Parallel world Manga Artist

Chapter 343 343: The Other Side of the Sea

Mid-May. The seventh episode of Attack on Titan Season Three's second half aired.

The episode was titled White Night.

Its plot was simple in structure and devastating in execution. After the battles on both fronts concluded, Commander Erwin, pierced through the abdomen by a rock during the charge, was still clinging to life on the Beast Titan's battlefield.

On the battlefield inside the walls, Armin, whose face had been severely disfigured by the Colossal Titan's heatwave, had faint and shallow breathing but was still breathing.

However, because Reiner and the Beast Titan's controller had been retrieved by the Cart Titan, the Survey Corps had only managed to capture one prisoner from the entire operation: Bertholdt, the controller of the Colossal Titan.

Furthermore, from the aftermath of dealing with Christa's father during the Royal Government arc, only one syringe remained. One injection capable of transforming a person into a mindless Titan.

The choice placed before Levi, Eren, Mikasa, and the others was this:

Inject the serum into one person. That person would transform into a Titan, consume Bertholdt, and inherit the power of the Colossal Titan. The transformation and reversion to human form would heal all injuries in the process.

Save Commander Erwin.

Or save Armin.

The former was the strategic mastermind of the Survey Corps. The person who had conceived and executed every major operation across three seasons.

The man who had just led a suicide charge to create Levi's opening and had gone down before the halfway point.

The latter had, in the first season, devised the plan for Eren to seal the wall with his hardened Titan body. Had deduced that the Female Titan was Annie.

In the second season, had identified suspicious patterns in Reiner and the others' behaviour.

In the third season, had predicted that they might be lying in ambush inside the wall itself, a deduction that saved numerous Survey Corps soldiers before the battle began.

This was not simply a question of which character the audience's emotions leaned toward. It was a genuine and substantive choice between the strategic value these two individuals possessed, which could be weighed against each other with cold logic and still not produce a clean answer.

Just as Levi made the decision to save Commander Erwin and moved to administer the injection, the Commander, in an unconscious reflex, knocked the syringe away.

This world is hell.

Erwin had already made all his resolve. He had already left this hell. Levi stood there holding a syringe and understood, in that moment, what dragging him back would mean. Forcing him to shoulder the burden of saving humanity once more, in a world the Commander himself had already said goodbye to.

Levi's decision changed.

In this episode, Bertholdt was sacrificed. Armin was reborn from the Titan's shell under the setting sun. At the same moment Erwin's life faded away, the strongest dramatic sequence in the entire Attack on Titan anime was presented to the audience.

For the entire episode there was no fighting. There was only the inner interrogation of Eren, Mikasa, Erwin, Levi, Hange, and every remaining soldier of the Survey Corps. Each of them questioning themselves.

The cruel world of this story dissected before the audience one final time, and then Commander Erwin given his final dignity by the narrative that had built him.

After this episode aired, the discussion of Attack on Titan as a masterpiece could no longer be stopped or qualified.

The anime's reputation soared to the level of worldwide acclaim it had received in Rei's previous life, and then exceeded it. The conditions were different here. The production quality was higher. The script had been refined. The audience response was more intense than anything the original had generated.

And after this episode concluded, the chapter viewers had been waiting for since the first season finally began.

The identity of Eren's father. The forest outside the walls. The desert beyond the forest. The sea beyond the desert. The countries on the other side of the sea.

The world that Eren and the others lived in was merely a large island called Paradis.

Throughout May and June, the Attack on Titan plot moved through the memories Eren finally recovered, memories of consuming his father that had only surfaced upon encountering the items in the basement of his childhood home, and through the response of the military and civilians within the walls upon learning all of these truths.

Time moved to mid-June.

Online public opinion was praising this arc of Attack on Titan to the sky. Simultaneously, the global pre-release promotional campaign for Spirited Away, scheduled to premiere in mid-July, launched across every available channel.

Rei was not going to pass up the enormous popularity Attack on Titan currently commanded. Crossover promotional activities between the two properties had already begun. Ion TV, along with the promotional channels of both Illumination Production Company and Shirogane Animation, was fully deployed.

June. Midsummer.

Rei, who disliked air conditioning, had opened all the windows of the villa and was lying on the wooden floor, feeling the outdoor breeze move through the room.

It is almost over.

Attack on Titan Season Three would conclude the following Thursday. Then, starting next month, Seasons Four and the Final Season would begin broadcasting continuously.

For those two seasons, Rei would make targeted deletions and modifications to specific plot points that had drawn sustained criticism from fans in his previous life.

The character Gabi, for example, the young Marleyan soldier who the fan community had found particularly grating, would receive significantly less screen time and narrative ink. He understood what the original author had been attempting: constructing a symmetry, shaping Gabi into Marley's version of Eren, a child soldier whose worldview was the product of the system that produced her.

The intention was coherent. The execution had produced a character who made a specific portion of the audience actively hostile in a way that damaged the viewing experience around her scenes.

