Wit Studio? Saying it's utter crap? Where in my post did I do that? o_O I was simply saying it's sad how the staff was being worked to be bone during the last stretch of the show, more so than in any other season.
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Lazy_22



Joined: 01 Dec 2020
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2020 3:36 pm Reply with quote
To be honest I just don't want the spectacular way wit does the aot eyes to change and I also want Linked Horizon to come back and do the op but that's really all. Otherwise, I'm very excited to see how it's going to turn out.
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