The way that the narrative has developed since I stopped reading/watching is mind-blowing. I was fifteen when I was introduced to the show back in '13, and once it became apparent that there would be a significant gap between szn 1 and 2, I caught myself up on the manga. It's hilarious to think about the Beast Titan theories, among others, from back then and just how wrong we all were lmao.
I regrettably stopped keeping up with the show after season 1, but with the last season coming out I decided to hop back in like a week ago. Having caught myself up on both the anime and manga, I have to say I never could have imagined the scope or nuance that this show was going to bring to the table. When I was fifteen AoT appealed to me for two primary reasons: the dark tone and the dope fight scenes. I loved the characterization and appreciated some of the themes (although not near as many as I do with seven years of life experience under my belt), but I still treated this show as just another enjoyable shounen.
Now that I've been exposed to the War for Paradis arc, I have to say Isayama created a work of art that is capable of way more than I ever thought this show would be. I graduated college earlier this year with a English major/History minor, and SNK has been a fucking awesome way for me to continue some of the conversations that I was having in those classes. The WWI/WWII era parallels are a great dive into state-sponsored indoctrination, the pain created by the dual consciousness forced upon the Eldians, the complicity of a persecuted populace, the role/dangers of "freedom" in a connected world, and lots of other topics, while the show never lost sight of providing commentary on cyclical violence, oppression, the needs of the collective whole vs. the desires of the individuals, and all the other character-specific issues. Seeing this, especially after having pursued some of these topics on my own over the past few years, has been really rewarding.
I guess I'm only writing this to say I am super happy that I finally got reinvested in this series. It's been a ton of fun to hop on this sub and chip away at the iceberg of memes that has been building over the years, and I can't wait to be here as the rest of the anime and manga are released. Cheers to y'all, and here's to Isayama hopefully giving us some sort of silver lining after he crushes our souls in the next few chapters :')
(P.S. - the shots of Pieck laying on the couch in the last episode were adorable. That is all.)