Logically she was not wrong. But anime audiences did not watch for pure logic. The people who could view any conflict from a position of perfect rational neutrality had been called saints throughout history for precisely that reason: they were exceptional to the point of being effectively nonexistent.

Since fans in his previous life had not responded well to those plot points, global fans in Japan's dimension would likely feel the same. Cut what could be cut without damaging the main storyline. Smooth the pacing. The Final Season's reputation might not decline as sharply relative to Season Three as it had in the original.

Even with the streamlined script, the entire Attack on Titan anime would need until at least the following April to conclude.

Rei felt a wave of relief move through him as he lay on the floor working through this.

The Attack on Titan serialisation had carried genuine pressure. The plot's structure was full of peaks and valleys, engaging but not always satisfying in the immediate sense. When an episode did not hit correctly, tens or even hundreds of thousands of fans would privately message him to complain.

In July, Spirited Away premieres. Next spring holiday season, the second Demon Slayer Infinity Castle film premieres. After next April, Bleach begins serialisation, and then...

He looked at the preliminary anime setting illustration drafts for Naruto that he had been organising during this period.

Bleach was fine as it was. The early art style of Naruto from his previous life felt somewhat dated by comparison. In Japan, while keeping the overall framework intact, the visual style would need to be updated to feel current rather than like a period piece.

Starting from next year or the year after, Japan's anime industry would likely enter the era of Bleach and Naruto jointly dominating the market.

The question of when he would recover his memories of One Piece with enough clarity to begin production remained open. He suspected it would not be too long.

Bleach. Naruto. One Piece.

He murmured the names softly to himself.

Then, from his position lying on the floor, he saw an emerald-green ankle-length skirt enter his field of view. Then a bright and captivating smiling face looking down at him.

"Rei."

Miyu crouched down and looked at Rei's slightly bewildered face.

"In this week's Dream Comic Journal rankings, my Reincarnation is less than thirty thousand votes behind the second-place manga."

"At this rate, it won't be long before Reincarnation rises to second place in the journal rankings."

"Huh?"

Rei immediately rolled over and sat up from the floor.

"Really?"

"Yes. There is still a gap of about a million votes from your Attack on Titan. But the gap to second place has shrunk significantly. I am not sure why."

Rei had a fairly clear idea of why.

Most likely because Attack on Titan's reputation had reached its current extraordinary level and the Dream Comic Journal fan base, aware of his relationship with Miyu, had begun paying attention to Reincarnation as an extension of their affection for him, and had started voting for it weekly. Fandom goodwill flowing sideways from one property to another adjacent one.

He did not voice this theory. It would not improve the mood.

"Then you had better be prepared," Rei said.

"Don't worry. I won't forget," Miyu said, looking at him and laughing softly. "I keep my promises. It's just getting married. No big deal."

She paused.

"But let me make this clear first. Even if I marry you, I probably won't have time for any honeymoon. If my ranking reaches second place, my goal is one and only one. Even if just once in this lifetime, I must surpass your work and take the number one spot for a week."

"It's not impossible. I'll be watching," Rei said, after a moment's thought.

"Just keep being smug. Looking down on me like that. Just wait until the day I surpass you, then you'll cry." Miyu wrinkled her nose and said this with feigned annoyance.

Rei was not actually teasing. He had meant it genuinely.

Because whether it was Bleach, which he planned to serialise after Attack on Titan concluded, or Naruto, or any of the other major long-running works he would produce in the years ahead, all of them would have periods of lower plot engagement. Stretches where the ranking reflected the arc's pacing rather than the series' overall quality.

If Miyu could identify and seize such an opportunity even once, she would have a real chance.

"But Rei..." Miyu's eyes darted around slightly as she began her next question. "Attack on Titan is your peak work, right?"

"Why ask that?"

"I want a baseline. My manga is conservatively estimated to serialise for five or six years. Your new work Bleach will likely be a direct competitor during that period. I want to know how its quality compares to Attack on Titan, and which is more interesting compared to what I am creating now."

"Hmm." Rei thought for a moment. "Don't be afraid. Just come at me with everything you have. You have a very good chance."

In terms of reputation and popularity, in Rei's previous life, Bleach had been slightly stronger than Attack on Titan in the specific metrics that mattered to long-running serialisation rankings.

"I can see the laughter in your eyes," Miyu said, reading his expression with the accuracy of someone who had known him for years. She pounced on him with indignation. "You were laughing at me in your heart just now, weren't you?"

"Absolutely not. You cannot falsely accuse me like that."

Having gradually handed more of his operational responsibilities to his subordinates, Rei had finally found time for this kind of exchange with his girlfriend. He had not come to this world purely to be a workaholic. After his company and his personal development had reached a certain level, he had begun making a deliberate effort to enjoy living, to balance work and rest properly.

If he had continued at his earlier pace, he would have already had both Attack on Titan and Bleach broadcasting simultaneously.

As time moved into mid-to-late June, Rei briefly left Tokyo to begin the nationwide promotional tour for Spirited Away.

