I truly think once AoT gets to the "Marley" arc, without giving away spoilers, it is a whole different beast of a show/manga.

Here's the thing about this arc in particular. AOT was originally slated as a fast paced, vicious, fucked up cruel world where emotionless titans were eating us. That was the plot given and it was us trying to survive. There were "new" titans popping up like the armored titan, but we just assumed these things were some type of different breed.

But the story progressed and we learned PEOPLE can transform into titans.

Then we get into political warfare. The worst kind of warfare since everyone is backstabbing everyone to gain something and in the process many innocents die. This is life, both in this fictional world but very much in our world.

And AoT could have wrapped up with that in the last major arc before this one with a simple "We won our freedom and stopped the titans" for a bit.

Then we switch to overseas. To Marley. To the HUGE world that seemed almost unbelievable at first, but then in retrospect made SO much sense. And in that story we dive into the other side of things. To enslavement camps. To brainwashing. To kids like Gaby and Falco being used as pawns by a country who gives two shits about them.

And all our returning characters finally make their appearance after multiple chapters without them. Multiple years go by. And Eren has finally launched his grand plan. "Keep. Moving. Forward."

This thick Colossal edition 6 collects Eren's attack on Marley aswell as the attack back FROM Marley. Somehow, in all that chaotic fighting, multiple deaths, and amazing moments we have down to earth moments of both the past to fill in the gaps of the time skip as well as a big focus on the brothers, Zeke and Eren.

And oh my, oh my. This scene contains one of my favorite scenes of ALL time in any medium. One that made my jaw drop watching and then also reading it again here. Without spoilers it is...

"Zeke...Is that you?"

And I've been reading comics and manga a long time. I've read so many novels I feel like my brain can't even contains them. I've watched SO many anime, movies, and tv shows. And there's very few moments that I can say truly made me go "No fucking way" like this moment did.

And it's not just for shock. What follows is horrifying, sad, and extremely emotional. So well done, I couldn't believe it. And the end of this volume is finally the moment we might have been waiting for but not sure if we want it.

A 5 out of 5.