Bryce Papenbrook, Trina Nishimura, and Josh Grelle, who voice Eren, Mikasa, and Armin in the dubbed version of Attack on Titan, divulged their most challenging scenes in the ongoing final season.
The anime series is going through what can only be described as one of the most intense and explosive seasons of television right now, but fans of the English dub are still waiting for the arrival of the first episode in the second half of season four.
Fortunately, the episode in question will release alongside this Sunday’s next outing on Crunchyroll, which is probably why the cast is doing press rounds to promote their work. In a recent chat with ScreenRant, Papenbrook, Nishimura, and Grelle discussed the darker narrative of the final season and even revealed their most challenging scene to get through.
For Grelle, who voices Armin, that scene apparently involved the moment the character destroys the Marleyan fleet with his Colossal Titan.
“It was just after he transforms in Marley into the Colossal Titan,” Grelle revealed. “And he’s sitting there looking over the destruction and all of the bodies that he just created and he’s not only feeling that and processing it, but he’s also connecting to his predecessor Bertolt in that moment and being like, I think I see why you were so high-strung. This must have been the crap you saw, too. Like it’s a rough spot for Armin right now in a lot of different ways. But he’s holding out hope for Eren still right now.”
Papenbrook, the man behind our protagonist Eren, talked about a scene that even fans can’t get through twice in a row if their lives depended on it.
“I think the most challenging moment and scene for me was the table scene where Eren is talking to Armin and Mikasa,” He says. “It wasn’t as much the performance or the lines, it was more like, it didn’t feel great to say the things that he was saying. He was just saying these horrible things. And I didn’t know why. But when I said them, I wanted them to hurt the other characters because I feel like that’s what Eren was trying to do is trying to hurt Mikasa during that scene. So saying those words didn’t feel great coming out. In fact, Mike and I both had this ‘oh’ kind of reaction every time I would deliver a line. I’m still very curious why that scene is the way it is. I’m looking forward to discovering that.”
As for everyone’s favorite Ackerman, or second-favorite Ackerman, if we’re counting Captain Levi, Nishimura had an interesting pick when talking about her most challenging scene.
“I think the most challenging line for me to record during season four was probably the rooftop scene. There was a lot going on. Emotionally and mentally when you’re an actor, you take experiences from your own life and connect that to the scene that you’re in. So I connected that moment specifically with my friend Josh, who is in a hot situation. That was definitely a challenging session. There was a lot of crying, a lot of crying. But I’m very happy how it ended. And I’m glad that everybody’s okay in real life.”
Attack on Titan will continue this Sunday with episode 81, “Thaw,” on Crunchyroll and Funimation.