Attack on Titan Additional Pages: Good or Bad? - Tech With Tech
Attack on Titan Additional Pages: Good or Bad? (All Info)

Attack on Titan Additional Pages: Good or Bad?

By Theresa McDonough

Here’s everything about the additional pages of Attack on Titan being a good or bad thing:

The additional pages add a lot of clarity to a few moments that were too ambiguous in the original ending.

They also provide increased criticism of Eren’s extreme plan, and that is probably a good thing.

Overall, they were more positive than not, although some fans disliked changes to Mikasa’s ending.

So if you want to learn all about what makes the Attack on Titan extra pages either good or bad, then this article is for you.

Keep reading!

Attack on Titan Additional Pages: Good or Bad? (All Info)

What Is Attack on Titan?

Attack on Titan is one of the most successful manga series of all time.

For those who aren’t familiar with the medium, a manga is like a Japanese comic book.

Attack on Titan has also been adapted into an anime (a Japanese cartoon) and other media (including video games), but only the manga includes the entire story.

The extra pages are part of the manga, so that’s the only part we’ll be discussing today.

Before I get into that, the extra pages take place at the end of the story.

I can only discuss them in the presence of huge, massive spoilers.

If you’re avoiding Attack on Titan spoilers, then you need to stop reading right now.

What Are the Attack on Titan Additional Pages?

The series originally ended in June of 2021.

When the final part was rereleased as Volume 34, there were additional pages added to the very end of the story.

They all take place after the conclusion of the final battle.

In all, there were more than a dozen extra pages, but most people focus on a handful of pages that center around Mikasa and take place after the original ending.

I’ll be covering all of the extra content.

What Do the Attack on Titan Additional Pages Cover? (4 Things)

The extra pages add a bit of information to the very end of the series.

A lot of that information confirms what fans had suspected, but it’s made more certain.

In the next few sections, I’ll cover all of the differences.

After that, I’ll talk about what’s good and bad within these differences. 

That will help me justify a final verdict as to whether the additional pages are really a good or bad thing.

#1 Armin

The extra pages have a longer conversation between Eren and Armin.

In the conversation, the panels spend enough time to try to make all of Eren’s decisions and rationalizations clear.

The extra pages don’t try to justify Eren’s decisions; they just try to clarify his point of view.

In the original ending, Armin speculated that Eren might have done everything with the expectation that he and Mikasa would stop the rumbling.

In the extra pages, Eren outright says as much, so there’s no ambiguity.

Two things that people argued about before the extra pages are clarified in them.

First, Eren really was trapped in his actions by his future self.

He couldn’t go against it, and so he was never really free to choose a course of action.

Once he saw the future, he was a slave to it.

Second, Eren’s master strategy was a bit of a gambit.

Either the rumbling succeeds, and Paradis would have no more enemies, or Armin and Mikasa would stop it, earning them the good will of the rest of humanity.

In either case, it should end hostility between Eldia and the rest of the world.

Some people speculated as much from the original ending, but now there is no doubt.

#2 Mikasa

In the original ending, Mikasa visits Eren’s grave, all alone.

That’s the final panel.

In the additional pages, this is retconned. 

Mikasa still visits Eren, but this time, she has a family.

We see her visit with a husband, then with kids, and eventually with grandkids.

The last time she visits him, she needs a wheelchair, as she has obviously aged into her twilight years.

The ending actually extends after the final panel with Mikasa, and I’ll explain that in another section.

This part of the extra pages has met some of the most conflicted reception.

Some fans argue that Mikasa would never move on and start a family without Eren.

Others suggest that this is a better and more honest ending for her. 

I don’t have a strong opinion on that debate.

I’m simply telling you how the endings differ.

You can decide for yourself.

#3 Ymir

The extra panels also include more interaction between Ymir and Mikasa.

Originally, we see Ymir smile when Mikasa kills Eren.

It’s implied that Ymir is smiling because she is finally free.

And, she might also respect that Mikasa was able to make a different choice from her own.

In the extra chapters, they have a conversation, and Ymir clearly explains how Mikasa was the true agent of freedom.

Ymir chose Eren not for his own merits, but because she understood that Mikasa would kill him, end the titan curse, and finally free Ymir in the afterlife.

It’s also made extra clear that Ymir was a slave to her love, even if her relationship was unhealthy. 

#4 A New Ending

The biggest thing that came out of the extra pages is a new final ending to the saga.

Before, the series ended with Mikasa visiting Eren’s grave.

