UPDATE April 3, 2022: The Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3 release date is confirmed for 2023. This final season could be considered Attack On Titan “Season 6” in the overall series. See the article in the link to the left for more details. The remainder of this article remains as published since the last update.
The Attack On Titan “Season 5” release date has been officially confirmed to be scheduled for January 9, 2022 (effectively January 10 at 12:05 AM JST), the Winter 2022 anime season.
The final season reportedly has 12 episodes in total, which means the finale will release in March 2022. Due to the adaptation pacing, some anime fans believe there will be a Rumbling movie or an Attack On Titan “Season 6” (Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3) to finish the story.
The Attack On Titan “Season 5” anime is on anime fans’ minds now that the second half of the final season has exploded onto our TV screens. The demand was so high that FUNimation and Crunchyroll’s servers crashed from all the people trying to watch the SnK Final Season Part 2 Episode 1 premiere.
The anime TV series picked up the Final Season again in the winter with Attack On Titan Episode 76: Sentencing (Danzai).
The OP (opening) theme song music “The Rumbling” was performed by SiM.
The ED (ending) song “Akuma no Ko” was performed by Ai Higuchi.
On December 21, 2021, the official website also released an Attack On Titan Final Season Part 2 trailer that previewed Attack On Titan 76.
First, let’s get one thing out of the way. The anime’s ending will not be titled Shingeki no Kyojin Season 5. The newest anime episodes are labeled as Attack On Titan: The Final Season, and when they say “final season,” they really mean it.
Essentially, the next part of the story is being released as Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 2, not a fifth season (or final Attack on Titan movie, as some anime news leakers previously claimed).
On October 13, 2021, the exact Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 release date was confirmed by a new trailer.
Instead of WIT Studio, the ending of the Attack On Titan anime series is being produced by animation studio MAPPA, the studio that has given us anime such as Garo, Punch Line, Yuri On Ice, Kakegurui, Inuyashiki, Banana Fish, Zombie Land Saga, Dororo, Dorohedoro, The God of High School, and Jujutsu Kaisen.
Studio MAPPA has a full plate in 2022. There’s Chainsaw Man, Jigokuraku, Dance Dance Danseur, Kakegurui Twin, and the Yuri on Ice movie.
Despite having built the AoT anime series into a success story with three seasons, WIT Studio was merely a hired contractor. Studios in that business arrangement are paid a certain amount to produce a set number of episodes, usually not decided by the studio.
The studio doesn’t share in with the financial success like the license holders, which is why in recent years, WIT Studio has been more focused on producing original works owned by them, including Netflix’s Great Pretender and the 2021 Vampire in the Garden.
By contrast, Studio MAPPA has been given a seat on the anime production committee for Attack On Titan’s final season. A committee is a group of companies invested in an anime project that shares both the risk and the rewards.
As such, MAPPA has a vested interest in making the final season as successful as possible. They should also have more control over how the story ends.
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Updated February 7, 2022: Added Spanish, Portugeuse, and English dub info.
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Updated January 10, 2022: Added OP and ED trailers.
- Updated December 21, 2021: Added last trailer video.
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Updated November 15, 2021: Added Attack On Titan Season 5 key visual.
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Updated October 13, 2021: Exact Attack On Titan Season 5 release date confirmed! Added new trailer.
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Updated August 22, 2021: Release time frame confirmed for January 2022.
- Updated March 28, 2021: Attack On Titan Season 5 release date confirmed for Winter 2022.
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Updated March 15, 2021: Added Attack On Titan Season 4 Episode 14 release date info.
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Updated December 9, 2020: Added Attack On Titan Season 4 Episode 5 release date info.
Attack On Titan “Season 5” English dub release date on Crunchyroll, FUNimation confirmed
FUNimation’s Attack On Titan Season 4 English dub was first released in Winter 2021. In early February 2022, Crunchyroll and FUNimation announced that the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 English dub release date was February 13, 2022.
Both streaming services will also be releasing the Portuguese and Spanish dubs on that day.
Toonami’s Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 dub will release on February 12, 2022.
The release dates for later dubbed episodes will be announced on FUNimation’s Dub from Home page.
Attack On Titan Season 4 director didn’t know the ending
MAPPA has been figuring out the ending on the fly.
“Right now, we don’t even know how this story will end. We’re just going to face this epic climax head-on,” MAPPA director Yuuichirou Hayashi said. “Although I say ‘final,’ we still have a long way to go, but I hope you enjoy it to the end.”
To put this quote in its context, it was printed next to artwork that was part of an official MAPPA exhibit held in Japan in late November 2020. Thus, we don’t know when exactly the director said these words and when the situation changed.
