Attack On Titan / Tropes A to F

Tropes for Attack on Titan
Tropes A to F (Famous Last Words) | Tropes G to L | Tropes M to R | Tropes S to Z (Wham Episode)

0-A

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:
  • The blood splatter and some 3D maneuver gear scenes are done in CG.
  • When the Colossal Titan swipes the top of the Wall in Episode 5, the effect is in very obvious CGI.
  • In Episode 5, when the soldiers are running and jumping through the city, all the houses are obviously made with CGI.
  • The red flags atop the wall in season 2 stand out this way.
  • The Colossal Titan's return in season 2 episode 6 may be the most obvious case of CGI to date especially once it grabs Ymir in its hand. Not at all helped by how poorly its proportions look when translated into a 3D model.
  • Rod Reiss' Titan form, a Titan even larger than the Colossal Titan, is also clearly computer animated outside of closeups.
  • With the switch to MAPPA for the final season, the Titans become fully CGI for most for their screen time.
• Abomination Accusation Attack: It's known that Eren is capable of turning into an abomination, the attack is against his fundamental humanity and whether he's a threat to the rest of the humans or not.
• Aborted Arc:
  • After discovering his Titan powers, Eren concocts an elaborate plan to escape from Trost and go to his basement alone. Which goes nowhere because he decides to turn himself in.
  • Petra's relationship with Levi, which was repeatedly hinted at towards the end of the 57th Expedition Arc, doesn't go anywhere because she dies.
  • At the end of the Uprising Arc, Eren receives the ability to harden and then spread his hardening and create structures. Far surpassing Annie's usage of the ability. He gets this powerup from a bottle of Titan Serum deliberately named "Armor." Your immediate thought it's that Eren can get new Titan powers from other serum types but this is a completely random occurrence that never comes up again.
  • Gabi and Falco's twin arc about who will inherit The Armored Titan from Reiner and what they'll do with it is left unfinished after Galliard is devoured by Falco. With nary a mention from either character about it.
  • Mikasa being revealed to be the last survivor of a royal Azumabito bloodline doesn't end up playing any part in the plot, despite being foreshadowed since early on.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Each member of the military dual wields blades forged with a secretive technique that makes it incredibly sharp and suited for hacking into Titans. But... they each have to carry about 12 of them, due to how easy they are to break and how quick they are to dull into uselessness.
• Abusive Parents: The series provides several different forms of parental mistreatment, and the lasting damage that results from growing up in such a dysfunctional environment. Some are portrayed as physically abusive, while others engage in emotional abuse through manipulating their children for their personal benefit.
  • Alma hated her child, hitting the girl with enough force to leave her with a bloody lip. She spent her final moments wishing she'd killed her child long ago. This lack of maternal affection left Historia/Krista with a near-suicidal need for approval.
  • Annie is a Daddy's Girl, but realizes that her relationship with her father was incredibly dysfunctional. Throughout her childhood, she was subjected to brutal Training from Hell, with very little affection. Her father eventually realized how badly he'd mistreated her, and begged her forgiveness for everything.
  • Surprisingly enough, Grisha Yeager used to be one. Only after The Dog Bites Back did he realize that he'd been selfishly using his child as a tool to further his goals, with no regard for him as a person. This remorse led to him becoming a supportive and open-minded parent later on.
  • In contrast, the mother of Reiner Braun raised him on a hefty dose of emotional manipulation and pushed him into military service for her own benefit. Her influence brings out the worst in him, causing him to hurt others in a desperate bid to make her proud. That his experiences have left him a Shell-Shocked Veteran doesn't seem to bother her, instead bragging about the "honor" that her son's accomplishments have brought her. So when she sees the Rumbling coming, she finally realizes her abusive behavior and blames herself for being another instigator to the catastrophe, and dooming her son for her own selfishness.
• The Ace: Levi Ackerman, the World's Best Warrior. To a lesser degree, Mikasa Ackerman, who is regarded as being a level above her classmates and worth 100 soldiers. Both are so much stronger than their contemporaries that Armin basically considers them humanity's ace in the hole when trying to come up with a plan to stop the Female Titan. Both have lost people dear to them in the past, and it's clear that their skill is at least a partial result of being hardened by their traumatic experiences.Turns out they both may have a literal Charles Atlas Superpower due to their racial heritage.
  • Reiner also qualifies for both tropes. He's the 2nd ranked trainee, physically strong, very brave, excels at using 3D Maneuver gear, a highly skilled fighter (though not on Mikasa's level), and exceptionally charismatic. However, he is later shown to have serious emotional and mental problems.
• Achilles' Heel: The Titans can regenerate any injury unless struck at their one weak point — the base of their necks.
  • Aside from their Healing Factor, lack of genitals and incomplete digestive tract, the Titans are anatomically identical to humans, so any attack that would debilitate a human such as taking out their eyes or Achilles Tendon would knock them down sufficiently for a while and leave them vulnerable.
  • The Armored Titan takes this even further as it has plating covering its neck and body with the only exposed points being at joints like the knees and elbows.
• Acoustic License: Characters will often have long, complicated conversations while flying around on 3DMG and galloping on horses. In real life, riding a galloping horse takes a bit of concentration, and you’d need to seriously be shouting at people riding next to you to be heard. Also in one instance, Dot Pixis gives a speech/debrief to hundreds of soldiers from atop a 50-meter-high wall. You typically need a PA system to talk to a group of even 20 people.
• Action Girl: There's more than a few tough ladies in this series, on account of the army not discriminating based on gender.
  • Mikasa stands out above all others as an insanely skilled fighter who outperforms almost everyone else on the battlefield.
  • Annie also stands out as a strong combatant and expert at hand-to-hand combat. She's also a Titan Shifter.
  • Although usually portrayed as The Ditz, Sasha deserves a mention for being the first character to have fought one-on-one against a Titan with no special equipment and lived to tell the tale.
• Action Prologue: The beginning of Episode 1 shows some Survey Corps soldiers attacking a Titan. A later scene shows that the force was decimated in the battle.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Yūki Kaji plays a teenage boy who develops serious Revenge issues after his mother dies before his eyes. Sounds familiar.
  • It's not the first time Yu Shimamura has voiced a blonde girl who ends up encasing herself in crystal.
    • Her character in Guilty Crown has feelings for a boy played by Yūki Kaji^note  Ambiguous in canon, but official parodies portray Annie as having feelings for Eren, and likewise covers herself in crystal at one point.
  • For the English dub, it's not the first time Bryce Papenbrook has played a young hero surrounded by bloodshed. ^note  Henry
    • Nor is it the first time he played somebody who has the powers of his enemies and an evil father who was barely in his life.
  • Takehito Koyasu isn't inexperienced when it comes to voicing villains infamous for their love of throwing deadly projectiles.
  • From the Latin American dub, it's not the first time Yamil Atala voices a character who ends up Eaten Alive at a later point in the story.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Several examples were incorporated into the anime adaptation.
  • Pastor Nick is briefly seen preaching about the divine nature of the Walls in Episode 1 where he wasn't introduced until Eren's trial after the battle of Trost in the manga.
  • Ymir's flashback about her childhood was depicted during the "Clash of the Titans" arc rather than after Wall Maria was reclaimed and Historia read her letter retrieved from Reiner upon his capture.
  • Eren's cryptic dream in Chapter 1 was changed from a seemingly older Mikasa telling him she'll see him later to a series of disturbing images in Episode 1 of the anime, one of which was a decapitated statue of Helos, Marley's savior who allegedly slayed the Devil of the Earth. This is a very interesting case due to Helos not being introduced in the manga until Chapter 97, more than 4 years after Episode 1 aired.
• Adaptation Distillation:
  • In the manga, Annie became Eren's mentor, to which the two grew a mutual respect and admiration for each other. This is removed from the anime and causes Eren's hesitation to accept Annie as an enemy to come a little out of nowhere. Compilation film "Wings of Freedom" and the second season include more of Eren and Annie's interactions from the manga however.
  • Forgone in the anime is Mikasa's inner monologue explaining Levi's ankle injury, so the seriousness of the injury is left a bit more vague.
• Adaptation Dye-Job:
  • Both Eren Jaeger's windows and curtains. Eren has dark brown hair and vibrant green eyes in the anime which is a clue to him being the Rogue Titan, but jet-black hair and steely grey eyes in the manga.
  • The scarf Eren gave Mikasa is red in the anime while it was black in the manga.
  • Manga illustrations gave Petra Ral light-blond hair and blue eyes. The anime however, gave her orange hair and ginger eyes. This is like to differentiate her from the other blond-haired blue-eyed characters in the series.
  • Goggles was given brown hair in the first season of the anime, but was changed to blond in the second compilation film and in the second season of the anime.
  • Zeke has white hair in the manga, yet is given blonde hair in the anime adaption.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Episode 22 of the anime expands the Survey Corps' return to Wall Rose following their 57th Expedition. The trip home is shown to be fraught with complications, and Levi's character, in particular, is further developed.
  • Episode 24 lengthens Eren's struggle with accepting Annie as an enemy, providing plenty of screen time to be dedicated to other characters like Jean and Armin, among others. It also brutalizes his and Annie's Titan fight a lot more.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: In the manga, Hange Zoe's gender is left ambiguous, with the mangaka giving only non-answers. In the anime, she's unambiguously a woman.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole:
  • In the anime, the Titan eating Eren's mother is shown intentionally breaking her spine beforehand, which makes little sense for a mindless Titan to do.
  • Episode 25 shows Levi, getting Eren out of his Titan form in his 3D Maneuver Gear after defeating Annie, despite that he had an injured leg back in Episode 22, which was emphasized several times. In the manga, he wasn't able to participate in capturing Annie because of his injury.
  • In the manga, Annie was scaling the Wall so quickly that Eren had to throw Mikasa in order to reach her. In the anime, Mikasa was somehow able to reach her all on her own (though it would appear that Annie was climbing the Wall much slower than in the manga).
  • The anime adaptation of the Uprising arc eschews or rearranges key events. In one instance, it changes Historia's motivation to reject becoming a titan and eating Eren from recalling a memory of Frieda under the Will of the First King to being motivated by her last memories of Ymir. As a result, it makes the reason why the Reiss family refused to stop the titans (in that they are essentially brainwashed into maintaining the status quo when they receive the Foundation Titan power) more unclear than it should be. It should be noted that Ishyama personally instructed WIT Studio to make changes to improve the pacing and parts of the arc he did not like.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The Wall Titans function as such once Eren activates the Rumbling. They don't even actually attack, just a massive horde of giants walking forward and crushing everything underfoot.
• Aerith and Bob: Attack on Titan has a pretty wide variety of names, as there are character names like "Bertholdt, Galliard, and Armin" alongside "Thomas, Annie, and Sasha". And then there is Dot Pixis.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Levi grabbing Hange's ponytail in Episode 9.
• After the End: The basic premise of the story is that man-eating giants known as Titans have taken over the world and the last surviving humans on the planet have been forced to hide from them behind 3 giant walls on an isolated island-country, barely knowledgeable about the world before the Titans emerged. This is later revealed to be a lie; humanity is actually carrying along just fine outside the walls, and no apocalypse has ever occurred. The Mindless Titans are, in fact, merely an effort by the mainland-nation to harass the islanders and keep them contained due to their unique ability to transform into intelligent Titans and wreck havoc. Once this is discovered, the apocalypse overtones are completely dropped and the series turns into a war story.
• All for Nothing:
  • The exposure and attempted capture of Annie end with untold casualties and the near-destruction of Stohess, and in the end her last action is to wrap herself in unbreakable crystal, meaning she can't be interrogated or studied. Erwin regards the fact that this incident proves without a doubt that there are Titan Shifters in the walls as justification, however.
  • In Chapter 107, Eren's efforts to prevent Historia from being used as a political pawn turn out to be all for nothing, as she is forced into motherhood to ensure the Royal Bloodline endures.
    • Chapter 130 actually implies that the pregnancy was planned between Eren and Historia in order to buy time specifically for Eren to be able to enact his rumbling plan and furthermore hints to the possibility of Eren himself being the father of Historia's child.
  • Played straight in the ending; the final chapter shows that despite Armin and the Survey Corps stopping the Rumbling and saving the remaining 20% of the world, the Yeagerists have ultimately taken over the military aspect of Paradis and proudly wish to finish what Eren started with the Rumbling. However, the fact that they have lost the titan powers means their military strength is weakened significantly, and the outside world is shown to be rebuilding. Additionally, Armin and the Survey Corps seek to create a peace treaty between Paradis and the outside world. The epilogue in the volume release shows that Paradis embroils itself in another war in the far future that leaves Shiganshina and possibly the island in ruins, showing that the cycle of violence did not end. And as if that wasn't enough, a kid finding the tree implies that Titans or something similar might be unleashed again.
• Alliterative Name: Armin Arlert and Floch Forster.
• All Just a Dream: The manga begins with a seemingly older Mikasa telling Eren that she'll see him later. Eren wakes up saying he had a really long dream and is mysteriously crying. The anime noticeably changed this to a sequence of various disturbing scenes including the attack on Shiganshina mere hours before it actually happened. What exactly the scene means is a matter of furious debate.
• All There in the Manual: At the end of certain chapters, an extra page goes into detail on certain aspects of the world. Examples include a roughly to scale picture of the Walls and how much area they protect and details of humanity's technology. The anime incorporates this information by displaying it during its Eye Catches.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The overall goal of the Titans, though they're more interested in devouring the humans than the base itself. A more specific instance occurs when Titans occupy the Garrison HQ during the Battle of Trost, forcing the troops to attempt to retake it so that they can refill their 3D maneuver gear gas and keep fighting.
• Almost Kiss: Though it was left pretty ambiguous it appeared that Mikasa was going in for a Now or Never Kiss with Eren in Chapter 50, before he snapped out of his despair induced freak out.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Titans seem to be this, in a feral sort of way. They devour humans for no purpose other than because they enjoy doing it, although they are little more than mindless animals incapable of morality. The Titan Shifters are complex and morally-varied characters.
  • Later revealed the Titans are trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine and their desire to eat all humans is for a chance to eat a random Shifter and regain their humanity.
• A Million Is a Statistic: In the anime, late in Episode 2, a narration is given that around 250,000 people, around 20% of the total population, are chosen to reclaim areas overtaken by the Titans. The narrator then continues that less than a hundred returned. One of the casualties is Armin's grandfather, who handed him his hat before heading out. Also in Episode 25 of the anime, the large number of civilian deaths that mostly happen off-screen are all represented by one girl seen stumbling in the streets and crying over several corpses.
  • Though those deaths actually come up later, when Eren screams at the traitors, Reiner and Bertolt, for being mass murderers, absolutely livid and disgusted at the deaths they have caused.
  • The 100+ people killed in Episode 25 come up later as well: Eren and Annie's fight was set up by the Survey Corps, and thus the residents of Stohess blame them for the destruction that the two caused. This means that the Government Conspiracy has a much easier time painting the Survey Corps as the bad guys.
  • Averted in Chapter 65 by Eren, who brings up the dead residents of Stohess District and all those random soldiers who died protecting him along with his friends.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Kingdom of Marley which resides beyond the three Walls; They practice systemic racism and exclusion against the people of Eldian descent (bonus points for the Jewish overtones of the Eldian culture and mythology), forcing them into conditions that heavily remind of the treatment of Jews during The Holocaust, including using extensive propaganda to paint them as "descendants of the Devil", forcing them to live in ghettos and making them wear an armband with the Eldian symbol. Interestingly, both Eldian and Marleyan characters have Germanic sounding names already.
  • The Yeagerists have this role for Eldians inside the walls. After the truth about the outside world is revealed, and that they plan to invade and exterminate the people of the island. The Yeagerists believe to be the master race destined to control the world, and rally after Eren Yeager, believing his powers will destroy the world outside the walls and help give rise to the New Eldian Empire. Having huge support from the population, they free Eren from prison, and execute a coup d'etat against the Military Junta, taking control of the government, gleefully executing foreigners — even those who were helping Paradis — and adopt Erwin Smith's "Dedicate your hearts!" warcry into a Sieg Heil-equivalent.
• Ambiguous Ending: Rather appropriately the series ends on one in its final chapter. After ending the Rumbling and destroying the Power of the Titans, the world is trying to recover from losing 80% of its population. On Paradis Island the remaining Yeagerists unite the island and create a unified army, meaning that it is likely a war between Paradis and the rest of the world could still happen. Annie even notes to Armin that after betraying the island they may all be killed before they can ever reach peace talks. However Armin believes that, after seeing former enemies united together in peace, it will convince the islanders to at least hear their side of the story, and the series ends on a hopeful note as our heroes move forward into an unknown future.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Combined with Title Drop in Chapter 88: "Shingeki no Kyojin" doesn't refer to the advances of Titans in general, but to "The Vanguard Titan" — the specific Titan that Eren has inherited (usually translated into English as "Attack(er) Titan" to preserve the Title Drop).
• An Arm and a Leg: This series loves this one, as dismembering is a common fate of unfortunate Red Shirts. However, due to the Healing Factor of Titan Shifters, dismemberment is usually regarded as Only a Flesh Wound for them.
  • Eren loses one of each in the Battle of Trost. They get better.
  • Ymir similarly loses an arm and a leg at Castle Utgard.
  • Reiner loses one arm and gets the other one horribly mangled when Mikasa tries to kill him after he blows his cover.
  • After kidnapping Eren, Reiner dismembers him to prevent him from escaping or shifting. He claims it was an accident and apologizes for it.
  • Erwin loses his right arm in battle, and still shows up later to rescue Eren. And seeing how he's the only member of this list who isn't a Titan Shifter, this has much greater repercussions than the others.
  • Zeke's encounters with Levi usually end up this way.
  • In Marley, Eren poses as a one-legged amputee. According to Isayama, he chopped his own leg off.
  • Galliard cuts Pieck's hand off to free her from handcuffs. Considering her reaction, she didn't expect it to be so painful.
  • When Galliard bites off Eren's legs, however, the latter just looks angry.
• Anachronic Order: The manga starts in 845 with the fall of Shiganshina, then a Time Skip rapidly takes us in 850 for the Battle of Trost. When it's over, we go back to 847 to follow the training of the 104th trainee corps, before switching back to 850, in the direct aftermath of the battle. The anime, however, tells the events in chronological order, which is generally considered an improvement, since we get to know the main cast before they are thrown into a deadly battle.
