Attack on Titan‘s final season has begun streaming on Hulu, Funimation, and Crunchyroll and the English dub returns tomorrow on both Funimation and Adult Swim. With war looming, Eren’s journey is coming to an end with many characters feeling conflicted about his recent actions including Mikasa and Armin.
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Attack on Titan voice actors Bryce Papenbrook (Eren), Trina Nishimura (Mikasa), and Josh Grelle (Armin) about their characters, the series’ progression, and more.
Tyler Treese: For Attack on Titan, the manga’s obviously ahead of it and has ended. When you started this show, did you read up on the manga? Is that something you took into consideration for your performances or did you just go off the script? I know it can vary from performer to performer.
Bryce Papenbrook: Yeah, for me, I always avoid the manga when I’m working on an anime. Sometimes they don’t animate the scenes exactly the same. Sometimes there’s different things needed in certain moments. And I wouldn’t want to kind of fall in love with a scene or make a decision on a performance and then never get to do that or have to go back and change it. So my method is not to read the manga, not to look at spoilers, to go in kind of blind and blank, immerse myself in and then try to give as truthful a performance as possible, right in that moment. And even when we have the luxury of watching the subtitled version, which doesn’t happen all the time, but even when we can do that, you’re not going to say those exact words because the show goes through a process of translation and adaption. So the first time you’re seeing the script and the first time you’re saying those words is in the moment in the show. So that’s just the way that I like to go into things.
Trina Nishimura: Pretty much the same. So, I have been fortunate enough to have worked with Mike McFarland, the amazing director of Attack on Titan on a few other projects. He and I kind of decided before I had seen episode one, before we really dug in during Season One, that I wouldn’t read ahead and I wouldn’t watch anything. And in doing so, it’s a lot of what Bryce was talking about. You have the luxury of experiencing that moment with that character, and I really think that it informs the choices that I make, and that Mike makes to bring out the best performance possible. The best way that I can kind of equate it to something tangible is like, if you know that you’re going to die tomorrow at 12:02 PM, you’re going to die. Like, what are you goning to do? All of your decisions from now until then will be completely informed. But if you don’t, you’ll make totally other, totally separate decisions. I, for one, if I knew that I was going to die, knock on wood that I won’t, tomorrow at 12 p.m., I would spend the rest of my day and night eating food, like tacos and pizza and Korean barbecue, and, probably a banh mi. I think I’d have some seafood, and…that’s not important. I would eat a lot.
Josh Grelle: Same thing. I learned very early on in this, that it’s and for the same reasons that Bryce and Trina mentioned that it’s very easy as an actor that if you have…especially when working on something like anime where changes between the source material and the animated version are pretty often. You just…you’re setting yourself up to fall into a trap, every time you try to read ahead or watch ahead. Because you never know until you’re actually in the booth saying those lines and feeling everything in that moment, what the actual need of the scene is going to be until you’re there. And every time that you give yourself that information ahead of time, you run the risk of getting locked into the wrong thing before you ever even set foot in the booth. So, yeah, I much prefer to just wait. I generally try not to…back when before we even knew that we were going to be a part of the first Attack on Titan and the first season had already been pretty much completed and some of us had already watched it. But once we were working on it and going forward, I didn’t watch ahead. I didn’t read ahead for all the same reasons that Bryce and Trina mentioned.
Bryce, and I might be underselling this a bit, but in this final season, Eren’s become a bit of a dick. So how much fun is it showing this darker, more conflicted side and this new layer to this character that fans have come to really root for and relate to after so many seasons?
Bryce: Yeah. He’s very different. And to play him in such a different way, is a lot of fun for an actor. So I’m extremely lucky I get to play Eren in so many different ways. So yeah, and I’m not sure how to feel about him. He says some things that, as I’m performing them, I hate them coming out of my mouth. But I think that’s the intention at that moment to be hurtful, to say these things. I just don’t know, I don’t know how to feel about Eren at this time. I don’t know if he’s acting in a bad way or a good way. It’s that gray area that’s really interesting. But he’s definitely different, that anger that he’s had from the first three seasons, it’s still there, but it’s buried under this coldness. So he knows some things, and I don’t know all the things that Eren knows at this point, so it’s definitely interesting going into it, not knowing everything, and really trusting Mike, because he knows the show in and out very deeply. And he’s fantastic at what he does. So he’s really great at giving me bread crumbs when I need them. If I’m not understanding why Eren’s feeling a certain way in a certain moment, he’ll give me a little sample of why or what or how he’s feeling right there in that scene. So I can use that to make sure I’m performing that particular moment properly. But all of the other stuff that Eren may know that the viewers don’t know he knows, or I shouldn’t know yet, he keeps that to himself. Which, yeah, for an actor it’s very, very fun to recreate a character after so many years.
Trina Mikasa’s past has been explored a lot recently and we find out that she has this Royal heritage, which did you find most interesting about that revelation?
