Parallel world Manga Artist

Chapter 334: The Turning Point

February arrived with colder temperatures.

For Attack on Titan, a situation similar to what Rei had anticipated when planning the season began to manifest. A large number of fans started expressing their dissatisfaction with the Royal Government arc online.

The vast majority of anime viewers were not people who disliked political content because they failed to understand it. They disliked it because they had not come to Attack on Titan for politics.

They had come for the specific combination of world-building mystery, character work, and intense physical conflict that the first two seasons had delivered.

The third season had opened with Eren being captured, which was familiar enough that it barely registered as a complaint at this point.

The passionate fight sequences between Levi and Kenny had stabilised fan sentiment through January. Eren dropping the ball was something that had been happening from the first season onward. Everyone was accustomed to it.

The understanding that he only stepped up at genuinely critical moments was deeply ingrained. Since the protagonist had limited screen time, fans watched Levi and Mikasa’s material instead and managed.

But as February progressed, a significant portion of the narrative perspective shifted to Christa, now revealed as Historia, and her interaction with her long-absent father introduced the Reiss Family as the hidden controlling power within the walls.

The figurehead king. The nobles operating under the Reiss Family’s direction. The political standoff building between Erwin and Commander Pyxis’s military coalition and the royal family over Eren’s capture.

The fan response crystallised into a specific complaint.

Everyone came to watch Eren fight. Why has it become human infighting? Is this still Attack on Titan? This is too far from the previous two seasons’ tone.

Rei had been mentally prepared for exactly this response. No arc in an excellent long-running work could be uniformly outstanding. Fans had the right to question and the right to complain.

The anti-fans and opportunistic media outlets who took the moment to spread narratives about the Attack on Titan anime’s plot collapsing were doing what they always did when any momentary weakness appeared.

The narrative had some traction precisely because the fan community’s uncertainty was genuine.

The New Year arrived under these circumstances.

Since Rei and Miyu were effectively living together now, Misaki came to Rei’s house for the New Year gathering rather than the other way around.

At the dinner table, Miyu adopted the posture of a concerned parent and began dropping hints at regular intervals that her older sister was already thirty and that dating was something she might consider exploring.

This made Misaki considerably less happy than the New Year occasion called for.

Female mangakas, particularly those who were both talented and financially established, faced specific difficulties finding compatible partners in Japan’s manga industry.

Her younger sister had managed to establish a relationship with Rei back in high school, years before either of them had understood what they were building toward. And now that same younger sister was sitting across from her at the New Year table performing the role of concerned elder.

The sisters’ bickering followed its familiar arc and concluded when Misaki decided to redirect.

"So. When are you two actually planning to get married?"

"If things go well, probably within a year," Rei said after a moment.

"If things go well?" Misaki’s expression communicated that this answer required elaboration.

She had heard about the ranking agreement between her sister and Rei. The specific and unusual condition Miyu had set.

"Whatever the timeline," Misaki said after a pause, "Reincarnation has strong momentum right now. Setting aside your works in Japan’s anime industry entirely, it is considered a significant work on its own terms."

She looked at both of them.

"You have both actually reached this age. After your birthdays this year you will both be twenty-four. I still feel like it was yesterday when she first brought you to the house. You were wearing your school uniform. Although you were not bad-looking, the uniform itself was extraordinarily ugly."

"That did not happen. Our school uniform looked perfectly fine," Miyu said, reflexively defending the uniform before she had fully processed the rest of the statement.

Misaki gave her a look and then turned back to Rei.

"Just treat my sister well."

"Yes," Rei said. "Misaki-san, you have known me long enough to know my character."

"That is true," Misaki said, after thinking about it. "Over all these years, besides anime, the most time you have spent has been communicating and spending time with her."

"Alright, alright, it is the New Year, let us stop this," Miyu said, cutting off the direction the conversation was taking.

She raised her glass of wine and looked at both of them.

"Happy New Year. Cheers."

During the spring holiday season, Attack on Titan’s discussion volume on major forums and platforms was temporarily displaced by the promotional buzz surrounding the theatrical releases of the period.

Rei had no works entering the spring holiday film market this year. The various competing productions could be described as a hundred flowers blooming without a dominant force suppressing the field.

However, the total box office for the spring holiday week ran more than twenty percent below the equivalent period the previous year when Demon Slayer had been releasing.

The explanation was straightforward. The additional box office the previous year had been generated entirely by the ACGN fan community. That community was currently at home watching anime and playing games.

Without a Shirogane-sensei theatrical release drawing them to cinemas, a meaningful portion of them simply did not attend during the holiday period.

The timing, however, worked in the Royal Government arc’s favour. Because the spring holiday season’s general entertainment noise was covering the period, the ill-intentioned media narratives and anti-fan campaigns attempting to establish that Attack on Titan’s plot had collapsed could not gain significant traction.

The general public’s entertainment attention was elsewhere, and the specific community that cared about Attack on Titan was busy discussing the spring holiday season’s other content.