• Ancient Conspiracy:
  • The Wall Cult knows more about the Titans than the rest of humanity, including that the Walls protecting them from Titans are composed of other Titans.
  • There's a reason the government discourages going outside the walls, and that all information of the outside world is heavily censored.
  • King Fritz is just a powerless Puppet King, the real rulers of the Walls are a minor noble family, the Reiss.
  • It has been repeatedly stated by official sources that the rest of humanity has been devoured by Titans. It's all a lie.
• And I Must Scream: According to Ymir, what it feels like to be a (mostly) mindless Titan. Before the events of the story, she has spent 60 years stuck as a normal Titan.
  • Annie Leonhart remained conscious while hibernating inside her crystal cocoon for 4 years. Later, she thanks Armin and Hitch for occasionally visiting.
  • And then there is Ymir Fritz who waited for 2000 years in the World of the path for someone to free her.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: And Then Eren Was A Titan. This is the first of many shocking revelations in the series.
• Animal Motifs: A broader example than most; humanity is domesticated livestock and the Titans are predators. The thematic goal of the protagonists (as evidenced by Eren's Meaningful Name) is to become hunters, capable of fighting and living free rather than being shut up inside a pen, only as safe as their keepers allow. ''Feuerroter Pfeil und Bogen " has a variety of animal metaphors in its lyrics along the same lines.
  • These themes are made explicit in a couple of cases; Annie is muzzled like a wolf, while Lord Balto, who spends his days in 'luxurious delight' and is seen scarfing down canapes while playing chess with Commander Pixis, and insists the latter make protecting his mansion a priority, is a fat pig.
  • They're coming back with Captain Ackerman — Ackerman meaning "farmer" — and his task force possibly being the "farmers" who domesticate humanity. It enforces the motif of humanity being animals.
  • The dub changes the famous "lived in fear of the Titans" line to "In our hearts, we knew: Home was a pen. Humanity: cattle.
• Antagonist Title: The titular Titans are the main antagonists of the series, at least until the Uprising arc, when the Royal Government serves as the main antagonistic group. The Return to Shiganshina arc focuses on the Titans again, but things change once more after The Reveal in the basement. The title also doubles as a Protagonist Title, as "Shingeki no Kyojin" is the Japanese name of Eren's Attack Titan, which in turn becomes an Antagonist Title when Eren emerges as the Big Bad and Final Boss for the series.
• Anyone Can Die:
  • Before the series' fame took off, it notably subverted expectations of this trope — while it seems like the brash, idealistic hero dies early on, it turns into a rather shocking Our Hero Is Dead scenario instead of the bleak implication that the other protagonists were left with nothing to live for except for a suicidal final charge.
  • The series' specialty is introducing new characters, and slaughtering them later in the same arc. Though the 104th members (that survive Trost) seem to be pretty safe, noted for having some luck.
  • By the Return to Shiganshina arc onward, the series makes it clear that the 104th members are no longer safe. At the conclusion of the Return to Shiganshina arc, Bertholdt is Eaten Alive by a titanized Armin, Ymir is Killed Offscreen during the Time Skip by also being Eaten Alive by Porco so that he can gain the powers of the Jaw Titan, and Sasha is shot dead by Gabi near the conclusion of the Marley arc. Later on, Eren himself states the Attack Titan lineage ends with him, so it's up on air.
    • Later, Hange and Floch die when attempting to stop/continue the Rumbling, Zeke dies at the hands of Levi to stop the Rumbling once and for all, and Eren dies at the hands of Mikasa after he attempts to restart the Rumbling.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: The humans think Titans are like this, since they never attack each other. Until the Rogue Titan shows up anyway. Also gets subverted in other ways: the Titan spies kill their own kind to keep to their disguises and the Female Titan specifically summons a large number of Titans to consume her Titan body and escape in human form. In Chapter 50, we also discover that Eren not only has the power to transform into a Titan, but also direct them to attack certain specific targets, including normal Titans. Ymir then realizes that this is the reason that the Titan Shifters, those who can also transform into Titans, are so hellbent on capturing him alive.
• Apocalypse How: A little over a century ago, the Titans appeared and nearly drove humanity to extinction. A few hundred-thousand remain within the Walls, and face the constant threat of complete annihilation should the remaining Walls break. Mikasa's mother may have been the last Asian left, hinting that entire ethnic groups may have been wiped out completely by the Titans. Information about the Outside World is banned, making it impossible to know how much of the previous society was lost as a result of the survivors being forced into hiding. The revelation that Annie, Reiner, Bertolt, and Ymir come from outside the Walls suggests the possibility that other human settlements survive outside the Walls.
  • When Grisha's basement is opened, some of its secret contents include a photograph. Then his notes reveal that not only did he come from outside the walls, where he had a family, but out there, humanity is thriving.
  • If unbound, the Wall Titans, would cause a Class 4 or maybe even a Class 5 Apocalypse. When Eren unleashes the Wall Titans, he manages to kill 80% of the world's population as well as most forests and environments before the Survey Corps stop him, causing a Class 1.
• Apocalyptic Log: Played straight, in a side chapter, a Survey Corps soldier, Ilse, keeps writing in her journal even as a Titan is about to eat her.
• Appropriated Appellation: When a Marleyan officer refered to the tea the Eldians offered him as "pig's piss", Levi jokingly offered "pig's piss" to the next Marleyan soldiers they caught attacking the island.
• Arc Villain:
  • Fall of Shinganshina Arc: The Colossal Titan (later revealed to be Bertolt Hoover), being the one who (literally) kickstarted the Fall of Shinganshina (as well as the main events of the series). The Armored Titan (later revealed to be Reiner Braun) can also be seen as this, though his actions are far less damaging than the former.
  • Battle of Trost Arc: The Colossal Titan returns, creating a hole in Wall Rose (which leads to the Pure Titans invading the Trost District). The Colossal Titan's holder, Bertolt Hoover, also plays a role in Marco Bott's death.
  • Female Titan Arc: The Female Titan (later revealed to be Annie Leonhart).
  • Clash of the Titans Arc: The arc kicks off with the Beast Titan (later revealed to be Zeke Yeager), a mysterious Titan who has command over the Pure Titans (later revealed to be Titanized citizens of Rakago, Connie's hometown) that invade Wall Rose. He mysteriously leaves after the battle at Castle Utgard, making room for Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover to reveal themselves as the Armored and Colossal Titans respectively, becoming the main antagonists for the rest of the arc (and the rest of the Season 2 anime).
  • Royal Government Arc: Kenny Ackerman and his Anti-personnel squad, the former being Levi's uncle and former guardian. They are all subordinates to Rod Reiss, the true king of the walls (though Kenny has his own agenda of claiming the Founding Titan for himself). Rod Reiss becomes the final boss of the arc after consuming the Titan serum and transforming into a 120m abnormal Titan.
  • Return to Shinganshina Arc: The Warriors make a return, with Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan and the war chief of the unit, leading the charge. While Zeke is occupied with Erwin, Levi, and the newly recruited members of the Survey Corps, Reiner and Bertolt becomes the main opponents to the core members of the 104th Training Corps. This arc also introduces the Cart Titan (lated revealed to be Pieck Finger), who mainly acts as a scout to the Warriors and Zeke's main source of backup.
    • Grisha's backstory reveals the looming threat of Marley beyond the walls and their hatred towards Eldia, with Sergeant Major Gross being the absolute worst of their atrocities toward the Eldians. The latter serves as Grisha's main antagonist, being the one directly responsible for feeding Faye to the dogs and titanizing most of the Eldian Restorationalists.
  • Marley Arc: On the Eldians' point-of-view, it's Willy Tybur, being the true de-facto commander-in-chief of Marley and the one who rallies all the nations together against Eren Yeager and the Paradis Eldians. On the Marleyans' point-of-view, it's Eren himself who instigates an attack on Liberio after Willy declares him as the enemy (albeit with the help of the Survey Corps and his half-brother, Zeke).
  • War for Paradis Arc: The final arc turns into a Big Bad Ensemble between Zeke Yeager and his Anti-Marleyean Volunteers (commanded by Yelena), the remaining Marlyean forces (led by Theo Magath and Reiner Braun), and a faction of Paradis Eldians (the Yeagerists) led by Eren Yeager and Floch Forster. After making contact with Zeke and unlocking the Founding Titan's true potential, Eren himself becomes the series' Big Bad and Final Boss, pulling a series of events (through the use of the Attack Titan's power) to instigate the Rumbling and raze a vast majority of the world's nations, so that his comrades (who disagree with his beliefs) would defeat him and be hailed as heroes, ensuring the safety of Paradis Island.
    • Ymir Fritz's backstory reveals the man responsible for the entire events of the series: the original King Karl Fritz, who uses her as a weapon to establish the Eldian Empire for HIS own glory.
• Arc Words:
  • "If you don't fight, you can't win!"
  • "Because [you / he] was born into this world."
  • Armin's words ring out multiple times during episodes 24 and 25:
    To rise above monsters, we must abandon humanity. What we fight, we become.
  • Key words relevant to each arc:
    • The Battle of Trost: "Human."
    • The Female Titan: "Trust" and "Regret."
    • Clash of the Titans: "Identity."
    • Uprising: "Power" and "Will" as well as "Memory."
• Armchair Military: Averted by Commander Erwin. He rides out with his Survey Corps on its expeditions and when we finally see him in combat, it's clear he's not commander for his tactical genius alone.
• Armor-Piercing Attack:
  • Thunder Spears were developed specifically against the Armored Titan by the Scout Regiment, which could penetrate its armor before exploding.
  • Anti-Titan Artillery was developed by the Mid-East Allied Forces to combat titans. It is also effective against the before-mentioned Armored Titan.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • By Historia:
    Father... why didn't... my older sister fight?
  • Erwin remembers asking a question to his father who was a teacher, when he was a boy at school, his father responded to him in private that he didn't have an answer to that but he'll try to find out. A few days after, his father was "disappeared" by the government, and several chapters later we learn what the question was:
    Erwin: How do we know humanity is extinct beyond the walls?
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Eren's reasons to turn into a Titan: Kill the Titans, block the cannonball, move the boulder, pick up the spoon. That last one isn't intentional.
• Art Evolution:
  • As time goes on, the manga's art starts to get steadily more detailed and the action scenes start getting better, as well as the art of drawing faces.
  • The first volume was a massive improvement over the pilot, in which Isayama said "this was made when I didn't know how to use a pen".
  • Reiner's face probably changed the most over the course of the story. His face started out rather round and thuggish looking, but eventually became longer and more rugged looking as the story continued.
  • The anime also underwent some shifts in style as it progressed. Season 1 has a very distinctive style of Thick-Line Animation that later seasons would tone down. The shift from WIT Studio to MAPPA also brought about some changes in art style, giving the series a darker color palette and reducing the outlines even more.
• Artistic License – Biology: There are some interpretations (both out and in-universe) of The Rumbling wiping out 80% of not just the world's land-based life, but also cellular life as well. This has to blatantly ignore the giant that are the oceans, which is calculated to contain at least 50% of all overall life at minimum. Even when taking the heat given off by the Wall Titans into account, any marine life would've sensed the heat and long swam hundreds of meters down. Not only that, the Titans themselves didn't exactly stay in the ocean long enough as they were more focused on getting to shores to cause any long-term damage.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • The operation of the 3DMG is given enough plausible detail to make it seem reasonably realistic. What is not realistic is the gas-powered hooks, which are apparently able to embed themselves deep enough into solid rock to support a human being accelerating to high speeds from several dozen metres away. As is also common with depictions of grappling-hook-type devices in fiction, characters seem to ignore the effects of gravity; they can fly horizontally for a seemingly indefinite time, change direction mid-air without re-tethering, and all sorts of other shenanigans.
  • Levi, on the other hand, totally ignores the laws of physics when on the Titan-slaughtering warpath. Levi's Charles Atlas Superpower allows him to completely shred normal Titans with little effort, utilising a spinning-blade attack that turns his two outstretched blades into a whirling saw of death, and totally ignores the fact that this action would twist and tangle the manuoeuvring gear's cables.
• Art Shift: The ending credits appears to be hand drawn and includes a stylistic use of Limited Animation.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Marlowe Freudenberg first appears as a colleague of Annie Leonhart in the Military Police, he is introduced as an idealistic rookie to contrast with how corrupt the Military Police actually is. He has a secondary role in helping the Survey Corps during the Uprising Arc and joins the Survey Corps and the main cast during the Battle of Shiganshina arc. Ultimately Subverted as he ends up as a dead Red Shirt during the suicide charge against the Beast Titan. The actual Ascended Extra is his squadmate Floch Forster instead.
  • Floch Forster starts off as a nameless extra stated to be former comrades of the main cast in the 104th Trainee Corps with some lines to show how the main cast has grown and developed over the course of the story and he is set as a minor Red Shirt in the Battle of Shiganshina, only to end up one of the very few survivors, and after the Time Skip the secondary villain, as he forms the Yeagerists, overthrows the military junta and becomes The Dragon for Eren Yeagar.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Many people liked to make fun of how Armin and Christa looked very similar. Come Chapter 53, he has to dress up as Christa while Jean is dressed as Eren again in order to lure out a group of kidnappers.
  • Funimation decided to keep in Levi's "Big-ass trees" line from the subs that reached memetic levels in episode 18.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Only the best students are allowed to join the "prestigious" Military Police Brigade that guards the innermost Wall and the King. Therefore, the most skilled, in training anyway, soldiers are placed in a position of authority farthest from any actual fighting, while those less capable are more likely to be on the front lines. This situation is actually well known, and most who hone their skills high enough to be able to get the position were doing so just to be placed in a safe life. Eren bitterly notes the disconnect.
  • Adding to this, since hand-to-hand combat skills aren't valued as highly as 3D Maneuver Gear piloting, students who want to join the Military Police Brigade prioritize 3D Maneuver Gear training over melee combat training. This means that the soldiers who would be expected to fight human-sized opponents more often are actually the least qualified ones to do so.
• As You Know: Mostly averted since the 104th Trainee Corps would logically have explained things to them for the first time during training and at the start of service in their branch. At one point, though, the Drill Sergeant Nasty yells at Connie for screwing up the salute ("I've already explained to you that the salute represents..."). Going by what it represents (see Strange Salute) he likely thought his heart was on the right side of his chest.
• Ate His Gun: In Episode 7, four soldiers are trapped inside a building with a Titan staring at them through the window. One of them is cleaning and reloading his gun. As he finishes, one of the female soldiers asks what good that'll do at this point. He turns the gun on his mouth, then fires.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: while observing the battle against the Beast Titan at Shiganshina District Erwin Smith imagines himself over all the comrades he lost during the years.
• Atrocity Montage: The entirety of Fritz's reign of the Eldian Empire, ranging from pillaging a nearby village and enslaving its inhabitants (including Ymir Fritz), hunting down Ymir Fritz for sport after the latter releases a pig out in the open, uses Ymir's titan form to ravage all nations in building his empire, using Ymir herself as a concubine for his children, and having his daughters eat Ymir's corpse upon the latter's death from a Marleyan soldier.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Pretty much a sure-fire way to get everyone killed, but, nevertheless, Erwin uses this tactic when trying to retrieve Eren in Chapter 49 despite losing his arm.
  • This pretty much sums up Keith Shadris’ strategy while head of the Survey Corp. This pretty much explains why the Survey Corp is now filled with eccentrics: by the time of the first chapter / episode, all the non-eccentrics are dead.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The show could be called Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Whatever: The Series, to put it simply. True to form, the typical Titan is a humanoid creature about 50 feet tall, being described in the series as 15 meters. Some can grow to be hundreds of feet tall and there are several smaller variations, though even the "tiniest" Titan will still be about 9 feet tall (3 meters).
• Attack Its Weak Point: The only way to put a Titan down for good is to destroy or carve out the base of its neck. Even destroying their head won't kill them. Later in the story, it's hinted that this is the weak point because that's where the pilot goes.
  • The Armored Titan is nearly impossible to put down thanks to its armor, which is strong enough to shrug off cannon fire though its joints are left vulnerable so it can move
• Attack Pattern Alpha: The Special Operations Squad of the Survey Corps conducts a series of perfectly coordinated and precise strikes on the Female Titan with minimal spoken communication.
• Author Appeal: There's a clear love of MMA in this series. Several of the rejected volume covers are of Mikasa in MMA stances. It was taken up to eleven when Eren was fighting Reiner, Eren was using locks and holds. In general, he draws characters with lean, athletic builds for all genders.
• Automaton Horses: The Survey Corps expeditions involve an unflagging gallop for hours. Given a Hand Wave that the horses have been specially bred for speed and endurance. Good thing too, they're the only way to escape a Titan on open terrain.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Chapter 69 has Historia crowned the new queen within the Walls.

B

• Badass Adorable:
  • Krista, who is the idol of the 104th and one of the top graduates.
  • Armin, though his badassery can be debatable at times, his adorableness cannot be denied. Asides from saving Jean's life, becoming a renowned tactician, and other countless events, Armin attempting to sacrifice himself so Eren can take down the Colossal Titan is what really cements his badassery.
  • Gabi also counts, as she's a 12-year-old girl who shows no fear when going up against her enemies and has similar Determinator levels to Eren.
• Badass Army: Few armies can be more badass than a legion of dual-wielding, building-swinging swordsmen. Some of them have already killed dozens of Titans, and even so they are losing ground, because when fighting dozens of 50-foot-tall quasi-indestructible man-eaters, it only takes one mistake or one stroke of bad luck to wind up suffering a gruesome death. When fighting the intelligent ones, it gets much worse.
• Badass Cape: The Survey Corps cloak is dark green and has their insignia on it. A powerful scene is the Trainees that select Survey Corps putting theirs on for the first time.
• Badass Creed: Right there in the first line of the theme: "Are you the prey? No, we are the hunters!"
• Badass Normal: Sasha as mentioned above. Many characters die fighting the Titans even with special equipment like the 3D Maneuver Gear. She takes on one first with a hatchet and then with a bow and arrows, managing to wound it enough to rescue the young girl it was attacking.