Trina: So in season one, the world that everyone finds themselves in, in season one, is very reminiscent of the Germanic sort of society, right? And the way that Mike explained Mikasa to me, especially during season one, is that she’s half-Asian and she’s the only half-Asian in this world and she and her mother were the last, right? So I relate to that, being half-Asian. I relate to that quite a bit. The idea of being an “other” within society, but still being half in, and half out, right? So if Mikasa was raised in such a way that she was the last of a race or people, and then to find out that not only does she have a family, and lineage, but there’s a lot of history behind that. I think as a character, she is informed by that, but that isn’t her core, right? Her core and her drive has always been her familial adopted familial unit, i.e. Armin and Eren. And so, while it’s conflicting to her because there is this new sort of group of people that relate to her and have information about her, there’s also her main drive, which is to keep her family safe, and keep Eren safe despite his best efforts, and keep Armin safe. And so, I think that like most things that deal with family stuff, it’s conflicting. But it’s something that has informed her decisions, but not changed her motivations.
Josh, Armin has changed so much since the series started. He’s become much more confident and he’s really grown into a man. Can you speak to that personal growth? Because he’s still stayed true to himself ultimately.
Josh: Right. I don’t know if I would necessarily use the moniker “man” for what Armin has grown into, because Armin, like a lot of different characters in this show, Armin is one of the many that goes against what we consider traditional gender roles. Like, even from moment one [in the first season], he was not a protector. He never wanted to be the big, strong fighter or anything like that. He wanted to build bridges between people and he wanted to nurture people, and he wanted to learn about the world and explore the world. And that love, that spirit is still within him, and that has never changed. But yes, he is a lot more confident than he was in the first season, in his own abilities and who he is. And he’s had some pretty crappy mantles forced onto his shoulder, like having to essentially replace Erwin, having to use the powers of the Colossal Titan, even though it’s the last thing someone like him would want to do. All of the pain and suffering that he’s been a part of for just having to survive. That has certainly changed him and molded him, and it’s definitely made him stronger. His armor has been forged in fire as has the armor of every single character in this show. But, the one special thing about Armin is that even through all of that, he never lost that…he doesn’t want to be fighting. He doesn’t want to be some big strong man. He just wants to explore the world in peace with everyone that he loves and to be himself and that’s, I think, the strongest part of his character of all.
Bryce, Eren’s relationship with Levi has been one of the most intriguing elements of this show. Right now, they’re really far apart and Levi feels like he was wrong to really put his trust in Eren. How do you view their current relationship and how it’s evolved over time?
Bryce: Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s always been, I would say a rocky relationship between those two ever since Eren had a nice introduction to his boot in season one [laughs]. Ever since then, I think there’s been this fear that Eren has kind of had…he’s always on edge around Levi, he’s just intimidating. But yeah, in this first part of the final season, it seems Eren is just different, and has really just stopped being afraid of him. And again, I don’t know why, but Eren definitely feels this different power, this different sense of what he’s doing, that the decisions that he’s made are the right ones. And he doesn’t really care what anyone else has to say. He’s made this decision because he has this knowledge of what should happen, and what needs to happen, and nothing will stop that drive to make that happen. So it makes Eren terrifying, and it makes him kind of less afraid of Levi at this point. Even though I’m sure Levi would be happy to introduce his boot to Eren’s face again.
Trina, an interesting theme posed throughout the final season is whether or not anybody has a choice in their role in this war, or if they’re kind of born to it. And Eren kind of says that the nature of Mikasa is just from her birthright, and it’s in her genes. So how do you feel about Mikasa dealing with Eren, and do you think she is ultimately her own person?
Trina: I think that it’s interesting to have that sort of twist in the story introduced, because it’s not just Mikasa, right? Like, everyone has something happened to them, every single character in Attack on Titan has something happen to them that affects their future and their trajectory. And as we learn more and more about Mikasa, or about Armin, or about other characters within the series, we learn more about them. But also it’s what that character does with that information that changes the trajectory of the story, right? And the moment that I think, ‘Oh, well this is what it’s going to be, or this is how it’s going to end, this is how so-and-so is going to end up,’ it’s completely different! So I don’t want to say like, yes, this was ingrained in Mikasa, but it’s something that I try not to predict. And I just hope that at the end of the series, they all get to hang out and decompress, and retire on a ranch together.
They all deserve a spa day after this, for sure. Josh, I thought one of the best scenes for Armin in that first half of the final season was when he does take that protector role, and he stands up for Mikasa and comes to blow with Eren. How was it recording that scene? And it was just such a departure and notable growth.
Josh: I think if Eren had started doing that to Mikasa even years prior, I feel like if it had gone far enough, Armin would’ve done exactly what he did in this situation. It’s just, that had never happened before, Eren and Mikasa and Armin had always been as thick as thieves. It was definitely cool to see Armin going that far for his friend, and especially against Eren, who he considers to be a brother. They are family. Armin did it 100% knowing he was about to get his ass kicked. That’s, I think, what makes it the coolest thing, is that Armin did that just to make sure Eren didn’t get away with what he was doing and knew, “Hey, that’s not cool. We’re not doing this.” Even though he knew he was going pay for it, that was an awesome, incredibly cool moment. It was really nice to see that for Armin. But I think also that that was also spurred by his own anger, not just for what Eren was saying to Mikasa, but because of the implications of what it meant of, like, “This is not my friend,” is kind of what I think Armin was sitting here feeling at that point. It’s like, “Who is this person that is sitting across from us saying these things? Because it’s not my friend, and I need to punch some sense into him,” you know? And I think he’s still right now…that is what he’s wrestling with the most in the show where we left off.
