Five years have passed since Attack on Titan closed the book on its manga story, but the argument around its ending still refuses to die. Hajime Isayama’s massively popular series officially ended on April 9, 2021, and even now, it remains one of those rare anime and manga titles that people still revisit, defend, criticise, and overanalyse.
That says a lot about how big this franchise became.
Isayama’s manga started serialization in 2009, then absolutely exploded after the anime adaptation arrived in 2013. From there, Attack on Titan became more than just another hit shonen series. It turned into a global fandom monster, and that includes Malaysia and the wider SEA anime crowd too. If you were in local anime circles during its peak years, chances are you saw nonstop debates about Eren, Levi, the basement reveal, and later, that ending.
The road to the finish was also messy behind the scenes. WIT Studio stepped away from adapting the final arc because of the tight production schedule, and the project eventually moved to MAPPA, the studio also known for titles like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. MAPPA then carried the anime through its final phase, with the adaptation wrapping up in 2023.
Story-wise, the series shifts hard after its four-year time skip. Once Eren Yeager learns the truth about the world and where the Titans really came from, Attack on Titan stops being just a survival story and becomes something much darker and more politically loaded. That final stretch is exactly where the biggest fan backlash started.
A lot of readers were unhappy with how Eren’s story ended, and many also felt there were too many plot points left hanging. At the time, the manga finale was widely treated as one of the most divisive endings in shonen. Some readers appreciated the bleak themes, while others felt the execution undercut the emotional payoff.
One scene that especially stood out was Mikasa kissing Eren’s severed head, which was clearly meant to land as tragic and emotional, but for many fans, it came off more unsettling than heartbreaking. The final arc also drew criticism for several nuanced story beats that didn’t click with everyone, plus the deaths of characters fans were deeply attached to.
Interestingly, the anime version helped cool some of that anger.
According to the source material, Isayama personally worked with MAPPA on an ending meant to feel more satisfying for viewers. By the time the anime wrapped, a few years had already passed since the manga finale, and that distance seems to have helped. On top of that, the anime added original scenes that eased some of the disappointment fans had with the manga version.
For Malaysian and SEA fans, this is probably why Attack on Titan still matters. It is not just remembered as a huge anime, but as a franchise that showed how much an adaptation can reshape public opinion. Plenty of fans here first experienced the ending through the anime rather than the manga, so their reaction may be very different from readers who lived through the 2021 fallout in real time.
What also keeps the discussion alive is the final implication that the cycle never truly ends. Even decades after Eren’s death, Paradis is still destroyed. Then a young boy and his dog find the tree where Eren was buried, now resembling the same tree tied to Ymir and the origin of Titan power. The message is hard to miss: this world may be trapped in repeating the same violence all over again, and peace is never guaranteed.
That lingering uncertainty is a big reason why fans still talk about possible sequels or spin-offs, even though Isayama has not returned with a new story.
Love it or hate it, Attack on Titan’s ending clearly did something most series never manage. It stayed in people’s heads.
Source: ComicBook Anime