• The Bait: Standard operating procedure is for one group to distract a Titan while another (which is usually more skilled) goes for the kill. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It comes up again when Mikasa ends up being the decoy against the Female Titan as Levi demonstrates exactly why he's Humanity's Finest.
  • Used by Armin to deal with the Titans invading the supply depot.
  • This is the primary role of the surviving soldiers during the mission in Trost, luring Titans to the opposite side of the city in order to clear the way for the elite team. Quite a few soldiers are killed as a direct result.
  • Once the 57th Exterior Scouting Expedition reaches the forest, the outer regiments of the formation are ordered to climb high into the trees and just do nothing. It becomes obvious to them fairly fast.
  • This turns out to have been Eren's true role in the 57th Expedition, with Erwin secretly using him to lure out the Titan Shifters infiltrating the military.
  • Eren and Christa both seem to serve this purpose during Chapter 53. They're used to lure out the enemy faction hiding within the Walls who are bent on their capture—Eren because he's a Titan Shifter, Krista because she's the illegitimate child of an influential member of the Wall Cult. When the kidnappers make their move, Levi and the 104th manage to follow them. Not only that, they didn't even get Christa and Eren! It was Armin and Jean disguised as them!
  • Erwin and Armin do this in Chapter 80. Erwin leads the remnants of the Survey Corps' expedition against the Beast Titan (which are all new recruits) on a Suicide Attack to distract him so Levi can swing over to him on his nearby Titan entourage, and is killed by the Beast Titan flinging torn boulders at the charge like shrapnel shot. Armin embeds his 3DMG's anchors in the Colossal Titan's teeth as the Colossal Titan superheats himself while Eren hardens and evacuates his Titan's body to make it appear as if Eren's barely conscious and out of the fight, giving Eren time to get over to the Colossal Titan's back. Armin is crisped from the event such that his upper body's clothing and hair are totally burnt away.
  • Willy Tybur makes himself the bait during the Liberio festival.
• Bait-and-Switch: Though not many people catch on to it given that the Female Titan's true identity is bordering on It Was His Sled levels, the chapter just after Reiner, Armin, and Jean have their skirmish with her manage to set one up. Christa physically resembles the Female Titan to an extreme degree, having her abnormally short height, same blonde hair, and same blue eyes. She returns with Jean's horse from the same direction in which the Female Titan sent it flying earlier, and unlike Annie, she doesn't have the coverup of being in the Military Police, rather being directly in the thick of the action and being much easier to suspect because of this. The boys don't catch on to this, but it doesn't matter because Christa is accounted for later when the Female Titan attacks again and because Reiner knew it wasn't her anyway.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The first opening features the process of Eren skillfully using his Maneuver Gear to close in on a Titan and single-handedly kill it. This happens exactly 0 times during the first series since he gets eaten very quickly while Maneuvering in his first battle. Afterwards, all his Titan slaying is done as a Titan! The first time he kills a Titan as a human is at Castle Utgard, which happens much later in the story though the first opening implies he starts doing that at Trost.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Titans. In this case, it's justified because it's not a matter of censorship—Titans just don't have any reproductive organs or secondary sexual characteristics.
• Bastard Angst: There's Krista Lenz, aka Historia Reiss who's the illegitimate child of the most powerful nobleman in the series. Because of this, the character was sent to away and grew up isolated and lonely, with the few neighbors acting cruel — to say nothing of the character's mother showing nothing but hatred for them, all the way until her traumatic death. After all that, said character joined the military under a false name in order to get away. Although they're kind and nice, other characters note that the character's actions seem deliberately suicidal than outright helpful, and point out that they only joined the military looking for a glorious way to die.
  • Reiner Braun also goes through some of this, as his parents had a forbidden relationship and his reason for becoming a Marleyan warrior was to try and make it so that he and his parents could live happily together.
• Batman Gambit: Erwin's speech to the graduating recruits is this. First, he hints at some vital information of the Survey Corps upcoming plans to eradicate the Titans once and for all. Then, he bluntly rattles off the Corps absurdly high mortality rates and how the recruits are almost certain to be eaten be Titans. The first piece of information is to bait any Titan Shifters hiding out within the recruits into the Survey Corps, the second weeds out almost anyone who isn't a mole.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. Many of the female soldiers are fairly attractive but if a Titan gets hold of them though, then they're messily devoured like everyone else.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Many characters eagerly wish for something only to recoil in horror when they get it, but the most prominent meta example has to be when Marley manages to con the remaining nations of the world into total war upon Paradis. As the attendees are chanting "War! War! War!", out pops Titan Eren, who eats Wilbur, the Agent Provocateur, and then goes totally apeshit on the audience. As they're fleeing, the world leaders who were chanting "War! War!" cry out "Why did war start all of a sudden?"
  • Another example is where Historia stated she would want the entire humanity to go extinct if it meant saving Eren. Later Eren masterminds the Rumbling which he states to eradicate most of Humanity, if not completely. Eren himself reminds Historia of her statement, and needless to say, she is not amused.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • The reason the Female Titan spares Armin.
  • Krista wins over many, many people this way. Lampshaded when, in a flashback scene, Ymir calls her out on her excessive need to give others what they want from her.
  • The reason why Ymir Fritz gave Eren full control of the Coordinate.
• Becoming the Mask: Played with in various ways.
  • Annie ends up befriending several of her comrades, and is unable to kill them as a result. This ends up coming back to bite her, resulting in her ultimate defeat.
  • Bertolt seemingly averts it at first, as he remained loyal to his mission and (literally) kicked off the attack on Trost that killed many of his classmates. However, he ends up playing it straight when he confesses that he genuinely cared for the others, but had no choice but to betray them.
  • Deconstructed with Reiner, who becomes so overwhelmed with guilt that he ends up suffering from dissociative episodes. This leaves it very unclear when his actions were genuine and when they were fueled by his delusions of humanity.
• Behemoth Battle: The Titans don't normally fight each other and go exclusively after humans. but starting on the "Battle Of Trost District" Arc, The Rogue Titan was introduced and it exclusively attacks other Titans. leading to Titan duels and brawls that can completely wreck cities as if they're made of Styrofoam.
• Being Good Sucks: Of the 104th Trainee Corps, most end up joining the Survey Corps. Many of them are shaking in fear or even crying when they make the decision, and it's obvious they're still tempted by the prospect of staying safer in another branch. Ultimately they want to follow Eren and do the right thing by making sure that their friends' sacrifices won't have been in vain.
• Being Evil Sucks: The villains don't have it much easier, though. Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie and later Zeke and Eren are painfully aware that their actions have left them without options, and pretty much guarantee them short lives and a miserable end. In conclusion, being anything sucks in this setting.
• Benevolent Architecture: Boy those redwood forests sure are convenient. Also the area in the Walls are noted to have lots of natural resources like natural gas. To say nothing of the Walls themselves... a suspiciously nice cage ehh?
• Better to Die than Be Killed: One unnamed soldier decides to opt out of the story than be food for the many Titans trying to get into the building he and the rest of his comrades held up in. He probably should've waited a bit longer, since the other trainees come to their help not much later.
  • Armin briefly considers this early on; he gives all of his blades and gas to Mikasa so that she can help take back the Titan-infested building holding most of their supplies, but asks to keep one for himself in case a Titan tries to eat him. Mikasa manages to talk him out of it.
• Big Bad Friend: Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt are this to the 104th Trainees Squad and Eren in particular. While the primary antagonists of the first half of the series, their attachment to the others is genuine and they aren't particularly happy about the things their mission has required them to do.
  • After the Time Skip, even though Eren became the final villain of the manga, he still wished to protect his friends by committing mass genocide. His friends don't agree with him.
• Big Brother Instinct: Gender flipped with Mikasa and Eren. While neither of them slack off, ever since Eren saved Mikasa's life when they were younger, she's become extremely protective of him.
  • Reiner is seen as the big brother of the entire group, and readily takes on whatever is necessary to help them out. It becomes a serious issue for him, since he's one of the Titan spies.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In Episode 6, Eren tries to do this for Mikasa in a Flash Back. He manages to kill two of her abductors, but needs to be rescued from the third by Mikasa.
  • In Episode 7, Mikasa is saved from certain doom after she runs out of gas for her maneuver system by the Rogue Titan who kills a Titan approaching her.
  • Levi saves Eren, Armin, and Mikasa in Episode 13 shortly after Armin manages to get Eren secured.
  • In Chapter 49, Erwin shows back up to rescue Eren from Bertolt. With one arm.
  • In Chapter 50, Hannes shows up to defend Eren and Mikasa from the smiling Titan. But fails to stay alive for too long.
  • Chapter 101 has the Survey Corps showing up in Liberio and helping Eren defeat the Warhammer Titan.
• Big Eater: Sasha, who risks punishment for the sake of food.
  • The Titans are a truly horrifying version, as they devour humans for no reason other than because they seemingly enjoy it. It's noted that they will continue to eat until their stomach is full, and then vomit so that they have room for more victims. You do not want to see that happen.
• Bird Run: Everyone in the Survey Corps does this, at the very least. Justified, as it derives from their practice of running with blades drawn.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition: As Erwin dies, Armin is given a second lease on life, effectively shouldering the hope of the Survey Corps in his commander's place.
  • Played straight in Chapter 134; Historia gives birth to her newborn child while Eren tramples everyone who unfortunately happens to be in the Rumbling's path.
• Bishie Sparkle: In Episode 18, after Krista arrives with a few horses after Jean shoots a smoke round in the air in an attempt to call for help. She tells them she's glad they're all safe, and as sunlight beams down on her, she sparkles, causing Armin and Jean to wonder if she's a goddess, as well Reiner thinking that he wants to marry her.
  Armin: An angel!
  Jean: A goddess!
  Reiner: One day, my wife!
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The Battle of Trost arc ends with a Pyrrhic Victory that won back the Trost district and sealed up Wall Rose from the Titans, but at appalling cost and in the process leaving everyone devastated. It's also a strategic setback for the Survey Corps, since because Trost District's gate is sealed, their efforts to establish a route from there to Shiganshima are rendered useless.
  • By all accounts, Eren and the Survey Corps preemptive attack on Marley was an unmitigated decisive victory, with Marley's senior military command, main port, and navy completely destroyed, Eren devouring the Warhammer Titan and inheriting its power, and Zeke defecting to the Survey Corps so his royal blood can be used in conjunction with Eren's Founding Titan powers. However, despite all of these gains, it almost doesn't seem worth it since Eren lost the trust and respect of the Survey Corps and Sasha is killed in the fighting.
  • The ending of the series. Whether the emphasis lies on "bitter" or "sweet" depends on who you ask. The Survey Corps defeat Eren, stop the Rumbling, and in the process end the Curse of the Titans, which are removed from the world permanently. The titanized Eldians are back to normal, and Ymir Fritz and every Eldian stuck in the limbo of the Paths are free. Eren also makes peace with Armin through the paths and confesses his love for Mikasa to him, but asks him not to tell her so that she may love someone else again someday. However, Eren managed to kill 80% of humanity, leaving the world devastated, though unable to retaliate against Paradis Island. Worse still, the Yeagerists fully radicalize Paradis and prepare to go to war with the remnants of humanity. That being said, the renowned heroes of "the War of Heaven and Earth" return to Paradis after years of travel and diplomacy, seeking to convince Paradis to a peace treaty and end the cycle of violence peacefully, once and for all.
  • The volume release expands on the final chapter. Things get better and then they get worse. While Mikasa mourned Eren and kept the red scarf, Mikasa was able to start a family (implied to be with Jean, which also implies that the Survey Corps were able to return home safely) and died peacefully as an old woman. Paradis thrives and develops into a modern city until it (or Shiganshina at least) is destroyed and abandoned in an unspecified war. An unknown amount of time later, the tree that Eren was buried under grows into the same tree that Ymir fell into, left alone to be discovered by a young boy...
• Bizarre Alien Biology: The Titans; the fact that how they work makes very little sense is an important plot point, as one of the Survey Corps' stated objectives is to better understand Titans and how to better defend against them/kill them.
• Blatant Lies: When Mikasa gets asked exactly what happened when Eren, having not yet mastered his Titan form, unknowingly tried to attack her by her friends, she claims Eren was swatting a fly. In a completely straight face as usual.
• Blessed with Suck: The most elite soldiers (including the top 10 members of the 104th) are the ones selected to fulfill the critical part of dangerous missions because they have the best chance of succeeding. While this takes them away from the "decoy" force in most operations, they also have a high risk of dying and have the additional burden of knowing that if they fail, all the sacrifice has been for nothing.
  • Oh, you've become a Titan Shifter? Congratulations and enjoy being able to freely transform into a giant humanoid with varying offensive / defensive abilities, as well as a VERY impressive Healing Factor. Oh wait, there's a catch being that; Too much consecutive transformations can revert you to a mindless Titan; you have to live with the knowledge that you've eaten another shifter in order to even transform; you've become a Living Macguffin for multiple factions who will stop at nothing to get you; and finally, due to the sheer toll your power takes on you, you're guaranteed to die in 13 years.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The title of the series, as Shingeki no Kyojin literally translates to "The Advancing Titans". "Attack on Titan" rather brings to mind the image of Saturn's biggest moon being under attack, which does not seem to be what is actually going on in the story.
  • And "Attack on Titan" implies there is only one Titan being attacked. When, in reality, there's an entire army of Titans that need to be "attacked". It's less so when one considers "attack" as "war" with the title then becoming "War on Titan", which makes much more sense; at one point Dot Pixis even gives this meaning some context when he proclaims that the mission to save Trost District will be humanity's first "counter-attack on the Titans" after suffering nothing but defeats so far.
  • Becomes even worse after Chapter 88, where Shingeki no Kyojin is revealed to be the name of Eren's Titan form, making a more appropriate translation "The Advance Titan". Though translating it as such could potentially have ruined the twist.
  • Of course, this title is used simply because that's the English title of the series provided in the original Japanese version. Different language translations around the world fix this by using titles such as "Attack on Titans" or "Attack of the Titans".
  • For character names there are two examples: Zeke, whose actual name should've been Sieg as his parents deliberately named him to mean "victory", which is what Sieg means and it fits with the Germanic theme of the series; and Willy Tybur, which would've likely been been Vili Tybur as the katakana used in the initial sound "ヴィ" is the one for the "v" sound, not the "u/w" sound which is "ウィ". Vili also comes from the Norse figure who killed Ymir along with his brothers Vé and Odin.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The Final Season is a lot more violent than the previous 3 seasons. An example of this can be seen with the injuries the titans sustain as The Final Season removes all traces of smoke whenever a titan is decapitated or dismembered and shows them pouring fountains of blood after receiving just a scratch.
• Bloody Horror: The Titans (giants) love to play with their food (humans), and will bite off people's bodies in bits spraying blood everywhere in the process. Or even just injure humans so they bleed out and leave them to die. The scariest part is that they don't even need to eat to survive. They eat humans for fun, and just throw them up later. So all the casualties in battle are pretty much killed for no reason.
  • Titans don't actually eat for fun, but rather mindlessly seek out a Titan shifter to eat, in order to become human again. Due to their limited intelligence, however, this comes down to targeting every human being in sight in hopes of acquiring one with shifter powers.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: In Episode 25, a young girl is seen walking the streets covered in blood and tears after several women around her got crushed by stray rubble resulting from the ensuing chaos.
• Body-Count Competition: The members of the Levi's are introduced by Eren by their Titan kill and assist count.
• Body Horror: Transforming into a Titan, seems to create nerves out of nowhere and are attached to the person's skin. It seems hard to get out of, but not impossible
  • People basically dissolve when they become normal Titans.
• Body Motifs: Eyes. A lot of emphasis is placed on them if you pay attention.
  • Also, focusing on the mouth seem to signify violence (Eren biting his hand to transform and the Titans eating people are the most obvious ones) and anything related to Titan Shifters has strong emphasis placed on the spinal cord.
• Bold Explorer: Eren dreams of joining the Survey Corps because they venture outside of Wall Maria, the outermost Wall, and attempt to map it out or study the Titans. However, they have a high casualty rate as evidenced by the few returning members in the first episode, most of whom are injured. One of the bits of trivia given during the Eye Catch in Episode 2 mentions that the territory outside of Wall Maria is unknown due to it being lands infested by Titans.
• Bookends:
  • The introduction of the Survey Corps sees them returning from a failed mission, with Erwin noticing a young Eren happily watching them and turning away in shame. Five years later, as they return from a mission that went poorly, Eren notices a brother and sister watching him with the same excited expression. He immediately looks away while fighting back tears.
  • In Episode 25, concluding Eren's fight with Annie, Mikasa requests that Eren eat to keep his strength up, as she did in Episode 2. This time, he does so willingly.
  • The first episode begins with the phrase, "That day, humanity remembered the terror of being ruled by them... the humiliation of being kept in a cage." The phrase refers to how humanity had become complacent living behind the Walls, and how the destruction of Shiganshina restores the fear in their hearts. The phrase is repeated in the last episode of the first season, but the meaning is different; humanity remembers, and humanity is pissed.
  • In the anime, the beginning of the first episode and the ending of the final episode both feature two birds flying over a city.
  • The poster for the first season of the anime has Eren, with his town destroyed around him, looking up as the Colossal Titan looms over the distant wall. The poster for the final season has Reiner, with his city destroyed all around him looking upward as the Attack Titan, aka Eren, looms over the buildings in front of him, essentially reversing the roles the two had (as Reiner was allied with the Colossal Titan all those years ago.
  • Volume 1's iconic cover depicts Eren high in the sky, ready to engage the Colossus Titan. Volume 33's (the second-last volume) cover puts the last of the Survey Corps (Armin, Mikasa, Levi, Connie, and Jean) in Eren's position, while Eren's Founding Titan form has taken the place of the Colossus Titan.
  • Early on, Mikasa kills a Titan to save a group of people from getting run down, the very first time anyone has killed a Titan in the series proper. At the end, Mikasa is also the one to make the final Titan kill of the series, namely Eren himself, in order to save humanity from the Rumbling and end the age of Titans upon the earth.
  • The series begins with Mikasa waking Eren up from a nap under a tree in Shinganshina. The series ends under the same tree, with Mikasa sitting at Eren's graveside.