It was poignant and effective, and it was definitely a conclusion.

The extra pages didn’t just add a family to those scenes.

They expanded beyond.

The last few panels show Eren’s grave long after Mikasa passes from old age.

A modern city is built up around the tree (and it never stops growing).

Eventually, war breaks out, and the modern city is completely destroyed.

At the very end, the tree of Eren’s grave towers over a surrounding forest, and a young kid with a dog explores the area.

The kid sees an opening to the tree that looks ominously like the one Ymir found when she first discovered and absorbed the power of the titans.

This extra ending is short, but it says a lot.

The growth of the city shows that Eren’s actions really did buy peace for Paradis Island.

But, the following war shows that the peace was temporary.

Clearly, Paradis was destroyed despite his best efforts.

The final panel shows that the specter of the titans can never truly be destroyed.

The world was set to face the titan menace once again.

There’s a lot to say about this, but the big takeaway is that this ending provides a stronger condemnation of Eren’s actions.

He was the protagonist of the series, and because of that, a lot of time was spent on his rationalizations.

Despite how he might have tried to paint himself as justified, he made the wrong choice.

Genocide can’t solve problems, and ultimately, his people were destroyed because of what he did.

The final panel shows that everything he tried was undone in the end—an extremely harsh criticism that suggests all of the suffering he caused was ultimately for nothing.

Are the Attack on Titan Additional Pages Good or Bad? (2 Takes)

Now that you know what happened, let’s analyze it.

Does the extra content add value to the story or destroy an otherwise good ending?

The truth is a bit of both, so allow me to go through the good and bad aspects of the extra pages.

#1 Good Aspects of the Attack on Titan Additional Pages

In pretty much every case, the clarification added by the pages is a good thing.

After the original ending, there were a lot of fan arguments over many of these points.

Obviously, the original ending was too quick and ambiguous.

Removing that ambiguity didn’t hurt the series at all.

One of the most important changes is that the extra panels clearly show all of the titans turning back into humans.

In the original version, it wasn’t clear, and some thought that only the shifter titans reverted to their human forms.

That wasn’t the best way to end things.

Most importantly, the new ending is a harsher criticism of Eren’s actions.

The extra panels make it painfully clear that his plan didn’t save anyone.

It might have purchased a temporary peace, but that was at the cost of too many lives.

And, eventually, his home was destroyed.

Worst of all, he didn’t actually defeat the titan curse.

It just hid for a while, suggesting that the entire cycle can repeat.

Considering that Eren’s plan was massive genocide on a scale the real world has never seen, it’s probably a good thing to condemn that plan as harshly as possible.

#2 The Bad Points of the Attack on Titan Additional Pages

But, the extra pages aren’t all good.

There are a few things that drew criticism.

First, a lot of people didn’t like how Mikasa was changed.

And, it’s possible to switch to the new ending without changing her panel where she visited Eren’s grave.

Beyond that, the part with Ymir was as confusing as it was clarifying.

It showed Ymir choosing not to save Fritz (which is not what she did, historically speaking), and then she lived out her life with her daughters.

Was this just in the afterlife?

Was it a dream for her?

Did history somehow change?

It’s not clear at all.

Lastly, the new ending might be a harsher criticism of Eren’s plan, but it’s also ambiguous, and not entirely necessary.

Why does the titan curse need to endure?

You could still show the destruction of Eldia without bringing the titans back into things.

It seems like a dark ending just for the sake of it, rather than to make a strong point.

What Is the Final Verdict on the Attack on Titan Additional Pages?

Obviously, this last part is subjective.

Some people loved the extra pages.

Some people hated them.

Most readers had mixed feelings about it, and I’m certainly in that final camp.

I would say that overall, the additional pages provided more positives than negatives.

The last few chapters of the manga felt rushed, and a lot of ideas were not clearly represented.

The extra pages cleared up a lot of confusion around those ideas (like why exactly Eren made the choice he did and why Ymir put her faith in him). 

The extra pages also gave a more complete ending to the series, but that’s also the most controversial part.

I think that the post-apocalyptic ending was actually a worse place to leave the series, but it actually made a stronger point.

Like I already said, it really drives home the idea that Eren’s plan was never going to provide lasting peace, and it’s good to make that point even more abundantly clear.

After all, the writer didn’t seem to want to promote genocide as a valid solution to societal problems.

One more time for clarity, here’s the bottom line.

The extra pages weren’t perfect, but ultimately, they added more positivity to the end of the series than negativity, so I’m calling them a net good.