Attack on Titan's final episode has a new trailer — but is it the end?

A new trailer for "Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 2" landed on October 28, 2023, and settled a question fans had been debating for months: whether the anime's ending would diverge from the manga. According to coverage from Sportskeeda, the trailer "dashes all hopes of an anime original ending," confirming the decade-long franchise would close out following the same conclusion published in the source manga.

The special was set for release on November 4, 2023, as the final installment of the franchise, per the same Sportskeeda report. The trailer showcases humanity's last stand against series protagonist-turned-antagonist Eren Yeager, who uses his powers as the Founding Titan to summon an army of the previous incarnations of the Nine Titans and turn them against both the Survey Corps and Marley's Warrior Unit.

It is not confirmed from the available reporting exactly how much runtime the final special adds beyond the manga's ending, nor which specific scenes were altered or expanded for the anime adaptation — the retrieved coverage describes the trailer's content and the fan reaction to it, not a scene-by-scene comparison to the source material.

What the trailer shows

Per Sportskeeda's account of the trailer, the climactic conflict centers on Eren's use of the Founding Titan's power to raise an army of prior Titan holders, setting up a final confrontation that pits the Survey Corps — the series' longtime protagonist faction — against a force built from Eren's own command. The outlet frames the trailer as the clearest signal yet that the anime would not soften or diverge from the manga's controversial ending, which had already been the subject of extended fan debate since the source material concluded.

Why the anime-original question mattered

Sportskeeda's reporting notes that many fans had held out hope the anime adaptation, produced by MAPPA, would deviate from the manga's ending — a hope the new trailer eliminated. The report does not name the specific studio executives or creators who made the adaptation decisions, and it is not established from the retrieved coverage whether any alternate ending was ever formally considered by the production team or whether the anime-original speculation was purely a fan theory.

US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Sportskeeda. It restores a story originally published on this site in October 2023; figures are as reported at the time.