  • Linked Horizon bookends the anime in its entirety; they created the first opening theme "Crimson Bow & Arrow" and both the final opening, "The Last Titan", and the last end credits theme, "To You, 2000... or 20000 Years From Now". "To You, 2000... or 20000 Years From Now" includes references to "Crimson Bow & Arrow" to top it off.
  • Eren first discovered his ability to transform into a Titan after being devoured in a Titan's mouth to save Armin during the Battle of Trost. His true end comes when Mikasa slices his head off, which is inside the final Attack Titan's mouth.
• Boring Return Journey: Averted. In episode 22, the Survey Corps make their retreat back to Wall Sina and titans keep attacking them along the way. More men are lost and survivors have to dump some bodies to make their wagons lighter in order to outpace the titans.
• Bound and Gagged: Reiner and Bertolt keep Eren like this when attempting to escape to the other side of the Walls with him. It's justified in that they're the Titans who ruined his life, and he'll do pretty much anything to injure himself and transform into a Titan so he can get his revenge.
  • In fact, Eren has been tied up more times than any other member of the cast.
  • The Survey Corps attempts to do this to Annie, but she manages to transform and kill the soldiers grabbing her.
• Bowdlerise:
  • In the Japanese original audio track and the manga, Keith Shadis taunts Marco Bott for his eagerness to serve the king in the interior by saying that the king has no desire for his body (i.e. pretends as if Marco wants to whore himself out to the king), in the English-language dub, Shadis says that the only use the king has for Marco is titan fodder, omitting the sexual reference.
  • Much to every body's suprise, all titans and some other characters were given shorts in the Malaysian release of the manga due to "nudity" (even though titans have neither genitalia nor other orifices "down there", making it hard to apply the concept of nudity to them). More information can be seen here, and here.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: In a nutshell, this is what makes human Titans so dangerous. Imagine fighting a fifteen-meter-tall Lightning Bruiser. Now imagine fighting one that's also a champion-level boxer.
• Breaching the Wall: Happens twice early on, where the Colossal Titan and Armored Titan breach Wall Maria, and then, just a few years later, the Colossal Titan breaches the gates of the Trost District, letting the lesser Titans into humanity's last refuge. Plugging the hole in the Trost walls is the main goal of the following arc, while finding a way to close the Wall Maria breach and to retake the land from the Titans is pretty much the Myth Arc of the manga.
• Break the Haughty: Happens to a lot of cocky rookies at the Battle of Trost, but especially hits Jean really hard, setting him on his Character Development.
• Breather Episode:
  • Chapter 51: After the preceding arc, which was very tense and full of revelations, the events of the latter half of the chapter are of the remaining members of the 104th class doing everyday chores in a small wood cabin as part of Levi's new squad, messing around like they were back to being trainees.
  • Chapter 70. You can almost see everything that can go wrong with the Hope Spot, but given the nature of the series, this chapter was surprisingly upbeat. Krista sets up an orphanage town, the remaining nobles are prosecuted for their part in the slaughter, Levi is given free reign by the Military to use his Titan augment as he sees fit, technology that was supposedly destroyed was collected by a few dissidents in the Military Police, so that they invent more effective ways to kill Titans instead off throwing soldiers into the slaughter, the underground crystals are mined for lighting, and Eren discovers a new clue about his father.
• "The Breakfast Club" Poster Homage: One obviously non-canon piece of art, used as the cover of the October 2018 Bessatsu Shounen Jump, reimagines the characters as high school stereotypes and poses them similarly to the poster. The aloof Mikasa (something like a Goth) is Allison, the cocky Jean is Bender, the nerdy Armin is Brian, the burly Reiner (a jock) is Andrew, and the high-status Krista (a cheerleader) is Claire.
• Broken Aesop: The manga and anime both are very forceful with the message that you can't win a serious fight just by giving it all you've got. Armin skilfully comments on this in the last episode of the anime (which is where it gets broken) with the line "Determination alone isn't enough to win a fight" and later "It'll take more than raw passion to beat Annie." Only a few minutes later, this is exactly what happens, with Eren's monstrous rage turning him into a so-far unexplained monster of a Titan that Annie gets completely overpowered by. Note, this is only in the anime. In the manga, Annie overpowered Eren easily and there was no superform for Eren.
  • Though he was only able to because Mikasa cut off Annie's fingers so she couldn't climb over the wall. If not for that, Eren's determination would've meant nothing.
• Broken Masquerade: As of Chapter 90, all the people inside the Walls know the truth: They are not the last remnants of humanity, and in fact the rest of humanity hates and fears the ethnic group living inside the Walls as "descendants of the Devil", the very Titans they live in fear of are their own people being transformed against their will, and if that wasn't bad enough war is coming very soon.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Reiner, once he's revealed to be the Armored Titan. Eren even rants about how much he wanted to be just like him, and how disgusted he is.
  • A common experience for young recruits. The Survey Corps seems awesome, until one realizes how low their survival percentage is and how often their missions end in failure. The Military Police Brigade are corrupt and lazy, and anyone joining for honest intentions gets a rude wake-up call.
  • Jean's original goal was to become a member of the MPs, but after seeing how lazy and ineffective they are in an actual crisis, he can hardly believe that he once wanted to become that.
  • Zeke ends up as this after he betrays Marley. None of his comrades understand his actions. Gabi is especially upset by it.
  • Eren himself loses the trust of his squad after his reckless charge causes deaths of hundreds, his disowning of Mikasa and Armin and enacting the Rumbling. And in this case, it was a deliberate choice so that they would be hailed as heroes upon stopping him.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Levi is left injured and sidelined after blocking an attack from the Female Titan. He still manages to win the fight, as evidence of how deserving he is of his World's Strongest Man reputation. Eren also tends to do this constantly whenever he fights other Titans, but it rarely slows him down for long since he has a Healing Factor.
• Building Swing: The 3D Maneuver gear is primarily focused on this, employing twin grappling hooks and gas propulsion to swing around.
  • Le Parkour: The more talented soldiers combine these techniques with the above to maximize their mobility while saving their gas.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Several. Sasha is one of the first, but then we meet the Survey Corps Special Operations Squad, which is almost entirely made up of Bunny Ears Lawyers and Military Mavericks.
• Burn the Witch!: Various factions present at Eren's tribunal are rather paranoid about him (understandably) and want him dissected, but then start accusing Mikasa of being a Human Titan, too (much less understandably).
• Butt-Monkey: Cadet Daz. He's first seen puking all over his shoes during the Battle of Trost, and later blubbering like a baby over the mere prospect of being sent back into battle. In Chapter 40, he is shown being literally dragged through the snow by Krista and Ymir, having passed out from exhaustion. All in all, the guy seems remarkably unfit for the life of a soldier.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • Averted. Bertolt actually brings up the subject of Eren's Doomed Hometown, and is well-aware of what he went through. When Eren confronts him about it after The Reveal, he admits that he felt sorry for him.
  • There's also a more complicated case, which Zigzags between an Aversion and a Justified case. Reiner swings between being painfully aware of his crimes and unaware, due to suffering from a Double Consciousness.

C

• The Cake Is a Lie:
  • Marley recruits Eldians for their Warrior project by promising them better treatment. Many enlist with the hope that proving their loyalty and earning military accolades will lead to their kinsmen back in the ghettos someday being freed. But Marley has no intent of bettering the situation for the Eldians, who exist as military assets and will likely be exterminated once their usefulness to the nation ends.
    • In fact, during Eren's telepathic Motive Rant to all Eldians of the world after releasing the Wall Titans, he makes a point to say that the world's hatred for Eldians far exceeds those merely on Paradis Island. They wouldn't be satisfied until all Eldians are exterminated, leading to his decision to trigger the Rumbling.
• The Call Knows Where You Live:
  • Precisely put, the debris caused by Colossal Titan's destruction of the gate fell directly on Eren and Mikasa's house, crushing their mother's leg and preventing her from escaping. Hannes comes and attempts to slay the Titan that was approaching, but in a moment of fear, decided it was best to take the children and escape, leaving their mother behind. Eren and Mikasa horrifically witness the Titan crushing their mother to death and then devouring her. Once Eren and Mikasa are safely on the escape ships, Eren vows to kill all of the Titans.
    • In the case of the smiling titan, Dina did say she was going to find Grisha no matter what.
  • The Colossal Titan also just happens to mysteriously appear right in front of him prior to the Battle of Trost after the 104th trainees graduate.
  • Jean Kirstein proudly declares his intention to join the Military Police Brigade and live a comfortable, Titan-free life. The day after graduation, his hometown becomes the site of a major battle and he's forced to take command of the other traumatized, stranded Trainees. And just to make certain he wouldn't reconsider things, in the aftermath of the battle he discovers the half-eaten corpse of his best friend, Marco.
• Call to Adventure: Eren wanted nothing more than to join the Survey Corps so that he could aid humanity in fighting against the Titans, but to also see the world beyond the Wall. His mother vehemently opposed his plans and told him to stop. Little did they know that everything was going to change that day...
• Camera Abuse: In Episode 24, the camera lens is briefly splattered with the blood of a Redshirt as the Female Titan wails on the Survey Corps.
• Cannibalism Superpower: This is speculated to have something to do with why Titans devour humans. Cannibalism is the preferred method to transfer the power of the Nine Titans from one host to another. When a Titan consumes the current vessel, their powers and memories are inherited to create a new vessel just like how Eren, Armin, Ymir, Porco, and Falco inherited their powers. This normally involves a ritual where the current vessel is Chained to a Rock and their successor eats them as a mindless Titan, especially when the successor is one of Marley's Warrior unit. Mindless Titans instinctively devour humans, as finding and eating a Titan Shifter would restore their humanity. It is later confirmed by Ymir's backstory and Eren ingesting the "hardening" factor.
• Cast Full of Crazy: Due to the massive amount of trauma seeing your family/friends/squadmates eaten by fifteen-metre-tall giants causes, many characters in the series have crippling cases of PTSD, but some, like Eren, don't appear to have been all there mentally from the start. Additionally, the implication of there being people who can transform into Titans causes squadmates to distrust each other. Which, as can be inferred from the cases of Bertolt and Reiner, is absolutely correct.
• Cast of Snowflakes: the main and supporting characters, and even the Titans, are all distinct in terms of face shape, eye shape, build, etc. Even the Red Shirts are given some degree of variation, even if their face is only seen for a split second before they're turned into a fine pink mist.
• Casting Gag: Erwin Smith, the commander of the Survey Corps, is voiced by Daisuke Ono who also voices Jotaro Kujo in Jojos Bizarre Adventure. Similarly, Marlo Fruedenberg, a recruit from the 104th is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita who voiced Joseph Joestar in Battle Tendency before being replaced by Unshō Ishizuka due to Joseph getting older, whereas Mike Zacharias, Erwin's second-in-command is played by Kenta Miyake who also plays Mohammed Avdol in Stardust Crusaders. Floch Froster is voiced by Kensho Ono, voice actor of Giorno Giovanna in Golden Wind, while Eren is voiced by Yuki Kaji, voice of Koichi Hirose in Diamond is Unbreakable as well as Johnny Joestar in the video game Jojos Bizarre Adventure Eyes Of Heaven and Levi is voided by Hiroshi Kamiya who voiced Rohan in Eyes of Heaven. Similarly, the Big Bad of Season 2 and 3, The Beast Titan is played by Takehito Koyasu who plays Dio Brando in Parts 1 and 3 as well as Diego Brando in Eyes of Heaven. Initially, Dio was killed by Jotaro Kujo in Stardust Crusaders after failing to kill Joseph, while his minions got rid of Avdol beforehand before getting killed. Here, the Beast Titan kills Mike Zacharias by commanding Titans in Season 2, while in the Season 3 Part 2 during the Battle of Shiganshina, the Beast Titan showers rocks at the charging Survey Corps, which eventually kills both Marlo and Erwin so Levi can finish Zeke, while Floch becomes the only surviver left. Which means Dio not only avenged his own death at the hands of Jotaro by killing him this time, but also got a bonus by killing both Joseph and Avdol as well here, becoming a far better Hero Killer than he ever was in Stardust Crusaders where his grand total in kills was one although he later loses to Rohan, leaving him and Dio's son Giorno the only ones surviving the attack. Similarly, Erwin's manner of death almost mirrors that of Noriaki Kakyoin's, who was the only one properly killed by Dio. Eren and Zeke teaming up in the final season also means that Johnny and Diego, who were rivals in Steel Ball Run are working together, although unlike Eren and Zeke or Jonathan and Dio they aren't brothers in any way. Also crosses over to Harsher in Hindsight.
• The Cavalry: The Survey Corps reinforce the Garrison and the Trainees just in the nick of time during the Battle of Trost. Bonus points for actually riding horses from place to place before switching to Maneuver gear.
• Central Theme:
  • Change will not happen unless you push for it; if you don't fight, you can't win.
  • Cruelty and beauty in the world.
  • Freedom/Confinement.
  • Whether the ends justify the means.
  • Comfort and power creating complacency and apathy.
  • There are quite a few regarding vengeance and morality.
    • Fascism is only sustainable through the violent subjugation of entire peoples, and though it may outwardly seem beneficial for the populace (and "cool" to an extent) it always leads to extreme suffering.
    • Oppression will never stop on its own. If you want to be free, you need to fight. At the same time, people who benefit from the status quo will fight to defend it, and you need to be prepared to face adversity if you wish to liberate yourself.
    • Humans are not inherently evil or good — people are capable of doing bad things for good reasons, and vice versa.
    • The Cycle of Revenge is extremely difficult to break, especially when it's one based on historical events that neither party was personally alive for. Plus, it's wrong to judge people based on the actions of their ancestors.
    • When the oppressed overthrow the system oppressing them, they must be careful not to become the oppressors themselves, thus perpetuating the very same system of oppression they fought to overthrow.
• Cerebus Retcon:
  • The Running Gag of Sasha stealing food, with the revelation that she once survived a major food shortage. The refugees from Wall Maria swarmed the area, and ended up leaving very little prey for the hunting-dependent village. Everyone in her village suffered and as a direct result, she became obsessed with food.
  • Levi's obsession with cleaning and sensitivity about his height, sources of humor for years, have become this with the reveal that they were both caused by his shitty upbringing by Kenny Ackerman, who mocked him for his height and his commonly filthy appearance.
• Changing of the Guard: After the destruction of Squad Levi, a new team is assembled, consisting of the remaining members of the 104th Trainees. Eren notes the melancholic similarities between the old and new squad.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: For starters, the main characters are members of a Redshirt Army whose job is not even to save humanity but DIE BRAVELY so humanity can survive just a bit longer. That said, named characters get eaten by Titans roughly every five pages (that's right, even the protagonist).
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • When Annie agrees to help Armin get Eren out of Stohess she conspicuously puts on a plain metal ring that no one has been seen with. It comes up later when she's apprehended as the Female Titan and gagged to prevent her from shifting, she opens it up to reveal a hidden barb so she could pierce her finger that way.
  • When Armin makes his (panicked) initial analysis at the start of Trost, he quickly mentions that the humans have no way of moving the gigantic boulder that's large enough to block the entrance, much less actually repairing the gate before the Titans make it in. Later on, Eren manages to move the boulder and seal the gate as a Titan.
  • On the day Mikasa's parents were murdered, her mother gave her a mysterious brand on her wrist that couldn't be seen due to the bandages. It was finally revealed that her brand is the Azumabito family crest from the nation of Hizuru.
  • The Braus family's peculiar accent turned out to be of far greater importance after Gabi recognizes it as Southern Marleyan in nature.
  • Eren Kruger motivates Grisha to fulfill his mission telling him it's necessary to save Mikasa and Armin (yet to be born). How he could know them is explained, after The Reveal of true power of Attack Titan.
  • The Wall Titans. They are not only the reason the Walls could be made in the first place, but very late in the manga, they are used for Eren's scheme to wipe out humanity outside Paradis.
  • The sudden headaches Mikasa had at several points throughout the series were explained by Eren as her true self fighting her Ackerman instincts after she subconsciously identified Eren as her host the day he saved her from the kidnappers, making her nothing more than a slave in his eyes. A flashback to Eren and Zeke discussing the matter in Chapter 130 confirmed that Eren was lying. The bonus pages for Chapter 139 reveal it was Ymir Fritz peeking into Mikasa's head.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Ymir first shows up in the Battle of Trost for the manga, during basic training for the anime. In the manga at least, the audience never finds out what her name is until right before Castle Utgard. If you knew Ymir's name when you read Ilse's Notebook, her secret would have been guessed a lot earlier.
  • It's certainly looking like Mikasa's father, or whichever parent didn't change their last name at marriage is going to be this.
    • It turns out that the Ackerman bloodline are one of the few who are immune to the Reiss family's memory-manipulation abilities, and are thus persecuted by the central nobility. What this means for Mikasa, who is the child of both an Ackerman and an Asian (they are immune as well), has yet to be seen.
• Chekhov's Skill: In Episode 4, Annie uses a sweeping attack which knocks Eren down during a martial arts training session. He realizes this wasn't a skill they were taught formally, but uses it against Jean later that night during an argument in the mess hall.
  • This ends up coming back into play later on, when Eren recognizes that the Female Titan uses Annie's fighting style.
  • And again when Eren uses the wrestling moves he learned from Annie against Reiner/Armored Titan.
• The Chessmaster: Erwin. He doesn't hesitate to sacrifice hundred of his soldiers in order to capture the Female Titan, declining to tell them about what they're fighting. Lampshaded by Armin, who says that a person needs to be one to change something in the world.
  • Later in the manga, Eren himself, enacting a greater scheme to free Eldians from the persecution from the rest of the world, outwitting other chessmasters like Armin, Hange and Zeke.
• Chess Motifs: Used for a subtle bit of Foreshadowing in Chapter 34, which sees several of the recruits during downtime. Reiner and Bertolt are playing chess to pass the time. Reiner is the white side, and preoccupied in conversation with the others, while Bertolt is playing the black side and intensely focused on their game. He also seems to be winning. Then we learn that Reiner is guilt-ridden and struggling to remain focused on their mission, while Bertolt is far more committed to their purpose and willing to put aside his personal feelings to accomplish goals. The metaphors extend further, as Reiner confesses to having not really understood things when he began his mission and Ymir later referring to the pair of "small fries" when she warns Eren that killing them won't accomplish anything. They very neatly fit into the role of the Pawn, heading out into enemy territory to accomplish their mission while not actually being significant enough that their loss would harm their side. A fan's reconstruction of their game reveals Reiner playing recklessly, leaving his King undefended while automatically throwing his most powerful pieces into the game. On the other hand, Bertolt is overly cautious and sets up a defensive to protect himself while waiting to act.
