Board Thread:Manga/@comment-5774380-20160609000528/@comment-24407809-20160611005946

I have to say, I would also be opposed to the anime keeping Armin alive. Even if they were to keep him alive, they would either have to change the story completely to keep his existence relevant, or relegate him to "Goggles" status. In fact, there's actually a good example of this happening in the manga itself.

Has anyone else noticed how, after volume 9 of the series (in which Sasha was originally supposed to die), she hasn't really had much of an impact on the series? All she really does now is fill out group shots of Squad Levi and sometimes shoot arrows instead of using 3DMG, not to mention the fact that she completely disappeared from the story after volume 9 for the remainder of the Clash of the Titans arc. This is essentially what would happen to Armin in the anime if he were to be kept alive, but to an even larger degree. Since Isayama was writing the manga entirely on his own, with no concrete plan for the series' future, he could change the story as he wrote it to keep Sasha (semi)relevant, without compromising his work. The anime, on the other hand, has a concrete plot mapped out in the manga, and so will have to choose to either make the smart move and follow its source material, or make the... creative move of writing its own original story to keep Armin alive and relevant which will run the (extremely high) risk of being viewed as inferior to the manga, which could cause it to lose viewers (whether or not they read the manga, if fans suddenly notice a huge drop in the story's quality, they might choose to drop it).