The arc coasted through its weakest section under cover of the seasonal noise.

Once the first week of the spring holiday period passed, Attack on Titan Season Three aired its sixth episode.

The bombshell world-building reveal had arrived.

This was the honest reason the Royal Government arc could not be omitted despite its pacing problems. The information delivered in its central episodes was load-bearing for everything the series intended to do in Season Three’s second half and in the final season.

Boring and important simultaneously, which was the worst combination for an arc to be and also the most difficult to manage.

Rei had restored more than eighty percent of the original plot structure despite his reservations about the political material. The essential information required the essential scenes, and the essential scenes required enough surrounding context that the reveals could land with the weight they deserved.

The sixth episode delivered.

Eren’s father had been the holder of the Attack Titan power.

Five years ago, before the events of Season One’s first episode, he had attacked the eldest daughter of the Reiss Family, Christa’s older sister, who had been the possessor of the Founding Titan power.

He had consumed her.

And had thereby obtained the power of the Founding Titan.

The person who possessed the Founding Titan’s power could command all Titans, overcome any existence with Titan powers, and even rewrite the memories and alter the perceptions of the people inside the walls.

Furthermore, the Reiss Family possessed a serum capable of turning ordinary people into Pure Titans.

And the mechanism for obtaining a Titan power was straightforward: after being transformed into a Pure Titan, consuming anyone who possessed a Titan power allowed the consumer to obtain that person’s power, recover their memories, and return to human form.

Once this framework was established, the questions that had been accumulating across two and a half seasons began receiving their answers.

Why could Eren transform into a Titan at all: five years ago, his father had found Eren, used the serum to transform him into a Pure Titan, and then allowed Eren to consume him. The power had transferred through that consumption.

Why every faction was fighting over Eren: he carried his father’s Attack Titan power and the Founding Titan power his father had obtained by consuming Christa’s older sister, who had not yet fully mastered the ability at the time.

The Founding Titan’s significance was enormous. If a member of the royal bloodline inherited it, they could directly command every Titan in existence. Eliminating Reiner’s entire faction would become a realistic possibility.

Which brought the episode to its central question: Christa, whose real name was Historia Reiss, was being asked by her father to transform into a Pure Titan, consume Eren, and reclaim the Founding Titan power for the royal bloodline.

After the episode aired, a large portion of the Attack on Titan fan community sat with their heads spinning.

"How can it be this outrageous."

"Eren actually ate his own father."

"My brain is being fried. This anime is this dark?"

"Eren is genuinely the most tragic protagonist in history. How is this acceptable."

"So Eren found out the truth and is so devastated he is not even planning to resist?"

"The Founding Titan can control the thoughts and memories of humans inside the walls. This ability is terrifying. If this is accurate, what is the point of Erwin’s coup succeeding? The royal family could simply alter his perception and the perceptions of his soldiers and make them think they are doing something pointless."

"This ability is completely overpowered."

"Wait. There is a significant problem here. At the end of Season Two, Eren used the Coordinate ability to command the Titans to attack Reiner. He is not of royal blood. How could he activate the Founding Titan’s power without royal blood? Did Shirogane-sensei retcon this?"

"That is a genuine question. Eren’s mother Carla was a commoner. Her name was not Reiss. And Eren’s father was clearly not of royal blood either, otherwise he would have been able to use the Founding Titan directly after consuming Christa’s sister. There would have been no reason to transfer it to Eren."

"This setting is exceptional."

"Exceptional? Consider the logic problems. If the Reiss Family has this ability, why have they allowed the people inside the walls to be besieged by wild Titans for a hundred years? They could simply command the Titans directly.

And why did Eren’s father sacrifice himself to give the power to a ten-year-old son? And why did Reiner’s faction dare to breach the wall knowing such an ability existed inside? Were they not afraid the Reiss Family would turn the Titans against them? One link after another in this chain does not connect."

"This is only the third season. It is not the final season. How do you know later episodes will not address these gaps? Many previous plot holes have already been filled by this episode’s revelations.

New questions have appeared, yes. But the episode also explained that the First King chose to seal humanity inside the walls and altered their memories to enforce it. The descendants have simply continued what the ancestor established. If people like Reiner had not appeared to threaten that world, they would probably have lived inside the walls indefinitely."

"If the world-building is structured this way, living enclosed with your own community, away from external conflict, sounds appealing from one angle."

"That is nonsense. The Reiss King was trapping a million subjects inside the walls, brainwashing them, keeping them alive at the minimum threshold of subsistence. They have never seen snow. Never seen the ocean. Resources perpetually scarce. What kind of governance is that? He is a king who treats his subjects as livestock kept for his own purposes."

"Is Eren not supposed to resist exactly this kind of structure? That is the entire premise of his character."

"But the practical reality is: letting Historia reclaim the Founding Titan and then commanding all Titans to destroy Reiner’s faction is the most efficient solution. Sacrificing only Eren avoids thousands of casualties. The utilitarian logic is straightforward."