• Children Are Innocent:
  • Eren utilizes this trope in a Flash Back during Episode 6. He pretends to have gotten lost and found the cabin by chance, causing one of the bandits to start talking to him a little less seriously. See Children Forced to Kill for what happens next...
  • Subtly Exploited at one point. During Eren's tribunal, several groups want Eren to be executed immediately. Suddenly Levi starts beating the crap out of him in front of everyone as part of Erwin's gambit. Everyone stands down from their hostility just long enough for Erwin to sway the judge to let him join the Survey Corps because while they want to execute Eren as the human Titan, everyone is visibly horrified at Eren getting savaged as a human child.
• Children Forced to Kill: Part of both Eren and Mikasa's backstory. Mikasa's parents were killed by three human traffickers and Mikasa was kidnapped with the traffickers intending on selling her because she was of a rare Oriental race. Eren and his father found out about their whereabouts, and Eren was told to stay away from their hideout as Dr. Yeager notified the police. Instead, Eren took it upon himself to rescue Mikasa and stabs two of the men to death. Before they could escape, the third man came back and began choking Eren to death. Mikasa, who had been shell-shocked from the trauma the entire time, finally finds the courage and stabs the last man to death as well.
  • Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt are the Tyke Bomb variant. Their mission to attack humanity began while they were still children, and all three show varying levels of trauma as a direct result of being ordered to commit mass murder.
• Child Soldiers: Due to the army's appallingly high mortality rate, its minimum recruitment age is twelve.
  • Even more so with Reiner, Annie and Bertolt, who (as mentioned above) destroyed the Walls and infiltrated the human ranks at the ages of ten and eleven, the heavy implication being they were trained from a very young age.
  • Grisha's diary reveals that he turned Zeke, his son, AKA the Beast Titan, over to the Marley military in hopes that he would become stronger by gaining Titan abilities at the age of five.
  • Everyone else in Marley's warrior training program counts as this too, as Gabi is twelve and Falco isn't much older.
• Choke Holds: It had to happen sooner or later, with Isayama's love of MMA. Reiner uses one to subdue Eren, after he goes berserk.
• The Chosen People: An ethnic group known as the Eldians can turn into the titled giants, a power which they believe are given to them by God. This has some evidence to back it up, such as the transformation being triggered by a lightning bolt from the sky.
• Citadel City: Played with. The Three Walls contain all of humanity and its defenses, but the total area is the size of a large country and quite a bit of Wall Maria and Rose are rural areas. The Walls get higher and the urban density increases going toward the center though, with Wall Sina basically containing nothing but cities.
• City with No Name: In the manga, the Three Walls are sometimes referred to as "Utopia" by the inhabitants of Marley, mainly referring to "King Fritz's Utopia". Whether this is the formal name of the location is not known, but it's unlikely because it has markedly pejorative overtones. The island where the Walls are located is named Paradis, so the parallel "paradise"/"utopia" use of the terms might be a case of Lost in Translation.
• Clark Kent Outfit: Every character that's enlisted in the military actually undergoes heavy physical training so they are able to properly control the 3DMG. As a result, most soldiers have really sculpted physiques. This, however, is only shown in a few instances, and characters are most often shown wearing their uniforms.
• Clean Dub Name: The literal translation of Shingeki no Kyojin would be "March of the Titans", which is the title of a racist book no one would want their manga to be associated with. Hence, "Attack of the Titans" was chosen (and even then, mistranslated as "Attack on Titan").
• Cliffhanger: Isayama is a huge fan of these, and several episodes of the anime feature one. If you get to the end of a chapter and it looks like someone might have just died, odds are the the opening of the next chapter will prove you wrong in some way or another.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • Djel Sanes of the first squad of the Military Police Brigade and his unnamed partner are revealed to have done this to Pastor Nick before killing him in Chapter 52.
  • Hange and Levi do the same to Sanes for information about the MP and Reiss family in Chapter 55. Levi is his usual quiet self, but Hange's behavior isn't exactly cold.
    Hange: Well then... which testicle do you not need?
  • This happened to Grisha and the rest of the Eldian restorationists once they were turned into the government. Grisha had his fingers cut off.
• Cold Equation: Humanity's attempt at reclaiming Wall Maria by sending out 250,000 drafted citizens was done knowing that the operation would likely fail so that humanity would not starve from overpopulation.
  • Jean also performs one during the Battle of Trost, using several cornered comrades as a distraction so that the rest of the soldiers following him may escape safely.
    Marco: I want you to listen to me without getting angry. You're not strong, Jean. That's why you understand how the weak feel. And you're adept at properly assessing a situation, so you know exactly what has to be done at any given time.
• Color-Coded Eyes:
  • Hotblooded hero Eren has vibrant turquoise-colored eyes, inherited from his mother. In his Titan form, they glow bright green.
  • Team Mom Petra has a soft, earthy shade of green.
  • Extreme Doormat Bertolt's eyes are a muted, dark shade of green.
  • Clever, selfish Hitch has cat-green eyes.
  • Close examination reveals that the Colossal Titan has green eyes, oddly enough. The exact same muted, dark shade as its' human form, Bertolt.
• Colossus Climb: Given the premise, it should come as no surprise that a few characters try this. Given that Titans are really, really fast, though, it doesn't often work out too well for the climber.
• Combat Parkour: The soldiers use 3-D Maneuver Gear to Building Swing and try to zip around and over the larger, deadlier, Titans whose only weak spot is a narrow area of the base of the neck. This trope with grappling hooks.
• Commie Nazis: The country of Marley, Grisha's home. On the Nazi side they force the Eldians to live in squalid ghettos, wear armbands that identify them as "Ymir's blood", and treat them like trash; on the Commie side they do this because the Eldians were formerly aristocrats who used their Titan abilities to rule humanity.
• Compilation Movie: The anime has two compilation films entitled "Crimson Bow and Arrow" and "Wings of Freedom" respectfully.
  • There's also one for season 2.
• Conveniently Empty Buildings:
  • Averted when the Rogue Titan and the Female Titan clash in the middle of Stohess District, it's made abundantly clear that the buildings getting crushed are full of civilians. Episode 25 starts right off the bat with Pastor Nick's audience being crushed as a direct result of the fight at the end of the previous episode.
  • Also averted during the Liberio battle. Eren points out to Reiner that they're sitting underneath a building full of people enjoying Willy Tybur's speech.
  • A justified example occurs during the rematch between Marley and Eren in Shiganshina district. The district was fully evacuated of all civilians beforehand shortly after Eren launched a surprise attack on Liberio presumably in anticipation of such a counter attack.
• Contrived Coincidence: Quite a few examples of such occur over the course of the story.
  • At the start, Eren and Armin are talking about how the Walls can't hold forever. Moments later, the Colossal Titan kicks through the Wall, literally kicking off the plot.
  • There are only 8 Titan Shifters at the time the main plot kicks off, from vastly different walks of life and even time-periods, yet more than half of them (Eren, Annie, Reiner, Bertolt, and Ymir) are not only in the same age range as each other, but they all decided to join the military at the exact same time. It gets a bit less contrived when you consider that Reiner, Annie, Bertolt and Marcel(whose powers Ymir ended up stealing) joined Marley's Child Soldiers division and got their powers together for the sake of the mission. As a direct consequence of the Colossus Titan breaking a hole in Wall Maria, Grisha steals the Founding Titan and gives it to Eren.
  • The Smiling Titan that ate Eren's Mom was not only his father's first wife Dina Fritz from when he living in Marley, her Royal blood was the trigger for Eren to temporarily use the "Coordinate" ability, forcing Reiner and Bertolt to retreat in the process. Although, the fact that the Smiling Titan deliberately ignored Bertolt after he destroyed Wall Maria suggests that these actions may not have been as contrived as initially thought.
  • Grisha was first recruited into the Eldia Restoration Movement by a man named Grice. After being arrested and banished to Paradis Island, Colt and Falco Grice were forced into the Warrior program as atonement for their uncle's crimes. After sneaking into Marley undetected, Eren Yeager recruits Falco to unknowingly aid him in his counterattack against Marley.
  • After Gabi and Falco break out of prison due to the former killing Sasha and find themselves on the shoreline, they are first discovered by the girl Sasha rescued from a Titan, who then takes them to the home of Sasha's parents.
• Cooking Duel: The second OVA is about Pixis ordering that Jean and Sasha have one of these to solve their quarrel. It's as over the top as expected.
• Cool vs. Awesome:
  • The soldiers vs Titans when they're not getting killed left and right.
  • The Rogue Titan vs the Female Titan in Episode 21, then again in Episodes 24 and 25.
• Cosmic Horror Story: It certainly has the trappings of the genre. Giant, incomprehensible horrors? Check. Humanity being at the bottom of the world's food chain? Check. Bleak and hopeless mood in the story? Check. Subverted as the series progressed, since it's now clear humans are responsible for the horrible state of the world all along.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: When Reiner writes into the Female Titan's hand with his blades in Episode 17.
• Covers Always Lie: The cover of the 9th volume shows Eren and Mikasa facing the Beast Titan. The only character directly facing said Titan in the volume is Mike, while Sasha, Connie, Ymir, Reiner and Bertolt witnesses him from a distance. Eren and Mikasa are nowhere near the scene.
• Cowardly Lion: A good many soldiers are this, especially among the Garrison. While clearly terrified of the Titans, when push comes to shove their courage is undeniable. This is especially driven home when Pixis shames the mob to prevent a mass desertion, inspiring the terrified soldiers to remain and fight to protect their loved ones from the same fear they're experiencing. Armin, Sasha, Connie, and Bertolt are all described as being cowards, but still just as brave as their comrades when necessary.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable. Averted in that it doesn't work, even though Hannah opens the airway properly with head tilt, chin lift. In the manga it's much easier to see the reason why.
• Crapsack World:
  • The world is shit. Just pure shit. First off, there's slave trade. Second, when the royals think that Wall Rose has been breached they decide to immediately close off Wall Sina without even bothering to help out anyone at all. Third, there's Titans who are killing everyone. Fourth, at one point there was 250,000 drafted just so that there wouldn't be overpopulation and starvation after Wall Maria fell. Fifth, there's a bunch of people (or a part of a larger entity) outside the Walls working against the rest of humanity (or rather its inhabitants in later revelations). The only person from outside the Walls who came to help was Eren's dad. Sixth, the Reiss and the first king didn't even bother to help out humanity at all. Even when they easily could've with their powers. There's more reasons, but basically anyone who thinks that this world is nice doesn't know this show at ALL.
  • It's probably safe to say that Attack On Titan is one of the bleakest Shōnen series out there.
  • Ironically, as Mikasa points out:
    "This world is cruel. And yet... so beautiful."
  • Later in the series. It turned out that the humanity is still alive outside the wall and the setting itself is on an island. Unfortunately, 1. the inhabitants of the island are descendants of refugees from the Eldian Empire when Marley revolted against their Titan-based tyranny. 2. those Eldians beyond the walls who weren't killed by Marley are forced inside ghettoes to be kept as Titan test subjects that will most likely be tossed on the island. 3. Marley became a dominant superpower engaging in a war against other parts of the world.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Armin devises two in Episode 8, and a third one in Episode 11.
  • The first is to help lure the Rogue Titan towards the supply base, so it can help them relieve the siege. It works, as the Titan rushes towards the area when it sees how many there are congregated there.
  • The second is when he develops a plan to kill the remaining Titans in the supply base so they can restock their gas canisters. He has many of the remaining soldiers all inside a lift elevator, whose goal is to fire their guns into the eyes of the seven Titans, blinding them in the process. Then, a group of seven of their best soldiers hidden nearby would strike and take them down. It works, but Sasha and Connie miss the neck, so they don't quite finish off their targets. Fortunately Mikasa and Annie finish them off.
  • While attempting to go over the plan to seal the gate of Trost, Armin mentions that Titans seem to be drawn most towards large groups of people. So he advises that they have a large group of soldiers stand up on the Wall and try to lure most of the Titans towards them, and have a small group of elite soldiers guard the attempt to seal the gate.
• Crazy-Prepared: Annie turns out to be this. She wears a ring with a hidden spike, so that she's able to transform even if restrained.
• Crossover: With the Marvel Universe!
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Oluo Bozado, a member of Levi's Special Operations Squad, initially appears to be a washed-up, immature moron who can't even talk and ride at the same time. We then hear that he's got thirty-nine solo Titan kills and nine assists under his belt.
  • Sasha Blouse, who looks like a complete moron during her first few appearances, actually gets into the top 10 of the class, and is able to fend off a Titan without her gear at one point, using only a hatchet and arrows.
    • Sasha is understandably terrified when she realizes that the scream the Female Titan makes is akin to an animal backed into a corner. Mikasa has to admit that Sasha's instincts are always spot on right before things get dangerous.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: All three military divisions due to them being trained specifically for fighting Titans.
• Critical Hesitation Blunder: Eren's fight against the Female Titan comes to a close when he sees the Female Titan using Annie's exact combat stance, realizing, at least subconsciously, that it's her.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Eren in his Titan body gets framed like this sometimes, with his arms held perpendicular to his torso and above the rest of this body by the connecting nerves.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Most characters have the choice of being crushed by Titans, torn apart by Titans, or eaten by Titans. Oftentimes all of the above. To add insult to injury, when someone is eaten, whatever's left of the remains is eventually just regurgitated back up.
  • The Female Titan takes this even further, because she's killing on purpose. She jumps on top of them, slams them into the surroundings by their ODM wires, spins one around by his wires like a centrifuge then lets his lifeless corpse fly off randomly, and even grabs one in her hand and holds it out so he smears against the trees she's running past.
  • For a non-titan example, Grisha's younger sister Faye got fed alive to dogs when she was eight years old.
• Cruelty by Feet:
  • Levi exploits this trope to save Eren from execution. When Eren's about to be shot during his trial, Levi starts savagely kicking him and even stomping on his head, which shocks everyone into demanding that he be left alone. Levi questions why everyone is so upset when they were just about to have the boy shot. This doesn't make Mikasa any less outraged by Levi's cruelty, especially as she has to watch the brutal assault and can't stop it without making things worse for Eren. See more on that below.
  • The Female Titan's primary method of attack is stomping people to death, which is considered humiliating by those who witness it. Annie later does this in her human form, almost killing someone by stomping their face repeatedly.
• Cruel to Be Kind: In Episode 14, after Eren berates the merchants and Military Police Brigade for wanting him dead despite being far away from the Titan threat, Levi goes over to him and brutally beats him. His treatment is so harsh that he ends up losing a tooth and even the MP representative felt he was going too far. However, Commander Erwin is able to convince the judge to allow Eren to join the Survey Corps, and utilize his abilities to help humanity reclaim Wall Maria. Eren for his part, appreciates what they did, and doesn't hold a grudge against Levi for that beating during the trial, as he saw it was necessary to help sway the judge to let Eren join them rather than have him executed. He is still somewhat scared of Levi though.
• Cryptic Conversation: All over the place.
  Erwin: (talking to Eren) Look around. Who do you think the real enemy is?
  • Ch. 46(Season 2, Episode 9 of the anime) almost entirely consists of this, with several characters holding a conversation completely over the head of Eren (and the audience) while ignoring or refusing to clarify anything.
• Cue the Sun: It starts raining during Trost as Mikasa recalls her memories of her past and especially when she believes Eren is dead. When it looks like it's curtains for her, she suddenly remembers Eren's exhortation to fight and win just as the sun breaks through the clouds.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Titans generally do this towards humans. Only in Episode 6 do we start seeing them get taken down, mostly by Action Girl Mikasa.
  • Eren's squad engages the Titans in Trost in Episode 5 and... it goes horribly. Nearly everyone is killed with the exception of Armin, and even Eren is swallowed by a Titan. To add insult to injury, they weren't even able to scratch the Titans.
  • Eren turns the tables, though, when he shifts into Titan form and almost effortlessly kills every Titan in sight. He manages to destroy 20 before he collapses and it took several of them rushing him to slow him down for more than a few seconds.
  • The Special Operations Squad when they take on the Female Titan, and show just what a hand-picked team of elite soldiers can do. Then she surprises them with an ability no one had ever seen before in a Titan, and the team is brutally slaughtered within minutes, since their opponent is Dark Action Girl Annie.
  • The fight between Levi and the Female Titan could alternatively be named "Naked drunk tries to punch out insane flying human buzzsaw, with predictable results" and it would actually be a pretty valid description of the fight.
  • Chapter 81 should be renamed with how the Humanity's Strongest Warrior Levi obliterated the Smug Snake Beast Titan's Ass.
  • Extremely highly-mobile soldiers wielding Hand Cannons on both hands versus a conventional army using standard rifles, equals utter decimation for the conventional army.
  • The Wall Titans destroy everything and everyone in their way, be it entire armies, or even missile centers.
• Cutlass Between the Teeth: The Rogue Titan bites the neck of another Titan and uses it to attack other Titans in the vicinity.
• Cycle of Revenge: The true relationship between Eldia and Marley. Even before the Titans first appeared the two peoples hated one another and things only got worse after that. Both countries have been trying to conquer and enslave each other for at least 2000 years with each country going Pay Evil unto Evil for the atrocities the other inflicted upon them, while ignoring their own atrocities. It gets so bad our protagonist decides to kill everyone to break the cycle for good.

D

• Dangled by a Giant: In the initial fall of Wall Maria, we see a woman get picked up this way by her head as a titan picks her up and devours her.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Many characters have them, as a direct result of the sort of world they're living in.
  • Eren, Mikasa, and Armin have a Doomed Hometown and being orphaned through extreme violence.
  • At the age of nine, Mikasa helplessly watched a gang of human traffickers murder her parents, and was then kidnapped with the implication she was going to be sold into sexual slavery. She was forced to kill one of the men (Eren killed the other two), and was never the same again.
