The Attack On Titan Episode 88 release date is confirmed to be coming up in 2023.
Rather than an Attack On Titan: The Rumbling movie finishing the ending of the story as some had predicted, the finale of AoT Season 4 Part 2 revealed the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3 anime TV series.
The announcement was made after Attack On Titan Episode 87 was released on April 3, 2022.
The number of episodes for Attack On Titan: The Final Season Part 3 was not initially announced, but it should be a short cour.
What’s a “cour,” you might ask? For those unfamiliar with the lingo, a “cour” is a three-month block of TV broadcasting based on the physical seasons usually composed of 10 to 13 episodes.
Part 1 was 16 episodes, while Part 2 only had 12 episodes. Since Episode 87 adapted the previously skipped Chapter 123: Island Devils and Chapter 130, there are 9 manga chapters left to adapt. That’s enough content for the anime to be at least two to three hours of runtime, which means Part 3 could have around 9 episodes in total.
Attack On Titan movie ending was rumored for over a year based on the violent final act
The announcement of Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 3 was not too much of a surprise. Attack On Titan Episode 87: The Dawn of Humanity is named after manga Chapter 130, the final chapter in Volume 32.
The issue is that the manga’s ending was in Chapter 139. What’s more, the anime adaptation reordered the presentation of events and skipped the flashback arc of Chapter 123: Island Devils.
With 10 chapters left to adapt, there were only two options for finishing with a TV show: make hungry anime fans wait for Attack On Titan: The Final Season Part 3 or “pull a World Trigger anime“. The latter option would have involved announcing a surprise extension of Part 2 into Spring 2022 similar to how World Trigger Season 3 was originally announced as 12 episodes only to be unexpectedly extended into 2022 with two extra episodes.
But even way back in 2020 many anime news leakers felt that an Attack On Titan movie ending was necessary, instead. For example, Alter DAC correctly leaked the number of episodes for Part 1 (while still being wrong about the stopping point) and then directly claimed that an Attack On Titan movie ending the series is necessary.
“Public broadcasters have some strict regulations in Japan. And considering how explicitly violent the last arc is, it’s not very likely that the anime sequel will be in TV format,” he tweeted.
Does that mean Attack On Titan Episode 88 and on will be censoring the ending? Keep in mind that certain scenes of extreme violence can be censored for the Japanese TV broadcast and then shown in the eventual Blu-Ray release. Streaming platforms like Crunchyroll also do not need to censor, although they often do for certain series like Redo of Healer.
Why the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3 Episode 1 release date is in 2023
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 Attack On Titan ending as successful as possible. They should also have more control over how the story ends.
Whether the final nine chapters were adapted by an Attack On Titan: The Rumbling movie or a Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4 Part 3, the real issue was always the availability of Studio MAPPA. They’ve grown rapidly in recent years, and in early March 2022, they even announced that they’re opening a special sub-studio focused on providing CGI art for their projects.
Arguably, Studio MAPPA already has enough projects on its full plate in 2022. There’s Chainsaw Man, Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku, Dance Dance Danseur, Kakegurui Twin, Alice and Therese’s Illusion Factory, and the Yuri on Ice movie.
Considering that the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie box office in Japan broke the records previously set by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, it wasn’t surprising that the Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 release date was announced for 2023, as well. There’s also the upcoming Zombieland Saga movie about aliens that’s in the works.
Therefore, in order to keep up the animation quality by giving the “final-est” season a good production schedule, the Attack On Titan Episode 88 release date will be in mid to late 2023.