Rumors about the highly-anticipated second season of "Attack on Titan," or "Shingeki no Kyoujin" in Japan, are continuing to circulate, and this time, they've fallen on something that we've likely accepted as fact for quite some time: the content that the new season would be covering.
Originally, people had speculated that the second season of "AoT" was going to be released on April 16, which meant that it would already be airing and would have its fourth episode come out to tomorrow. According to rumors, these plans were allegedly scrapped due to a lack of story material and some strange need for an anime to always be four arcs behind the source material.
In an earlier report, it was mentioned that such rumors seemed off from the get-go because the manga series' next two arcs - "Clash of the Titans" and "Uprising" - had more than enough material to produce a 25-episode season without the need to drag anything out or add any dreaded filler episodes.
Now, a source (a fan of the series, really) on an "AoT" fan page is saying much of the same by using simple math. As he notes, the first season of the series lasted 25 episodes and adapted the first 34 chapters of the manga. If we assume that the second season would be the same length, then it would cover the next 34-36 chapters and end around chapter 70.
These 34-36 chapters cover the entirety of the "Clash of the Titans" and "Uprising" arcs, which were completed in the middle of 2015. When the first season ended, "Clash of the Titans" was in the middle of serialization, so following that logic, we know that the current "Return to Shiganshina" arc won't be serialized.
So that's that. As stated before, all indications point to the the anime covering the "Clash of the Titans" and "Uprising" arcs. Other rumors have suggested the possibility of the plot deviating from the manga but then there wouldn't be any need for articles like this, as Wit Studio could have just released anything they wanted, and more importantly, wouldn't have had to wait three years to do so.
With that said, the million dollar question is when the second season will actually air. In an interview published last month in Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, it was revealed that the season is still under production (another reason why the anime didn't air on April 16). A Summer 2016 release is also out of the question as we already knew many of the anime that would be arriving that season well in advance, notable releases that season include the second season of "Shokugeki no Souma" ("Food Wars!"), "Berserk," "Love Live! Sunshine!!" and "Koe no Katachi" ("A Silent Voice").
With that in mind, a Fall 2016 or Winter 2016 release is all but certain. If not, then we can hopefully expect it early 2017.