  • Ymir spent 60 years as a regular mindless Titan, and described it as being trapped in an endless nightmare. A narration by her goes further in discussing how the world wanted to destroy her for her existence, and how she "died" for the happiness of others.
    • Later information shows that she was an Eldian, orphaned at an early age, taken in by a conman who gave her the name "Ymir" in order to scam fellow Eldians into a cult around her. When the Marley police found out, he blamed the entire thing on her, and she accepted the blame for the sake of him and the congregation. All of them were sent to Paradis anyway and turned into Titans. Sixty years later, she encounters Reiner, Bertholt, and Marcel, eating the latter and inheriting his Shifter ability.
  • Reiner and Bertolt are survivors of a Titan attack. Only not. They're actually Child Soldiers from Marley and both are deeply traumatized by having to commit mass murder and espionage for their superiors.
  • Annie was trained to fight from an early age, and taught that Humans Are the Real Monsters. She's also one of Marley's Child Soldiers, raised in an Internment camp and traumatized by the things she's been forced to do.
  • All of the enemy Titan Shifters share the backstory of being oppressed second-class citizens in Marley, living at the mercy of Marley police and military. They joined the Titan Warrior Program in order to achieve some respect and autonomy to their people.
  • Levi is hinted to have been an infamous criminal, prior to becoming humanity's strongest soldier. It's revealed in Chapter 56 that he was personally raised and trained by a serial killer, the one who killed Krista's mother for political reasons. Which explains a lot.
  • Grisha. Oh boy, Grisha. He originated from a nation outside the Walls, where Fantastic Racism is practiced in SUCH an extent that even a certain dictatorship will look sane in front of it. His sister fell victim to such a regime that he was fuelled by the desire of vengeance to overthrow the regime at any cost, even trying to force his only son Zeke to turn The Mole, instead making the child turn against his parents, resulting in their incarceration, and Grisha was so brutally tortured that even Pastor Nick's own torture and death will seem nothing. Then, he and his fellow Revolutionary comrades were taken to the edge of the country^note island, where the Three Walls are actually located, where they were forced to become Titans^note Most of them will play a major role in the invasion of Trost and Shiganshina, and was absolutely horrified to see his wife Dina captured and turned into a Titan^note which is THAT Smiling Titan, while he was unable to do anything to save her and his comrades. It was only due to the Owl's Rousing Speech, otherwise he had fallen deep into the Despair Event Horizon.It is also the reason why Grisha is such an Open-Minded Parent to Eren when he displayed curiosity about the outside world, as Grisha himself is a sad relic from the outside.You may weep now.
  • Zeke Yeager, the Beast Titan. Was brainwashed by his parents from an extremely young age into becoming the hope of the Eldian restorationists, as he's the only person other than his mother Dina to have royal blood outside the walls. He realised at age 7 that the group were going to be found out by the military and chose to become a Self-Made Orphan as it meant that he and his grandparents could survive. He's had to hide his true intentions from Marley for 22 years, killing people he was supposed to be saving and tricking his subordinates into thinking he's on their side.
• Darker and Edgier: While the entire manga overall isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows, it starts getting even grittier following the reveal of Marley and the actual nature of the world and the timeskip:
  • Eldians (whom almost all of the main cast are part of) are subject to extreme Fantastic Racism by the Kingdom of Marley, whose treatment of Eldians is disturbingly similar to racial tensions in Pre-WWII Europe.
  • Titans are actually a form of biological weapon, both used against Eldians to keep them contained on Paradis and against other countries, not to mention that Marley uses child soldiers as candidates to receive the Titan powers they control, and that the receipt of the Titan powers dooms the wielders to die in 13 years.
  • Reiner has shown to be suffering from some extreme Sanity Slippage after returning from Paradis, along with guilt, both of the Surviors Guilt variety and the guilt over betraying the main cast as he realizes that Eldians aren't the "devils" Marley makes them out to be.
  • The first move we see the main cast make is more or less a terrorist attack bordering on a war crime, with Eren intentionally shifting into Titan form under a crowded building and the team causing hundreds of civilian deaths.
    • As a result of the above, Eren loses the trust of the Survey Corps for such a reckless and destructive act, and its heavily implied that at this point the Shiganshina Trio may be preparing to go their separate ways.
    • And, on top of all of this, Sasha is killed by Gabi.
• Darkest Hour: Many times, the first one seven episodes in, with the 104th Trainees trapped in Trost with Titans all around them, Eren seemingly killed, and everybody ready to give up (some to the point of suicide) except Mikasa, who gets waylaid by a Titan without any gas to power her vertical maneuvering gear. Even then, she was contemplating on just giving up.
  • The latest and so far worst is at the end of Chapter 81. Almost the entire Survey Corp is dead. The veterans from bombardment, the recruits in a delaying tactic to buy time. Squad Hange was caught in an explosion by the Colossal Titan, Erwin died leading the recruits and Levi ultimately failed in their last, desperate gambit to kill the Bestial Titan. At the end of the chapter less than a dozen of the entire Survey Corp force remains to be counted among the living. Since they are facing a Bolivian Army Ending, more deaths might be incoming.
  • It's looking to be another one for the main cast following the attack on the ceremony committed by Eren and the Survey Corps: Despite the operation succeeding, Sasha was killed, Eren's reckless tactics and collateral damage seems to have cost him the trust of everyone in the Survey Corps, Eren himself seems to be suffering from some serious Sanity Slippage and Jumping Off the Slippery Slope to the point that Armin barely recognizes the guy, Historia is forced to become a Baby Factory to preserve the royal line (and Paradis' independence and survival), and war seems to be looming on the horizon for Paradis.
  • In the midst of a fierce battle bewteen Paradis and Marley, Eren gains full control of the Founding Titan's power, and awakens all of the Wall Titans. He then telepathically communicates to all Subjects of Ymir both on Paradis Island and abroad his goal to exterminate everyone outside of Paradis. Eren has now officially abandoned his humanity and became the "Devil of Paradis" the world was desperate to destroy and in their frantic desperation, ended up creating him.
• David Versus Goliath: Taken to the extremes. When ODM Gear is introduced prior to the series, humans at least stand some chance against the Titans after learning their weakpoints, but it's still a very steep uphill battle. They eventually create more powerful weapons and have a Titan or two of their own to increase their chances of survival, and this applies to some forces outside the walls.
  • It turns out it's both literal and metaphorical as the series progresses.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 15 for fan fave, Hange Zoe; and Episode 35 for Ymir.
• The Dead Have Names: Armin's heartbreaking speech to Mikasa during the Battle of Trost.
  • Pops up again later, in an even more classic form of the trope, when Rico lists off the names of the soldiers facing almost certain death in the attempt to seal the gate, as a way of ensuring Eren understands the full weight of his role in the mission.
• Deadpan Snarker: Levi, to a huge degree.
  "Look around, Eren... At all these big ass trees."
  • Zeke is also one, and can go toe-to-toe with Levi in a snark-off.
• A Death in the Limelight: Mike gets one.
  • Happens frequently, usually during Character Development or just after Developing Doomed Characters.
• Death by Irony: The Wall cultists attending a church service by Pastor Nick in Episode 25, who promises them that they will be protected from the Titans by their faith in God. The Female Titan then collapses into their church after getting punched by the Rogue Titan, killing many of them except Nick in the process.
• Death Glare:
  • Ymir gives one to Bertolt after she reads some ancient language on a can of fish, which reveals to him that she's from outside the walls.
  • Mikasa gives a super creepy one to Reiner and Bertholdt when Reiner just comes out and tells Eren that the two of them are Titan Shifters, too. In fact, Eren and the others had already suspected this and were trying to lure the two of them to a secure underground location where they could be imprisoned and questioned, but weren't expecting Reiner to just flat-out tell them without prompting. When Reiner decides to just grab Eren and run, Mikasa attacks the two of them with a look of pure, unrelenting fury.
  • Eren gives an extremely psychotic-looking one to Levi in Chapter 83 when the latter states he'll give the life-saving Titan serum to Erwin rather than Armin.
• Deathly Dies Irae: While the score has a few recurring Dies Iraes in the Survey Corps' theme, and the choral music from early Titan attacks in Season One, most of the Dies Iraes in the show are in openings 1,2, 3, and 5, presumably because those arcs are more focused on the constant presence of death.
• Death Notification: We aren't shown the actual notifying but before the Survey Corps returns to the Walls, several families of (named) fallen soldiers are shown to be anticipating their return while the audience knows what's to follow soon...
• Death of a Child: Children are most definitely victims of Titan attacks, and Episode 25 clearly shows rocks falling and crushing both children and women as a consequence of the Stohess incident. We also get to see Bertolt and Reiner's friend Marcel die in the manga.
  • Grisha's sister Faye gets Eaten Alive by dogs at the age of 8.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: This tactic becomes necessary when fighting Human Titans, which have intelligence and additional weak-spot protection to help them out. The tactic Squad Levi uses on the Female Titan is gouge out its eyes and force it to remain defensive. They then try to hack off its arms then neck in a series of successive strikes.
• Declaration of Protection: Mikasa is devoted to protecting Eren, often to his annoyance. Ymir is devoted to protecting Krista, though she would deny it most of the time. Reiner also claims to want to protect Krista, and offers this to Ymir as evidence that he can trust her.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Played with. Initially appears to be your standard Shonen anime where the characters train hard and then defeat monsters. Then everybody starts dying, including the main character, the notion of Heroic Sacrifice falls flat on its ass, and everyone becomes completely hopeless. Then Eren shows back up as a Titan and starts kicking ass and taking names, allowing those Shonen tropes to come back into play. This repeats frequently.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Eren Yeager has all the usual tropes of a Shonen action protagonist. Full of uncontrollable emotions? Check. Clueless idiot who has no sense of strategy? Check. Fights using only will power. Check. However, all these tropes are portrayed realistically with several negative consequences. While determination is necessary for combat, blindly attacking enemies head-on is a great way to ruin any clever plans that would minimize casualties. If anything, Eren himself can be blamed for causing needless deaths and hurting his team. Almost without fail, his tendency for this type of action gets him brutally maimed. Deconstructed further, in the wake of the Marley arc, with the post-time skip Eren having grown into a thoroughly ruthless Wild Card. And his Roaring Rampage of Revenge now extends to everyone not on his island.
  • It is very heavy-handed in deconstructing The Power of Trust. While it very much supports trust among comrades and faith in one's friends, it also makes sure you know that it isn't going to save your life. During the Female Titan arc, Eren marvels that the way three-quarters of Squad Levi are cornering the Female Titan must be through such a bond. Like a kick in the face, a flashback plays of Levi's admittance about not knowing whether group or solo work is more reliable, right before Eren turns around to see them all horrifically killed.
• Decoy Backstory: Yelena claims to be from a nation that's been conquered by Marley. Pieck reveals that she's actually a Marleyan but lied about her origins to approach Zeke and be remembered for saving the world.
• Decoy Protagonist: Subverted. After Eren is eaten alive during the battle of Trost, the perspective switches to Jean and Mikasa for a few chapters, and we get to see them deal with the burden of leading squads of Redshirts. But eventually it's revealed that Eren wasn't as dead as we were led to believe...
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Eren manages this during the battle with Reiner. At least, until he puts out a Distress Call and Bertolt falls on them.
• Defiant to the End: While the majority of characters are anything but this when faced with a Titan the same can't be said for Eren who won't give up even when in a Titan's mouth about to be chomped.
  • A Red Shirt in the Survey Corps goes out stabbing a Titan in the face ranting about how Levi will kill it, which proceeds to happen moments later too.
• Dehumanizing Insult: Eren does this in chapter 112, saying Armin is being controlled by the enemy due to Bertolt's memories and calling Mikasa a slave because of her Ackerman blood mandating she protect him. Armin turns this around and quite viciously tells Eren that his claims of being free are a crock of shit, and that he's actually the slave, to Zeke and his Titan memories. Eren does not take it well. It is because he's the one manipulating Zeke.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Invoked and subverted. The army is surprisingly egalitarian regarding the roles that women play in the various branches, especially considering the archaic government, customs and technology in the society within the Walls. It's fair to point out that the army is indeed defending the last remnants of humanity, so this explains why they cannot afford to discriminate women like a real-world army would do. Not that there's no other forms of discrimination inside the Walls, of course (see Fantastic Racism).
• Deliberately Cute Child: How Eren managed to stab two men to death in order to save Mikasa...
  • Done by Gabi, who pretends to be surrendering to the enemy only to throw a home-made hand grenade at them.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mikasa suffers from this when she sees Armin in Episode 7. The tears streaming out of his eyes are more than enough of a clue for her to figure out the worst happened to Eren.
  • Reiner seems to have gone over it, after revealing his true identity. He clings to the idea of completing his mission in order to continue functioning, but seems resigned to being a "short-lived mass murderer".
• Detachable Blades: The Vertical Maneuver Gear features a pair of dual blades, with their grips serving as the control of the hooks. Soldiers usually carry multiple blades in boxes built at the sides of their thighs, and the blades are swappable in case one of them gets stuck on a Titan or broken.
• Determinator: Eren began his military training with no outstanding promise but became the 5th most capable recruit of the 104th simply by being determined to train as hard as he could to be able to kill as many Titans as he could.
  • On Eren's first day of training he can't even remain upright in the maneuvering gear harness and is threatened with expulsion. The second day he manages to remain upright briefly before flipping again and conking his head on the ground. The Training Instructor realizes that Eren's gear is defective, since even if he couldn't stay upright it should have kept him from actually striking the ground. He comments to himself that, while Eren's not the natural ace that Mikasa is, it's impressive that Eren was willing to put in the effort required to stay upright for even as long as he did.
  • Hannes remarks that while Armin is The Smart Guy and Mikasa The Ace, Eren relies solely on his mental fortitude and determination and that this is enough so that Hannes doesn't need to worry about him.
  • Gabi also shows signs of this, which makes sense given that she was designed as a counterpart to Eren.
• Developing Doomed Characters: Lots of it because of Anyone Can Die. A good example is nearly a Whole Episode Flashback for Petra, Gunther, Eld and Oluo one episode before they die by hands of the Female Titan.
  • Udo and Zofia are introduced only to be killed off a few chapters later.
• Devoured by the Horde: Mike Zacharius suffers a brutal one when the Beast Titan removes his 3D Maneuver Gear and leaves him to be eaten by several Titans of differing sizes and all he can do is scream as he's devoured.
  • In turns out Eren has the power to invoke this when he used this odd scream to get a bunch of Titans to gang up and tear apart the Titan that killed his mother years ago.
• Didn't Think This Through: In hindsight, it was probably a bad idea for the Warriors to say that they all came from the same town. That way, if one of their cover's was blown, they'd all become suspicious, which is exactly what happened after Annie is revealed to be the Female Titan.
• Died in Ignorance: Erwin Smith, 13th Commander of the Survey Corps, badly desires to know what is outside of the wall and what caused humanity's downfall at the hands of the eponymous Titans. Otherwise an "I Did What I Had to Do"-style Pragmatic Hero, he eventually has a Heel Realization while sacrificing his troops in pursuit of that information and then makes a Heroic Sacrifice to pull them out without ever getting to know the truth. While the series has many Characters Dropping Like Flies before (and after) The Reveal, Smith is notable (and all the more tragic) as learning the truth was essentially his modus operandi.
• Dies Wide Open: If there's a body left behind, chances are, the victim's eyes will be open with their final moments of horror still fresh on their faces.
• Disappeared Dad:
  • Grisha Yeager disappeared to parts unknown shortly after the Titan attack on Shiganshina, leaving his young son and daughter to fend for themselves. Horrifyingly subverted: Grisha turned Eren into a Titan and was eaten by him.
  • Historia Reiss's father abandoned her for the majority of her life, as a result of her Heroic Bastard lineage. He only becomes interested in her when he needs an heir, and tries to manipulate her by acting like a loving father. After she spits at his offer in epic fashion, he turns into a mindless Titan and ends up dying at her hands. Afterwards, Historia claims his throne for herself.
  • Reiner Braun's parents engaged in a forbidden relationship, resulting in his secret mixed ancestry. He's never been allowed to meet his father, and once dreamed of reuniting his parents.
• Dissonant Serenity: Their happy, smiling faces as they devour their way through entire towns are perhaps the creepiest thing about Titans. Some of them keep smiling even when they're being sliced into pieces or otherwise mutilated.
  • Eren's relaxed grin as he impassively announces to a group of terrified soldiers: "I'll kill 'em all."^note referring to Titans, although the soldiers think he is referring to them. Armin's horrified expression beside him just serves to make the whole situation simultaneously more terrifying and hilarious.
  • Eren's wide eyed grin as he announces to Reiner and Bertolt that he will kill them as painfully as he can.
• Divided We Fall: In Episode 11, Pixis tells Eren a story about how humanity used to bicker and fight wars until the Titans showed up and was supposed to force them to unite together against a common enemy. Eren has heard that legend before and thinks it's naive because humanity still hasn't banded together. Pixis agrees with him. He tells Eren that humanity does need to stand together soon, or they would all be wiped out eventually by the Titans. Come the revelations of Chapter 85, we learn all of Humanity in the walls is facing another part of Humanity trying to eliminate them, making this impossible.
  • After Eren's rogue mission in Marley that wins Paradis the power of the Warhammer and Beast Titans and destroys most of Marley's leadership but gets multiple Paradis soldiers killed and unites the world against Paradis, a schism is beginning to form between Paradis's soldiers about whether Eren was right or wrong in what he did as they attempt to figure out their next move.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Sasha gets rather◊...excited at the prospect of eating meat.
  • There’s another scene in the manga where meat is supplied en mass. Some of the characters fight over it, losing self control... and start looking a bit titan-ish at the height of the struggle. While humor definitely plays a role, there’s been too much titan-related horror up to that point, not to be a little creeped out. This almost seems like foreshadowing, considering the Survey Core straight-up loses around 96% of its members in the next mission; with another two members are permanently changed for life.
  • A serious example: the Eldian people in Marley: forced to live in a large ghetto and to wear a riconoscitive armband, discriminated by the dominant ethnicity.
