Attack on Titan Director Talks About Eren’s Most Crucial Moment

The final season of Attack on Titan is in full swing, with the highly anticipated "Rumbling" in motion. Our favorite characters from the series are on their way to "save the world," and we can't wait to see what happens. In a recent interview, the final season's director, Yuichiro Hayashi, spoke about a crucial scene involving protagonist Eren Yeager.

Throughout Season 4, Eren Yeager had has a plan that presumably satisfies his ultimate goal: freedom. Initially, we all assumed that Eren planned to help Zeke Yeager euthanize all subjects of Ymir, eventually ending the Titan bloodline. However, we soon discovered that Eren had his objective, and nothing, not even death, would stop him from reaching it.

Eren's strategy was to use the power of the Founding Titan, for which he needed assistance from his older brother Zeke and his royal blood. The two brothers unite after a long journey and a full-blown attack on Paradis by Marley. However, the youngest Yeager had to die to make his way to his brother. As fans will remember, one of the most shocking scenes in the entire series was when Eren Yeager got his head blown off by Gabi Braun.

However, since Zeke catches Eren's decapitated head just before he dies, his consciousness is immediately transported to the Paths dimension. Director Yuichiro Hayashi recently went into detail about creating the popular gruesome scene. Hayashi mentioned how he "invested most of his energy" in creating the shocking scene that nearly ended our protagonist's journey at the beginning of the new season.

Speaking about the beheading and the stopping of time at that particular moment, Hayashi said:

"Actually, that scene is where I invested most of my energy. Eren's head gets chopped off...the whole sequence is like a series of slow-motion clips. In that scene, there is a moment as if time stops after his head flies off. When I read the manga, I didn't realize time had stopped. That's because the manga is a single drawing. But even in anime, it's quite difficult to hold time, and mostly they just hold the frame by separating A cell and B cell. I thought it's difficult to express it with just a single drawing."

Hayashi also explained his decision to use smoke during the scene mentioned above on the battlefield, expressing how he thought it added contrast. He said:

"Therefore, I decided to express the still moment by using smoke that fills the screen during the battle. The smoke is filling the air, but then when time stops, the cloudy sky becomes totally clear. Like a clear winter air. That's how I made the contrast...We tried all kinds of stuff in that...Everyone worked very hard and it turned out wonderful." 

Fans can check out the full interview featuring the Final season director Yuichiro Hayashi and CG producer Yusuke Tannawa below:

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