During this period, the final episode of Attack on Titan Season Three aired smoothly.

After a year of broadcast and four seasons of dramatic plotting, the Survey Corps had finally learned the truth of the world. They knew what they were. They knew where they lived. They knew who was on the other side of the sea.

Now they acted on that knowledge.

Using Eren and Armin's Titan powers in combination, they began clearing the Titans outside the walls. This had not been attempted before, firstly because their capabilities had been insufficient, and secondly because the purpose had been unclear.

Now they knew clearly: every Titan on Paradis Island had been created by the Marley Empire injecting serum into ordinary people. The total number was finite. With Eren and Armin working together, clearing the island was a matter of time rather than possibility.

After a year of story time, Eren finally fulfilled the vow he had made six years ago.

To drive out the Titans. Every last one.

Then the Survey Corps spurred their horses.

They rode through the world outside the walls. No Titans. No ODM Gear required. Just horses and open ground and the specific quality of freedom that Eren had been trying to name since the first episode.

Forests. Deserts. Plains.

And then the edge of the island.

The sea.

The vast, boundless blue that Armin had described from his books since childhood, that had existed in Eren's imagination as the symbol of everything the walls had taken from them.

Everyone stopped.

Everyone was stunned by the sight of it.

Except Eren.

The dream he had carried since childhood was in front of him. But after inheriting the Attack Titan and as his father's memories continued surfacing, this was a view he had already seen. A memory that had been waiting inside him since he consumed his father years ago.

The final episode of Attack on Titan Season Three ended with the Survey Corps barefoot on the beach, joyfully scooping up seawater and laughing in the way that people laughed when something they had spent years fighting toward had finally become real.

Nobody present knew what Eren had already seen in his father's memories.

Armin turned to him, voice full of the specific joy of someone whose childhood dream had just been confirmed as real.

"Eren, on the other side of the walls, there really is..."

"...the sea."

Eren said it calmly. His voice carried no excitement. He was already looking past the water, toward the horizon, toward Marley on the other side with its warships and cannons and cameras and armies.

"On the other side of the sea... there is freedom."

"I've always believed that."

A pause.

"But I was wrong."

"On the other side of the sea... are enemies."

His voice had become sorrowful.

He turned back to look at his comrades. Tears were visible at the corners of his eyes. He raised his hand and pointed toward the horizon across the water.

Then he spoke the final line of dialogue of Season Three. The line that cemented Attack on Titan's masterpiece status permanently in the minds of everyone watching.

"If we kill all the enemies over there... will we finally be free?"

The story gave no answer.

The joy and excitement on the faces of the Survey Corps members faded, one by one, as the question settled over them.

What was left for the audience watching that night was only the question itself.

What is freedom. What is peace. Can these things be obtained by killing all of one's enemies.

What if, even after killing all the enemies, we still could not obtain freedom and peace?

Throughout human history, the record was one of mutual slaughter. The empires that had been overwhelmingly powerful at their peaks: had they gained freedom and peace after eliminating their enemies? Or had the elimination of one set of enemies simply revealed the next set waiting behind them?

In one brief episode, Attack on Titan had led tens of millions, and across its global broadcast potentially hundreds of millions, of anime fans worldwide into exactly this kind of contemplation.

There was no answer to such questions. Not in the anime. Not anywhere.

Even a masterpiece like Attack on Titan could only make the audience fall silent over the question tonight. That was all it could do.

But that was enough.

The epic and fatalistic quality the story had been working to convey since the first episode had been accurately transmitted to every viewer who had followed the anime to this point. The feeling arrived and settled and did not resolve, which was precisely how it was supposed to feel.

What fans felt toward Attack on Titan Season Four was not simply anticipation.

It was contemplation.

Was Shirogane-sensei hinting at the direction the story was heading?

From the struggle for survival between humans and mindless Titans, the series had escalated steadily to this: the irreconcilable generational blood feud between Paradis Island, still operating on gas-powered steam machinery, and the Marley Empire, which had already entered the industrial revolution era. Warships. Cannons. Cameras. The technology gap between the two sides was not just military. It was civilisational.

How could the blood debt of the Paradis people, enslaved and imprisoned by the First King Reiss for a hundred years with their memories altered and their history falsified, simply be wiped away?

And on the other side: how could the nations of the world who had suffered under the Eldian Empire that had once ruled everything simply accept the existence of Paradis and move forward?

The conflicts in this anime had escalated layer by layer, each season revealing that the previous season's enemy had been a surface over something deeper and more complicated. At the end of Season Three, Eren and the others had finally learned the truth of the world.

Their history was false. Fabricated by the First King Reiss to make imprisonment feel like protection.

Beyond the walls was the sea. Beyond the sea was the world, a world of powerful nations with industrial militaries and centuries of accumulated grievance against the Eldian bloodline.

Eren and the others were enemies of the entire world.

No nation on earth would permit the Eldian Empire, which had once subjugated everything under the power of the Titans, to rise again.