  • The titans themselves are a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). The kingdom behind the wall promised the wall titans would purge the land of human life. Considering titans in general, have no problems eating anyone, this is pretty much a guarantee of ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD). Setting the wall titans free would pretty much guarantee the deaths of everyone in the kingdom. However, considering their size and numbers, they would steamroll the planet, eventually finding their way to Marley. The story even goes as far as to treat the current titan threat as a proxy war waged by Marley. If Marley never officially invades the walled kingdom, then the kingdom won't set loose the wall titans. This is similar to modern warfare, where if the nuclear nations went all out, all humanity would die. To avoid this, nations fight through proxy armies, by supplying fighters in local conflicts, weapons and training. Eren's decision to unleash the Rumbling during the final act can easily be compared to the possibility of a besieged nation actually taking the plunge and unleashing an all-out nuclear war.
• Do Not Go Gentle: Mikasa in Episode 7 after suffering from a Despair Event Horizon seems to give up at first when she runs out of gas for her maneuver system. However, she starts to actively resist as best as she can against the Titan trying to eat her after she starts remembering Eren telling her to fight back.
  • Most people can't do much besides squirm even if they wanted to once they're in the grasp of a Titan. One exception is the unnamed Survey Corps member that basically spits defiance at the Titan holding him and keeps stabbing it in the face even as he's getting chewed on.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: The first two times the Female Titan is captured, a high-ranking Scout Regiment member has to go and taunt them. First, it was Levi, and then it was Hange...who went so far as to tease that her first method of escape wouldn't work where they were. The first taunt resulted in the Female Titan attracting titans for miles, escaping, regrowing, and killing even MORE scouts. The second resulted in her doing a leg sweep to escape her flimsy binds.
• Doomed Hometown: Eren, Mikasa, and Armin's hometown gets breached by the Colossal Titan in the very first episode. Reiner and Bertolt also came from a town overrun by Titans, and are motivated by their desire to see it again someday. May or may not be a complete fabrication as part of their cover. In later events, Connie's village becomes one.
  • Liberio, hometown to Annie, Reiner, Bertolt and several other Marleyan characters gets destroyed by Eren and the Survey Corps.
• Double Meaning:
  • In a flashback of Annie and Eren sparring together, Mikasa's implied to be jealous through interrupting them and challenging Annie to fight her instead. The other trainees gather in excitement at who will win, while Reiner asks: "Which one would you pick, Eren?" (note the choice of words). In response, he stares at them while thinking "Which one..." and the flashback fades out on that line, making it seem like the narrative was hinting towards more than just the outcome of the fight. While likely meant as pure Ship Tease in canon, it might have been a nod to official parodies where Mikasa and Annie are really portrayed as Eren's Betty and Veronica.
  • When Reiner calls out Annie as a slacker during training, Annie seems quite annoyed by this and, after beating Eren, challenges Reiner to spar with her, and beats him just as easily as she does Eren. While this can be merely interpreted as Reiner teaching Eren about "being a soldier" and/or teasing Annie, the fact that Annie and Reiner are both traitors, but don't seem on the best terms means this scene can be interpreted as Reiner challenging Annie to prove her loyalty. Though why this involves beating up Eren is not yet clear.
• Double-Meaning Title: The name of the series itself in Japanese. Shingeki no Kyojin does not actually translate into "Attack on Titan". It means "Titan of the Advance" or "Titan of the Attack", which initially doesn't make a whole lot of sense grammatically in English or Japanese. Chapter 88 reveals that this is the name of the Titan form Eren inherited from his father — one of the nine types of Titan Shifter forms available, in fact. So this whole time, the title of the series was hinting at the true nature of the Titans as well as directly referring to its Protagonist, the Attack/Advancing Titan (AKA Eren Yeager).
• Downer Beginning: The story opens with the massacre of an entire city and the protagonist watching as a Titan kills his mother. Oh and it happening again is the first arc.
  • Compare this to later in the story, where the corrupt government is overthrown with their crimes exposed, actual insight is gained concerning the Titan's nature, and humanity manages to actually make some effective counterattacks against the Titans. It's to the point where a Titan that dwarfs the Colossal Titan is killed with no casualties by their new ruler. Time will tell if they keep this momentum.
• Downer Ending:
  • Any given arc is going to end with a pile of bodies, at least one failed military objective, and people questioning the worth of it all. Save perhaps for one little item that might promise a better future.
  • The expanded epilogue of chapter 139 turns the original publication's open, Bittersweet Ending into this. Eren's rumbling slaughters 80% of humanity and in the long-run, it does nothing to stop the cycle of hatred. The Yaegerists take advantage of the Power Vacuum to establish a fascist regime, and the former Titan Shifters heading to Paradis to tell their side of the story all know that they're probably not going to leave there alive. Decades after the Mikasa's natural passing, war again comes to Paradis and Shiganshina (if not the whole island) is carpet-bombed and laid to waste. Decades after that, a child wanders through the ruins and finds the tree Eren was buried under. The tree has grown into a Tree of Yggdrasill identical to the one Ymir fell into, implying a new generation of Titans will be born and the cycle will continue in perpetuity.
• Dramatic Irony: In Episode 6, as Mikasa affirms her main motivation for living and fighting.
  Mikasa: Eren, as long as you’re with me, I can do anything.
  • She has no idea of Eren’s fate at this point. The audience does.
  • Right after the Female Titan is initially immobilized Levi's squad and Eren have orders to keep riding forward and later discuss how huge this accomplishment is. This happens shortly after the Female Titan breaks out and is on the loose looking for Eren...
  • Before the Survey Corps returns from the 57th expedition, the audience is treated to shots of the families of Petra, Eld, Gunther, and Oluo anticipating their return. The audience on the other hand knows what happened and it makes it heartbreaking to watch.
  • "In Chapter 85, Niles and the new Government are drinking tea for the success of retaking of Wall Maria, while Niles jokingly state that Erwin will throw a great party and an I Told You So moment. We already know that Erwin is dead by this point, so it is very painful to watch.
  • The Shifters apparently believe the royals within the Walls are a threat to their (the Shifters') country and possibly the rest of humanity thanks to all the Colossal Titans in the walls plus Eren's ability to control them. In reality up until Chapter 86 only a handful of people who knew there was anything beyond the Walls except ravenous Titans and had the Shifters not attacked things would have probably continued along that line for years.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: In the anime, Eren's dream is shown to be a variety of disturbing images of the Titans, dead humans, and ends with the scene of the Titan picking up his mother as shown later in the episode.
• Dream Intro: The manga begins with the protagonist Eren having a cryptic dream, apparently Dreaming of Things to Come.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: One can be seen in Episode 3, yelling at and training the recruits. One of the officers inspecting them wonders why he's being so harsh to them. The other tells him that his job is to break down and strip them of their individual identities so they can be trained as soldiers conditioned to fight alongside one another. The first officer later wonders why the drill sergeant seems to be skipping some individuals. The second one tells him that the ones he skips have a certain look on their faces, as they're already broken down, meaning they're survivors of a Titan attack.
• Dual Wielding: The soldiers tend to dual wield their blades because killing a Titan requires two cuts.
• Dub Name Change: Not a name, but terminology. 3D Maneuvering Gear is called Omni-Directional Mobility Gear. It's the exact same thing, but easier to match the lip flaps for the dub.
• Due to the Dead: The Survey Corps generally tries to recover the bodies of any of their fallen comrades when they're able to, or whatever's left of it anyway, such as in the first episode where the only thing they recovered from a fallen soldier was his hand. In Episode 22, Commander Erwin tries to get accountability for all of his soldiers, whether dead or alive, and lists the ones they're unable to find as missing in action, either due to Never Found the Body, or more likely, they were eaten by a Titan. Then when a Titan is on the verge of catching up to the remaining Survey Corps soldiers, they are forced to dump the bodies behind to lighten the load and enable an escape. However, none of them are happy about doing it, particularly as the Titan chasing them ignores the bodies, and in some cases, steps on them in its pursuit.
  • Levi, perhaps recognising the impracticality of always retrieving the body, collects the Survey Corps patches of fallen comrades. And as the soldiers drop the bodies, he recognizes one of them as Petra's. Unfortunately, there's nothing he can do about it, as retrieving her body would make him look hypocritical considering what he told other soldiers about picking up their dead friend's corpse. And at this point there's no time to recover them, since there are more Titans chasing after them.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Mikasa displays this in Episode 7, shortly after Armin tells her Eren died. Even when she tries to calm him down and tries to encourage the other trainees, her eyes retain this look.
  • Many Survey Corps members upon returning from an expedition tend to have these as well, along with a Thousand-Yard Stare.
• Dumb Muscle: The Titans are very strong, but not very bright.
  • Horrifyingly averted with the Titan Shifters, who show exactly how much damage someone with the strength of a Titan and the intelligence of a human can do.
• Dysfunction Junction: Everyone is messed up. Everyone.
• Dying Candle: In the second intro a field of burning candles is seen. Then a single swipe extinguishes all, but one of them. This most likely symbolizes how Levi's squad got wiped out by the Female Titan in merely a minute.
• Dystopia: The regime behind the Walls turned out to be this. They engaged in widespread censorship and suppression of information, destroying any form of advanced technology and innovation, and the Military Police hunted down and killed inventors and scientists who did it, including Armin's parents. The Greater-Scope Villain, Marley, is even worse. Eldians (Eren's race) were being discriminated and quarantined, forced to live in ghettoes and wear badges like the Jews in the Holocaust, and if they committed even the tiniest crime, they and their entire families were converted into Titans and used as living weapons. Marley justified it by saying it is justice and retribution from the past atrocities by the Eldian Empire, but it turned out, they were just as bad.
  • The Eldian Empire itself was an ancient dystopia founded a thousand years ago. When the real First King Fritz, a power-hungry slaver and rapist, forced his daughters (Maria, Rose and Shiina) to eat the corpse of their mother, his wife and the first Titan, Ymir, they and their descendants inherited the power of the Titans. With the Eldians having the Titans in their possession, they conquered the world and established a global totalitarian regime which engaged in widespread eugenics, racism, human experimentations and genocide, with Marley to be the first civilization to be conquered and annihilated. During the reign of Eldia, everyone lived under the fear of not just the Titans, but also of its horrible policies. This was why Eldians were so despised all over the world, and why the 145th king, Karl Fritz, allowed the Empire to destroy itself in a civil war, retreated many survivors behind the Walls of Paradis, and brainwashed them to forget everything, The descendants, who renamed themselves Reiss, began censorship campaigns and killing anyone who was immune to the mind wipe, including Asians such as Mikasa's parents.

E

• Early-Bird Cameo: The second episode of the anime adds a few blink-and-you'll miss it cameos for some of Eren's comrades. A young Annie appears as a refugee waiting in the bread line, while a young Reiner and Bertolt are glimpsed in the crowd during the announcement of the operation to reclaim Wall Maria.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: The first season of the anime gave the characters different proportions from later seasons (and to a lesser extent, the manga). More notably, they have distinct character outlines that are absent in later seasons.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: On the last page of Chapter 1, you can see a Mindless Titan from behind that's very clearly female in its build- breasts, hips, and feminine buttocks and all. Later on, it's established that all mindless Titans will have masculine bodies regardless of if they were women as humans or not (and the only indication of their former gender might lie in their facial features). The only Titans that can have female secondary sex characteristics are Titan Shifters. In all fairness, in an interview at the end of the first volume, Hajime Isayama said that female Titans were "rare". It's obvious now that he was referring to the Female Titan (and the Nine Titans in general), but still.
  • In the manga, Mikasa and her mother are referred to as "Asian" by their would-be kidnappers. This reference to a real-world place would come to feel odd as the series progressed and was revealed to take place in a Constructed World as opposed to Earth.
  • In the English dub of season 1 of the anime, the translation and the script writing were handled by Clyde Mandelin and J. Michael Tatum respectively. This resulted in some liberties taken with the English translation, such as changing the "trapped in a birdcage" metaphor to "home is a pen, humanity cattle", passing by the visual of three birds flying over Wall Maria both in the first and last episode of season 1. There was also an instance of turning Keith Shadis into a stereotypical drill instructor, even having him reference R. Lee Ermey and his most famous role in Full Metal Jacket at one point. By contrast, season 3 changed the translator and script writer to Miles George and Aaron Dismuke/Bonny Clinkenbeard respectively, and the English dub is much more faithful the the Japanese version, even having Eren refer to the walls as a cage rather than a pen at one point.
  • The original one shot of the series is...odd, to put it lightly. No ODM, humans could reach the nape of the Titan's necks just by jumping really high, and the blades were just simple katanas (that could also shoot fire). There's also no hints of any European culture, with all of the characters having Japanese names and the city inside the "walls" (which was just a line of trees, as the Titan's wouldn't hurt anything that isn't a human) was very reminiscent of traditional Japanese architecture. Some elements of the one shot did manage to get into the main series, such as the idea of Titan Shifters (although they were a bit different, as it Titans that could turn into humans, not the reverse) and the idea of Titans being Living Weapons.
• Earth All Along: A map reveals that Paradis Island is actually Madagascar, and the empire of Marley spans Africa, Europe, and at least parts of South America.
• Eaten Alive: The threat facing any human who come into contact with a Titan.
  • Faye Yeager was eaten alive by dogs.
• Effortless Amazonian Lift: Mikasa, who is stated to be physically stronger than most characters, does this to Eren in the first volume to break up his fight with Jean.
• Elite Mook: Among the regular Titans are "Abnormal Titans", who display radically different behavior. The decimation of Eren's squad at the Battle of Trost begins with an abnormal who jumps out from behind a belltower. During the 57th Scouting Expedition, Sasha nearly gets run down by an abnormal who crawls on all fours like a spider.
• Emergency Trainee Battle Deployment: The series' initial focus is on a team of newly minted graduates repelling a sudden invasion of Titans. Eren, the main character, gets eaten right off the bat...but thanks to the series' Applied Phlebotinum he survives, and the plot marches on.
• Emergency Transformation: After beating the Colossal Titan, the survivors of the 104th Training Corps are presented with the Sadistic Choice of using one injection of Titan Serum to save either Armin or Erwin, who are both dying.
• Emotionless Girl: Annie. It's not that she can't have emotions, she just doesn't care about the world around her. When she gets angry, she looks creepier.^note Never bully Annie. Ever. Her character development is partially revealed in small bits of backstory.
  • It says a lot about the setting that we have not one, not even two, but three characters that could be seen as this, each on their one particular flavor. First, there's Mikasa, of the stoic type with a heart of gold (and a lot of childhood trauma). Then there's Annie, of a more passive aggressive variety. Finally, we have Ymir, who comes off as unemotional mainly due to being aggressively rude and somewhat ill-tempered.
  • Actually, there's four, and again she's of a different variety; Rico, being The Spock, is quite subdued emotionally because she looks at everything from a logical standpoint.
• End of an Age:
  • Eventually, this is revealed to be the case when it comes to the Marley's dominance in the world. For a long time, they've been a prominent superpower state in the world because they dominated all of the other nations through Titan warfare. Nowadays though, military technology has finally reached a point where even the Armored Titan can be decimated with the power of one anti-Titan missile. As such, the Marley's true number one priority is to try and find a way to retain their dominance in a changing world.
  • In the series final chapter the status quo is changed forever after the alliance succeeds in killing Eren, which not only stops the Rumbling but causes the Power of the Titans to leave the Earth and transforms all of the Titans back into Eldians again. With this the era of humans living in fear of the Titans has come to an end and the world is left to pick up the pieces and move forward into an unknown future.
• Enemy Mine: The series discusses the whole idea of the whole of humanity settling its differences with each other to fight a common enemy, finding it overly optimistic. Indeed, even in the story, with humans on the brink of extinction against such an enemy, there's still plenty of infighting.
  • It's even brought up by Willy Tybur, who hopes that the rest of the world will join forces to defeat Paradis Island.
• Enfant Terrible: Eren was an utterly terrifying child, killing two grown men at the age of eight and justifying it by stating they were "animals" that simply happened to look like people. While he did it to rescue Mikasa, the brutality of the killings horrifies the adults responding to the scene and it's used against him seven years later, during his court-martial.
  • Gabi, who is 12, seems to have no problems killing Eldians, despite being Eldian herself.
• Enforced Technology Levels: The reason for the Schizo Tech; The Government kills anyone who creates anything that could possibly threaten their authority.
  • This later provides a major problem as it means that Paradis Island is about fifty years behind the rest of the world in terms of technology, and that's being nice.
• Enhanced on DVD: The TV versions of the current episodes feature missing scenes and other errors that have been addressed in the Blu-Ray rereleases.
  • And those enhancements have since been further upgraded for the American release.
• Equivalent Exchange: This is the ugly truth behind Titan-shifting; any Titan who consumes a Titan Shifter will gain the power to transform into one of the nine Titans themselves... but, their human body will progressively weaken from there on out and they will die in 13 years.
• Escort Mission: One starts in Episode 11 to take back Trost. Any operation involving Eren effectively becomes this, much to his annoyance and dismay.
• Establishing Series Moment: From the first episode: When the Survey Corps comes back blooded and battered, the mother of one of the soldiers asks them where her son is. She's handed what's left of him, and the Corps can't even tell her that his death meant anything. Then there's the whole "Hannes rescues Eren and Mikasa as Eren's mom is eaten by a Titan" thing.
• "Eureka!" Moment: While battling the Jaws titan, Eren reflexively uses the crystal cocoon containing the War Hammer's human pilot to block a claw slash... and notices that the attack left gouges in it. A few scenes after and he uses the Jaws Titan like a giant nutcracker to shatter the cocoon and claim the War Hammer's power.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Or at least True Companions. Armin managed to distract and enrage Bertolt and Reiner by lying to them that Annie was undergoing constant torture after being captured. That and, Reiner had earlier called Bertolt out for having feelings for Annie.
  • The Marley arc showcases this in full effect, as we see the loved ones of the characters who are supposedly the enemy. It's even acknowledged by Eren.
  • Later on, Eren's whole cause to enact the Rumbling is to protect his friends from further cycles of hatred in the future. He even drives away Mikasa and Armin to protect them from his spiralling fall into villainy.
• Everyone Is Related: An extreme version where apparently the vast majority of the population within the Walls, except for the Ackerman and Asian clans, all originate from a single bloodline. The Coordinate's ability to affect the members of this huge bloodline confirms their distant relation to each other.