"So in episode seven, what does Historia choose? Does she consume the son of the man who killed her sister? Or does her bond with Eren as a classmate override that calculation?"

"One episode and the entire direction of the plot has reversed."

"This anime is extraordinary. This world-building is at a level I did not expect."

"Most of the established settings can explain themselves so far. For the remaining gaps, we wait and see how Shirogane-sensei fills them. Please hold this quality. If Attack on Titan maintains this level through to its conclusion, it will be a masterpiece without qualification. Just please: do not let the world-building collapse in the final stages."

"This is the most dangerous moment for any long-running anime with complex world-building. How many battle anime have had their reputations destroyed at exactly this stage? When the foundational truth of the world is revealed, if the architecture was not sound from the beginning, the protagonist’s entire journey retroactively looks incoherent. The audience loses the immersion they built across years of following the story."

"The manga Blood Core from twenty years ago. The hidden mastermind villain revealed after a hundred Chapters turned out to be the protagonist’s father who had apparently died at the beginning. The grand epic collapsed into a family drama. A work that had been exceptional in its early and middle stages became something people mocked."

"Season Three’s plot is the crucial test for this anime. The themes have been laid out with real ambition. Freedom. The meaning of life. The possibility of peace.

I can only trust that Shirogane-sensei has built the architecture to support those themes all the way to the conclusion. If he has, this becomes an immortal work in Japan’s anime history."

Just one episode had been enough to make every viewer understand why the Royal Government arc existed.

If the Reiss Family had not moved against Eren themselves, forcing the confrontation, Eren would never have uncovered the truth. He would not have known the real shape of what he was fighting against.

From the declaration in the second episode: expel the Titans and reclaim human dignity and freedom.

To where the plot had arrived now.

Titans were transformed humans. Whoever had created those Titans was the actual enemy. And the million people inside the walls were living with altered memories, sealed in by the choice of a king who had decided that peaceful ignorance inside the walls was preferable to the truth.

How could the people inside the walls live in peace going forward?

The answer Eren arrived at was that he could die. As long as Historia, carrying royal blood, could inherit the Founding Titan and use it to protect everyone, his individual survival was not the priority.

The character who had spent three seasons declaring that he would fight and expel the Titans and seek freedom had arrived at a position where he was prepared to accept his own death as the solution.

The theme was constantly escalating, and the vast majority of the audience felt the epic scale of what the series had become.

The sixth episode of Attack on Titan Season Three, by single-episode rating on the major anime platforms, became the third highest since the series began airing at 9.72 points. It ranked behind only the Season Two finale where Eren had activated the Coordinate, and the two first season episodes covering the wall-plugging sequence.

Every doubt the anime had accumulated over the previous month dissolved. The media tone regarding the work turned sharply and completely. Viewership for the episode reached a new series high of 8.33 percent.

Masterpiece. God-tier world-building. Shirogane-sensei’s Attack on Titan reaches a new level in the latest episode. These phrases appeared continuously across media coverage and fan discussion.

On the major forums, the trending searches and discussion volume surrounding the spring holiday theatrical releases were displaced entirely by Attack on Titan. The film productions that had spent real money purchasing trending positions and competing for box office attention found themselves looking at this situation with a specific speechlessness.

Shirogane-sensei had not participated in the spring holiday theatrical market this year. He had not spent on promotional campaigns for the anime during this period. The work had simply continued its broadcast on its normal schedule, and its natural cultural momentum had crushed their promotional efforts without any directed effort.

Was this normal? No. But it was the established reality of operating in a market where Shirogane-sensei’s properties existed.

This year’s spring holiday season passed in this way.

The temperature began warming. Time moved into the middle of February.

Under Rei’s direction, Shirogane Animation began preparations.

The most difficult section of Attack on Titan had finally cleared. What came next was the material that had made the anime a defining work in his previous life. The plot that had earned the reputation that even the ending’s controversy could not fully erase.

The seventh episode of Season Three would deliver additional world-building and then Eren overcoming his self-denial and accepting his own ordinary humanity. Not the special power. Not the destiny. Just a person deciding that the people around him were worth fighting for regardless of what he was or was not capable of.

After that: under Commander Erwin’s leadership, the Survey Corps would march to Wall Maria. Eren would plug the breach that had stood open for five years, the wound from the first episode that had defined everything that followed.

And in that sequence, the clash between the Survey Corps and Reiner, Bertholdt, and the Beast Titan.

This was the peak arc of Attack on Titan. Not one of the high points. The peak. The section that the entire series had been building toward and that nothing that followed would surpass.

Rei had to begin preparations now.

Character figures. Merchandise. Novel adaptations. Game image copyright licensing contracts. Promotional planning. All of it needed to be in motion well before the episodes aired, because the response the arc would generate would create demand faster than a reactive production schedule could satisfy.