When the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 Episode 12 release date comes many anime fans will be expecting that the end is nigh. After all, we’ve been building up to the big seasonal finale with the expectation that Eren Yeager is finally bringing The Rumbling to the world and that this final season of the Shingeki no Kyojin anime series would end in an epic conclusion.
Instead, the title of this season’s finale, Attack On Titan Episode 87, is… The Dawn of Humanity? Where’s our Rumbling, dang it!? This is the final season, isn’t it!?
Well… no. It’s long been rumored that the story would actually be finished by an Attack On Titan: The Rumbling movie or an Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3 anime TV series. Based on the titles announced for the upcoming episodes, it’s impossible that this cour would finish the entire story.
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.
The 800-ton titan in the room is the limited number of episodes being made for this cour, Attack On Titan The Final Season Part 2. Some anime fans were hoping that Part 2 would have a similar number of episodes as Part 1 and finish the story’s ending with around 16 episodes.
Unless the anime production committee pulls a World Trigger and unexpectedly announces several more episodes at the last minute, it seems like the plan is to finish Part 2 with only 12 episodes, which leaves audiences on a cliffhanger with Eren and his wall titan marching into Marley.
It’s possible that the plan is to finish the story with an Attack On Titan movie. Otherwise, anime fans will need to wait until the Attack On Titan Episode 88 release date to begin The Rumbling in earnest.
Attack On Titan Episode 87 release date delayed
To heap disappointment upon disappointment, the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 Episode 12 release date was delayed by a bit. Thankfully, it’s not due to production problems at Studio MAPPA or anything bad that could affect the animation quality.
Instead, TV broadcaster NHK announced that the Attack On Titan Episode 87 release date was being postponed simply due to special programming conflicting with the TV schedule on March 27, 2022.
That means the Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 Episode 12 release date is delayed until April 3, 2022, the beginning of the Spring 2022 anime season.
Is Attack On Titan The Final Season Part 3 more likely than a movie?
It’s time to get out that crystal ball and analyze what we do know. An Attack On Titan: The Rumbling movie might be preferred by some anime fans, but most anime fans would probably rather watch the final story arc be adapted by an anime TV series.
But it’s also easy to see why the anime production committee would want a film adaptation since they’d hope to match the astounding financial success of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train and Jujutsu Kaizen 0. They might even beat both at the box office since anime fans would be frothing at the mouth to see the ending now that they’ve been left hanging.
The issue is the adaptation pacing of the anime series, which has been lately averaging much less than two manga chapters adapted per episode. As we all know, the manga finished the entire story in Chapter 139.
Part 2 (Attack On Titan Episode 76) picked up the story again in Volume 29: Chapter 117 – Judgement. Since the finale of Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 2 Episode 12 is Chapter 130: The Dawn of Humanity, that means the second cour adapted 14 chapters.
That leaves only nine chapters to finish the story. It’s very likely that the adaptation pacing will increase at certain points, but it’d be a perfect fit for a short, single-cour TV finale. Arguably, the ending could also be adapted by a 2-hour-plus runtime movie… or, a two-part film.
Let’s just hope the final anime adaptation does the Attack On Titan manga’s ending justice. Stay tuned!