Editor’s Note: This review was originally in the Feb. 8 “Catching You UP” newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

For the longest time, I believed that the idea of naming the greatest anime of all time was a futile exercise. Anime changes over time, and judging different eras of television would be a fruitless campaign. However, there is one anime that stands out above the rest and deserves the mantle of the best anime of all time, regardless of the era: Attack on Titan.

Attack on Titan, which is written by Hajime Isayama and is airing its final season every Sunday on Crunchyroll, centers around a boy named Eren Yeager whose home gets destroyed by man-eating titans. Seeing this, he joins the Scout regiment and vows to kill all titans. The first three seasons began as action-packed thrillers, combining heart-stopping fights and animation with what could be the greatest story told in anime. Season Four, however, turns the series on its head and solidifies the shows’ spot at the top of the anime totem pole.

Season Four takes viewers into the other side of the war between humanity (Eren) and the Titans, taking place in the fictional town of Marley. There, we see the main antagonists of the show, but in a different light. Reiner Braun, who is the Armored Titan that destroyed Eren’s home and betrayed the Scouts, is now the elder statesman of a new generation of Eldians who are set to become titans. However, the show quickly spirals into chaos as the war for humanity begins.

What makes Attack on Titan stand out from the rest is the way they build tension without having to explicitly say anything within the scene. The animation of the characters’ faces, combined with the stellar music, creates moments that live in anime watchers’ memories forever. Every little detail in the show matters in a scene, because in this anime you never know when a titan could attack.

Also, Attack on Titan builds upon the parallels that exist between the Eldians on Paradis Island and the Eldians in Marley. What Season Four does so well is to show the perspective of the Marleyans, to drive home the seriousness of this war that’s been waged. Seeing the war begin from the Marleyan side and not Paradis allows viewers to gain a perspective similar to Season One’s initial attack, but this time the sides are flipped.

This season so far for me has been a consistent hit. From the action to the storytelling, the final season is tying up all of its’ loose ends and finishing with a bang. The themes of war being a never-ending cycle, and no character being solely good brings characters that were already astounding and flips them all, creating moral questions for most anime watchers.

I think a lot of fans, across multiple fandoms, have trouble accepting greatness as it happens. We see it with the NBA and LeBron James, and we see it with the NFL and Patrick Mahomes. Don’t do this with Attack on Titan. Understand that the world will probably never see another show like this again, and there will never be another one greater than Attack on Titan, ever again.

Joseph Acosta is the Business Manager at the FAU University Press. For information regarding this story or any other stories email him at [email protected] or tweet him @acosta32_jp.