Attack on Titan: Chronicle

Humanity lives behind walls and then meets the titans that get over them. Eren loses his mother, joins the military, and discovers that he can transform too. Then it emerges that the enemy is not outside the wall but inside it. The subject is not monsters but the price of safety. The wall protects and also imprisons, and as the story advances the question of who is victim and who is perpetrator keeps changing places. The form is where the problem lies. This is not a separate film but a recap compressing the first three seasons of the series into roughly two hours. It played in Japanese cinemas in the summer of 2020, before the final season, and its purpose was to prepare the audience by reminding them. Being a recap, the loss is heavy: most supporting characters are dispatched in a single scene, the political section is almost entirely cut, and the waiting tension that is the show's greatest strength is gone. What remains legible is the main chain of events. Masashi Koizuka directs, with Yuki Kaji, Marina Inoue and Yui Ishikawa in the voice cast. Who it is for: viewers who have seen the series and want a fast refresher before the final season. Who it is not for: anyone starting here; this version does not tell the story, it summarises it, and here that difference is enormous.