The main issue is that Attack On Titan “Season 5” will be based on the Attack On Titan manga’s ending, which wasn’t released until April 9, 2021. Manga creator Hajime Isayama teased the early draft of the final panel many months before then, but the actual ending turned out to be dramatically different from his original plans.
Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 2 anime is 12 episodes long
Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 was known in advance thanks to leaked information. In fall 2020, sound director Masafumi Mima tweeted a photo of a desk where he was apparently working on the sound work.
“I’ve received a letter from director Yuuichirou Hayashi about the song selection in the first and second episode of Attack on Titan. Based on the director’s polite response, I will have to rework, but it’s also fun work. I wonder if I will reach the director’s soul this time?” Masafumi wrote.
“The sound work of Attack on Titan is in progress!”
Sharp-eyed fans immediately noticed that Attack On Titan “Final Season Part 1” was listed. Masafumi quickly deleted the tweet, but it went viral, regardless.
On top of that, Netflix Japan also referenced “The Final Season Part 1”. Some Japanese fans even claimed they’d received a Netflix app notification with this title for the anime.
A Part 1 implies that there will be a Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 2. This wouldn’t be too unusual since the third season had a Part 2, and it wasn’t officially confirmed until the third season’s Part 1 was over.
Part 1’s ending corresponded to Chapter 116 of the manga series, which means the pacing would average less than two chapters for every episode.
Chapter 116 is a good stopping point since it resolves short-term conflicts, offers a gut-punch for a major character development moment, and the chapter’s ending happens right before a major action sequence.
With 26 chapters adapted, that leaves 23 more chapters before reaching Attack On Titan 139. In order for the pacing to remain similar, Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 would need to have around 13 to 16 episodes.
But now know we that AoT The Final Season Part 2 has 12 episodes. That leaves three options: the pacing will increase, the final chapters will be adapted by an Attack On Titan movie, or there will be a short single-cour Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3 anime TV series.
(For a more detailed analysis, please see our article that’s focused on the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 release date.)
Attack On Titan Episode 76 confirmed to continue the final season’s ending
The Attack On Titan: The Final Season episode count was initially listed as having 16 episodes by the Blu-Ray/DVD page on the official website.
What’s more, the Attack On Titan Season 4 Episode 14 release date was delayed by a small earthquake in Japan that occurred late-night on March 14, 2021. FUNimation and Crunchyroll also delayed the international streaming of the episode due to news of the earthquake interrupting local TV broadcasts in Japan. The episode (Attack On Titan Episode 73) was rescheduled to coincide with the Attack On Titan Season 4 Episode 15 release date, which meant that the two episodes were streaming back-to-back on March 21, 2021 (March 22 after midnight in Japan).
That means the final season’s finale, Attack On Titan Season 4 Episode 16, released on March 28, 2021 (or, March 29 after midnight in Japan)
The number of episodes was already known months ago thanks to anime news leakers, but the number being confirmed has caused consternation among some anime fans.
The reason they’re concerned is due to the pacing of the story. The first 90 chapters of the manga were adapted by 59 episodes, which means the anime series averaged about 1.5 chapters per episode.
Since the manga will be up to Attack on Titan Chapter 139 by the ending, there are 49 chapters left to be adapted.
Fans of both the anime and manga series would be horribly upset if MAPPA really did adapt about three chapters for every episode. Fortunately, anime news leakers claim that The Final Season will average somewhere around 1.5 to 2 chapters per episode.
In a December 2020 interview video, the director stated that he “wanted to reproduce the manga drawings as much as possible,” implying he intended to stay true to the heart of the manga’s story.
Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 2 release date: What does Winter 2022 mean?
Part 2 is a split-cour anime. What’s a “cour,” you might ask? For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a “cour” is a three-month TV broadcasting block based on the physical seasons usually composed of 10 to 13 episodes.
A “split-cour” is where a single anime season takes a multi-month break before resuming TV broadcasting. (Which is why many people will assume there will be an Attack On Titan Season 5.)
Since the third season was also a split-cour anime, it wasn’t surprising it was planned for The Final Season.
The Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 2 release date was confirmed to be next winter. But what does that mean?
Typically, when the anime industry says next Winter they mean Winter 2022, which means January 2022.
The FUNimation news blog also specifically states, “Attack on Titan Final Season Episode 76 is officially in production and will arrive during the Winter 2022 anime season.”
The 800-pound titan in the room is the odd number of episodes. The first cour released in December 2020 due to having 16 episodes. Thus, if Part 2 had a similar number of episodes (around 14 to 16 episodes) some believed the the Attack On Titan Episode 76 release date would be in December 2021.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and onsidering that FUNimation specifically stated that the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 release date is Winter 2022 it premiered in January 2022. Also, since we now know the length of the second part, that means the finale, Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 Episode 12, will be released on March 27, 2022.