WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Attack on Titan Season 4 - The Final Season: Part 2, now streaming on Funimation, Hulu and Crunchyroll.
The world-shaking anime adaptation of Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan is finally heading toward its conclusion. Its current set of episodes has left viewers questioning everything that they know about the series, from the nature of the world that the Eldians inhabit to the motivations of the show's most central character.
However, even with so many questions hanging in the air, one puzzle in particular seems to be plaguing audiences -- is episode 87, which is set to debut within the next few days, really the conclusion of the television anime?
At first glance, the answer to this query seems relatively straightforward. Prior to the premiere of the ongoing run, the series' studio MAPPA listed Season 4, Part 2 as consisting of 12 episodes. Furthermore, while many widely popular shows like Demon Slayer have made use of extra-long episodes to either conclude or kick off storylines, as they did in the most recent "Entertainment District" arc, this does not appear to be the case with Attack on Titan.
Although there has been no such denial of an elongated finale from any official source, discussion online has pointed to Japanese television guides to corroborate the standard 25-minute timeslot. Streaming service Crunchyroll even hyped up the upcoming episode as the finale, releasing a special teaser trailer leaning into the tension of the upcoming fight to stop Eren from annihilating the outside world.
Nevertheless, the apocalypse-level struggle between Eren and his former comrades seems to warrant far more screentime than a single episode can provide. This is especially true because the episode's title, "Dawn of Humanity," correlates with a manga chapter of the same name -- one that has nine chapters of content after it. Since the show's most recent season has maintained a pace of one chapter per episode, squeezing ten full chapters into a single episode would be a massive shift in pace, no matter how long said episode is.
This has led fans to speculate about the possibility that rather than conclude the anime on television, MAPPA could be planning to finish things off with a movie instead. Recent box office hits like Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and Demon Slayer: Mugen Train have proven that anime films related to ongoing series can be just as lucrative as any other feature. That being said, neither of these two served as series finales, with the former being a prequel and the latter depicting a mid-season arc.
While there have been movies that were released after the closing of their anime series, these have typically resembled epilogues, side stories or teases for potential continuations, such as The Last: Naruto the Movie or Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Movie - Rebellion. Utilizing a movie as the true ending of a series would be fairly unprecedented, with the exception of features such as The End of Evangelion -- although even that was more of an alternate version of the televised ending rather than the definitive final act.
Another possibility is that MAPPA is planning on extending their so-called "Final Season" once more into a third part. This might sound like a somewhat misleading ploy at stringing viewers along, but it wouldn't be entirely surprising either. During the initial airing of Season 1, Part 1, there was little mention that the "Final Season" would be broken up into segments that would air a little over a year apart from each other. The remaining number of chapters could easily be enough to constitute a Part 3 on their own, especially if they include extended fight scenes and afterword material.
Whatever the resolution may be, Episode 87 is currently expected to be the final episode, at least as far as Season 4, Part 2 is concerned. Regardless of any further announcement of a continuation or decision to wrap it all up in one go, there is no word on there being more to Attack on Titan in the foreseeable future. Still, MAPPA has done an excellent job of adapting the series thus far, giving each chapter the attention and time it needs to shine. One can only hope that this upcoming episode, whatever it may be, will be treated in the same way.
