Attack on Titan is barrelling towards its fourth season finale, with only one episode left to go before fans around the world watch the credits roll for one last time.
However, there is some serious speculation online that the anime will not conclude with the season 4 finale, and will produce a movie or limited-OVA series.
This is because MAPPA isn’t expected to completely adapt the entire Attack on Titan manga by the time that the now-delayed episode 87 premieres, so how many chapters are left to be covered in the TV series? Learn more here about this article.
HOW MANY CHAPTERS ARE LEFT TO ADAPT BY ATTACK ON TITAN EPISODE 87?
Attack on Titan’s television series is an anime adaptation of the hit manga series from Isayama, which began serialization back in September 2009 and ended in April 2021 with 139 chapters.
The fourth season has made a habit of adapting one complete manga chapter each episode, with two full chapters sometimes adapted into one episode if they are relatively short or dialogue-heavy.
On March 20th, episode 86 “Retrospective” was released on domestic television in Japan and internationally via streaming services; this episode adapted chapter 129 in the original manga, also titled Retrospective.
The preview trailer for episode 87 was then shared following the conclusion of this week’s episode, confirming that the title for the season 4 finale will be “The Dawn of Humanity.”
The Dawn of Humanity was chapter 130 in the manga series, released in July 2020 and part of volume 32, which launched in Japan on September 9th, 2020, and in English on December 22nd, 2020.
This means that, with the Attack on Titan season 4 finale, episode 87, set to release as the next broadcast, there are only ten manga chapters left to be adapted for TV.
WHY A FIFTH ANIME SEASON REMAINS UNLIKELY
With parts of the manga series still likely remaining to be adapted after the upcoming season 4 finale (episode 87), there are some fans online who are under the impression that a fifth season will be needed to wrap everything up.
However, a fifth season of Attack on Titan remains extremely unlikely for two major reasons; there is not enough source material for a whole season, and the promotional material always stated that season 4 would be the final TV broadcast.
Nine manga chapters remaining is a significant amount of source material, but it is nowhere near enough for a full TV season; with season 4 part 1 consisting of 16 episodes by itself.
ADAPTING THE MANGA CHAPTERS LEFT FROM SEASON 4
If Attack on Titan doesn’t continue into a fifth anime season, but still has those nine chapters left to adapt, the only choices would be a feature film or a limited-OVA run.
A limited-OVA run (Original Video Animation) would likely be several episodes that would be released over multiple weeks; think to how Arcane released on Netflix in three arcs over three weeks on Netflix for a recent example.
Not only would this solve the issue of the remaining manga chapters, but would also adhere to the fourth season being labelled as the final TV broadcast.