• Evil Counterpart: The Hot-Blooded guy that is a physical powerhouse, his meek but highly effective childhood friend, and the Emotionless Girl that is the best fighter? We're not talking about Eren, Armin, and Mikasa.
• Evil Is Bigger: Regular Titans are anywhere from 5 to 15 meters tall with the Colossal Titan dwarfing everyone at 60 meters. Rod Reiss takes the cake with an estimated possible height of 120 meters. Eren's ultimate form of the Founding Titan which he uses as a Hive Mind to destroy the world dwarfs Rod Reiss's at the bare minimum, as it extends to the sky overlooking the Wall Titans, themselves close to the size of the Colossal Titan.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Titans are noted to have an abnormally high body temperature, such that victims that survived being Eaten Alive are boiled in their stomach. The Colossal Titan takes this a step further, constantly emitting clouds of steam from its body and possessing the ability to use them as a defensive mechanism. The steam's temperature also helps to keep attackers at bay.
  • There is Fridge Brilliance to this: large animals like elephants have higher average body temperatures than humans and have special adaptations to cool themselves, so it's no surprise the enormous Titans run hot.
    • Rod Reiss' Titan form takes the cake again; it's so hot that it just straight-up sets fire to things that get too close.
    • The Wall Titans emit so much heat that Armin had to survey Eren's ultimate Titan form via the sky, lest he be burnt again.
• Evolving Credits: During the Opening song in the first episode, The Emblem of Wall Maria is shown with bright, clear colors. By Episode 4, the emblem is now shown with duller and darker colors. This seems to be an error, however, since the Blu-Ray releases of every episode include the later version.
  • The final season has a case of Evolving Visual Art. After episode 3 was broadcast, Eren's Time Skip design is included in the poster.
• Exact Eavesdropping: The members of the Wall Cult seem to have an issue with people hearing conversations that shouldn't be heard by outsiders. One incident leads to Ymir learning about Krista and joining the military to find her, while another results in Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt learning about Krista's true identity as well.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: Eren has some in episode 15 after being forced to stay up all night listening to Hange explain to him everything she knew regarding Titans. She did warn him it would take a while before starting, however.
• Exotic Eye Designs: One set of officially licensed, Super-Deformed cell phone charms all sport swirly pupils, despite the characters' eyes averting this in canon.
• Expy: Erwin is one for Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias from Watchmen. The physical similarity was outright stated by Word of God, but the two also have the same motivations. Levi was based on the character Rorschach from the same series, but only in appearance and not personality.
• The Extremist Was Right: Played with. The various arguments given by the opposition in Eren's trial are seen as paranoid ravings, since Eren actually helped them against the Titans with his transformation into a Titan himself. But Erwin agrees with them that there could be other Shifters, and there are.
• Eye Catch: In the anime, some information pops up during these. However, it's difficult to read it all unless you pause it first.
• Eye Scream: In general this is a valid tactic to momentarily disable Titans if soldiers are unable to just go for their weak point. It becomes almost essential later on to deprive the more deadly Titans of their eyesight.
  • In Episode 20, the Female Titan has a hook stuck in her eye. The camera makes sure to focus on her face while Levi is taunting her, so that it's easily seen.
  • Done to the Female Titan once more when Levi engages her. He slices up her arm to prevent her from using it then stabs both blades into her eyes with EXTREME prejudice.
  • Happens again to the Female Titan in Episode 25, when Eren starts squeezing her head so hard that her eyes bulge out, before finally crushing her skull with his bare hands.
  • Happens to the Armored Titan in Chapter 77, taken to the extreme when his eyes are impaled but not destroyed, only to be blown to bits.
  • Eren removes his own eye when he goes undercover as a Marleyan soldier.

F

• Face Death with Despair: This trope is extremely common, to a point where you could pick out more examples where this trope was averted than played straight. Justified in that this is a setting in which humans are tasked with slaying hordes of mindless giants with a taste for their blood, so watching comrades die horribly is the norm for these characters.
• Face Death with Dignity: Rarely, if ever, happens. Being eaten by a Titan is a horrible way to die, and no one knows it better than the one about to be eaten. Mikasa does this when she thinks it's the end for her, until she remembers Eren's Dare to Be Badass Survival Mantra and decides to not go down without a fight.
  • There are a few soldiers who go out this way. After saving one of his comrades and getting devoured in his stead, Ian uses his last few moments to shout encouragement to Mikasa before being eaten. Similiarily, Farlan in A Choice with no Regrets smiles at Levi and gives a small wave before being eaten. Shortly before that, Sayram is Killed Mid-Sentence while screaming at Flagon to leave him behind instead of risking his own life helping him after getting grabbed by a Titan.
• Failed a Spot Check: Given a building or some foliage to hide behind, Titans can be really stealthy if it adds to the plot. This is essentially how Commander Erwin loses his arm.
• Faking the Dead: In Episode 17, while Armin, Reiner, and Jean are fighting the Female Titan, she knocks Armin off his horse. She then seems to be gaining the upper hand in the battle when Jean is unable to strike at the back of her neck, until Armin yells at Jean to avenge his best friend's death, meaning Eren, which this Titan killed earlier. While he is clearly lying, the Female Titan does stop attacking for the moment, giving Jean enough time to escape.
  • Later done by Zeke, who pretends to have been killed by the Survey Corps during the Liberio battle. Marley quickly figures out that he's not actually dead and has instead escaped.
• False Flag Operation: Armin, thinking out loud, suggests causing a disaster and blaming it on either the Monarchy or the Brigade in order to get the populace as a whole to regard the Survey Corps as their saviors. He then looks up to the shocked and horrified faces of his comrades. He claims he was just joking. And the series doesn't like to leave Chekhov hanging: shortly afterward, the Brigade murders Dimo Reeves and tries to blame it on the Survey Corps.
  • Later, the Survey Corps does release a (false) report that Wall Rose has been breached by the Titans. This has the intended effect of causing the nobility to panic and order the closing of Wall Sina. This enrages the military who are shocked at the nobility's willingness to abandon Wall Rose's population, thus spurring a military coup that overthrows the Reiss family.
• False Friend: Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt to the other members of the 104th. Even though they begin to care about them, all three are still carrying out their mission against humanity.
• Fan Disservice: The Female Titan has a great figure and is obviously athletic. How obvious? Well, it's hard to ignore all those toned muscles, considering there is no skin to cover them.
  • The rogue Titan has a ripped figure that would be attractive on any human, but it still has too many teeth and creepy glowing eyes.
  • In Episode 20, Hange has a bunch of grappling hooks shot into the Female Titan's butt even though no more are needed to detain it. The camera focuses on it in a sort of Male Gaze look on it.
  • In Chapter 53, Eren is shown shirtless to the joy of many. However, his eyes and overall flesh of his face has been torn out, leaving only his bleeding skull.
  • The first time the anime shows Levi without a shirt, his face is being stitched together.
• Fantastic Light Source: Glowing Ore harvested from the Reiss family's underground cavern. Thought to be produced by some sort of Titan power. It emits more light than a torch, and with appropriate manufacturing, can greatly extend nighttime operations.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The Eldians are this to the Jews during the Holocaust, living in a ghetto built by Marley, and having Germanic last names commonly associated with Azhkenazi Jews from Western Europe, such as Ackerman and Braun. This analogy is later subverted, however, as Eldians used to rule a vast empire before the Great Titan War, and considering their clearly Germanic names and architecture, they are most likely to represent Germans. Later backstory also shows the ancient tribe of Eldia to resemble Germanic people.
  • Marley, on the other hand, is a counterpart to the Germans of the same era, with technology about 30 years behind. They even have their own version of Hitler in Willy Tybur, a man with Eldian heritage, who hates it and who proposes a final solution to the Eldian problem. Subverted again, as several named Marleyan cities sound Italian, their national dishes include seafood and pizza, and ancient Marley seems to be a clear analogy to Romans, having Roman-style armor and being at war with Germanic-looking Eldians.
  • The Middle-East Alliance has Middle-Eastern-looking people wearing Fezes make it one for the Ottoman Empire.
  • Hizuru resembles East Asia due to its Japanese-like setting and the people from there having Japanese-like names.
  • The portion of Chapter 134 portraying the Rumbling shows a city that is a dead ringer for London, but populated by African-looking people.
  • In the last episode of the anime there are shots of the Rumbling reaching what seem to be Attack On Titan equivalents to India and to an uncontacted tribe in Africa.
• Fanservice: Effectively zero in the actual story, men and women alike are (almost) never seen less than totally fully clothed including long sleeves. Side material contains some though with a preference for showing Mikasa in workout clothes. However, as the manga goes on, some male characters start to appear shirtless, showing off their well-toned abs, most infamously Zeke, who even happens to be completely naked at some point, and post-Liberio Eren, who spends several chapters without a shirt on.
• Fanservice Pack: In the manga, Mikasa is fairly flat-chested and ripped, as shown in artwork of her wearing a magical girl costume◊. The anime adaptation downplays her musculature and increases her bust size, most-easily noticeable in a shot from the second opening.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • It is revealed that the royal family brutally persecuted members of the Ackerman clan and people of Asian descent because they were immune to the brainwashing effects of the Coordinate power.
  • It is revealed that the Marleyans have spent a century sending Titanized Eldians against the people inside the Walls because they claim that the Eldians engaged in centuries of ethnic cleansing and eugenics against them (the people inside the Walls being the last remnants of the Eldian Empire). As a matter of fact, they segregate the remaining Eldians that were left behind the continent in apartheid-like conditions and they handpick boys and girls from Eldian ghettos to receive the Titan Powers they appropriated from the Eldians.
  • Furthermore, the reason why the Warriors fought so hard for Marley is that the level of hatred against Eldians by the rest of the world has grown (due to Marley using Titan Powers to enforce its superiority) to such proportion that if Marley falls, the rest of the world probably would not think twice before exterminating all Eldians. As bad as Marley's treatment of Eldians are, at least the Eldians get to live.
  • Post time-skip, many Walldians have a deep hatred for the outside world because of all the death and destruction they have faced. As an example, during the attack on Liberio, Floch willingly kills civilians. This comes to a head in chapter 110.
• Fantasy Counterpart Map: We are shown the full map of the world in Chapter 86, it looks like our Earth but mirrored and upside-down, in fact, the Three Walls are actually located in Madagascar of all things.
• Faux Affably Evil: The Beast Titan politely asks Mike about his equipment and removes it without harming him. He then proceeds to tell the other Titans that they may have their way with him, since he's finished with his business.
• Feed the Mole: Erwin's secondary objective of the 57th expedition is to figure out who infiltrated the Survey Corps and is helping the Female Titan by feeding everyone different information on Eren's location. The primary objective is actually capturing said Female Titan and the human within it.
• Feel No Pain: The Titans don't react at all to body parts being blown or cut off. Although one Titan does cry out and clutch at its face when stabbed in both eyes, but it is unclear if it was reacting out of pain, or at the sudden loss of its eyesight, or perhaps was just an oddity altogether.
  • Repressing intense pain seems to be part of the effects of the enemy Titan Shifters' Training from Hell. It clearly hurts like hell, but most of the time they won't react overtly to it.
  • It is actually more likely that Titans can feel pain in certain parts of the body. For example, all Titans thus far have exhibited pain when being stabbed in the eye (examples being Levi throwing knives into Titan's eyes and Hange's experimentation on Titans). However, it is possible that nowhere else is painful to a Titan.
• Fictional Age of Majority: The minimum age for enlistment is 12 years old. Training is a 3 year period, so it isn't clear whether one is considered an adult at enlistment or at graduation. (Assuming they survive to graduate, that is.)
• Fictional Earth: The whole plot of Attack On Titan happens on an upside-down Earth◊, otherwise, the continents have exactly same size and form, but with Alternate History put in motion.
• Fictional Geneva Conventions: Played with. Eren waits until Willy Tybur declares both him public enemy number one, and war on the Eldians of Paradis, to engage in his Titan rampage against the Marleyan high command and the dignitaries at Willy's event. It was his intention to carry out the attack from the beginning, but he still made sure that Reiner heard Willy talk out of his ass to do so, in order to make Reiner understand why the attack against Liberio would take place. As Eren surmises, the Marleyans and the Eldians of Liberio did draw first blood in the first place.
• Fighting Fingerprint: Annie's ruthlessly efficient fighting style is unique. Because of it, Armin uses it as evidence that she is the Female Titan, and after she taught it to Eren, he manages to pull one over Reiner in their fight. Eren lost the first fight against the Female Titan because he recognized her fighting style and realized she was Annie, though he remained in denial afterwards.
• Filler: Despite compressing quite a bit of manga into 25 episodes, some anime-original content is employed to maintain the pace of each episodes, such as more character interaction within the 104th's top ten members. One specific example is the Dieter side-story, which happens as the Survey Corps heads back from the 57th Expedition Beyond the Walls.
• Filming for Easy Dub: The initial broadcast of the show in Japan was plagued with problems. The studio apparently didn't have enough animators to finish episodes with the schedule they were given, so they really cut corners during the first half of the show. There are lots of instances where you may hear something epic happening but the camera is zoomed in on someone's face or zoomed out on the scenery. It got especially bad around episodes 10 - 13, with many still images and camera trickery being employed. Fortunately, the 13.5 Recap Episode seemed to give the studio enough time to get their act together.
• Final Solution: The original goal of the Titan attacks. It seems to have been abandoned in favor of capturing Eren, at least according to Reiner.
  • In Chapter 65, Kenny reveals that the King's Power only works on certain bloodlines. To maintain control over the populace, the royal family carried out an extermination campaign against all other races with only a few of Mikasa's clan surviving.
  • As of Chapter 78, capturing Eren alone is no longer sufficient. Bertolt lays out two demands when Armin makes one final effort to negotiate any kind of truce with him: 1) Eren's Capture, and 2) The death of every man, woman, and child living within the Walls.
  • It has since been revealed that wiping out everyone living in the Walls was always a top priority for the Kingdom of Marley for 2 major reasons; In order to strip Paradis Island of its multitude of natural resources to maintain military dominance and to prevent any lost Titan Power from being born to an Eldian baby outside of their control.
  • In Chapter 108, following the aftermath of Eren's assault on Liberio in full view of the international community, Magath tells the Warriors that every major nation in the world will initiate a "Scorched Earth" attack on Paradis Island within 6 months. Although the details weren't elaborated, it was noted by the Marleyan generals that aircraft technology is developing to the point where carrying massive bombs hundreds of kilograms in size would soon be feasible. That being said, it's within the realms of possibility that the world is planning to bomb Paradis Island into oblivion.
  • In Chapter 114, Zeke's end goal was revealed to be using the Founding Titan to sterilize every Eldian in the world to ensure that they would all eventually die out completely, freeing the rest of the world from Titans for good. Zeke considers this sparing the Eldians and their unborn children from their seemingly inescapable fate to be hated and treated worse than trash by the rest of the world.
  • In Chapter 123, after acquiring full control of the Founding Titan, Eren releases the Wall Titans and telepathically declares to all Subjects of Ymir that everyone beyond Paradis Island will be exterminated in order to protect his birthplace.
• Fingore: Happens to the Female Titan in Episode 25, when she is attempting to escape Eren's wrath by trying to climb the Wall. Then Mikasa shows up and slices her fingers off, causing her to fall down.
  • Also, in Episode 17, when Reiner escapes from the Female Titan's grasp and left a secret message in there that revealed Eren's assumed location
  • All of Pastor Nick's fingernails were removed during his Cold-Blooded Torture in Chapter 52 of the manga.
  • When Grisha Yaeger got interrogated as to The Owl's identity, they cut off his fingers one by one.
• Finishing Stomp:
  • The second Titan killed on screen by the Rogue Titan is finished off this way, with the latter repeatedly stomping on its head.
  • The Female Titan kills many Survey Corps scouts this way. Petra is killed this way after she gets caught between its foot and a tree.
• First-Episode Twist: Eren's mother getting eaten by a Titan, to the point where it's revealed in some official descriptions of the show.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the battle between Levi's Squad and the Female Titan steam is only coming from the Female Titan's right eye and none of her other wounds. Since steam comes from Titan's wounds as they heal, it shows that she's focusing her healing into that one spot.
• Flare Gun: An important means of battlefield communication.
• For Doom the Bell Tolls: The anime provides a chilling example in the score. It might as well be the punctuation mark on the end of hope. The first episode also pointedly has the church bell ringing when the front gate opens, not long before the Colossal Titan appears. At least the second time around, the bells signal for civilians to evacuate and they successfully do though the connotations are still the same.
• Foreshadowing: Loads of it.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend:
  • After not thinking about them for a long time, this is finally averted by Eren in Chapter 65, tearfully recalling his dead squadmates Thomas, Mina, Nac, Mylius, and Marco (along with everyone else who died so far) during his Heroic BSoD, in which he blames himself for their deaths.
  • Also averted in chapter 76, when Erwin thinks about the many, many sacrifices his Survey Corps has made to get that far, he pictures the dead both as a mountain of corpses he's standing upon and as hundreds of ghosts, still watching them to see if their sacrifices have been in vain. Present are many of the fallen Scouts we've seen so far, most prominently Mike.
• Foul First Drink: During the Siege Of Trost, Dot Pixes offers Eren a swig from his flask, which results in a Spit Take.
• Fragile Speedster: The soldiers are all supposed to be this, having to be light and fast in order to pull off the gymnastics demanded by Titan slaying. With the right moves, they can inflict serious damage on a Titan, but one hit from a Titan and they're down.
• Freddie Mercopy: Provides the current page image for the trope; a brief expy of the famous Queen singer is seen when Levi's squad appears for the first time against various titans, one of them sporting short hair and a moustache, being killed by Hanga Zoe.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The Eye Catch segments in the anime adaptation usually display useful information about the world, filling viewers in on various subjects such as the three Walls, 3D Maneuvering Gear, and more. However, they pass after a few seconds, so it's difficult to read unless you pause them first.
  • During Eren's cryptic dream in Episode 1 of the anime, there's a split-second shot of a decapitated statue wearing a soldier's outfit sitting by a fireplace. Keen-eyed viewers who've read the manga will notice that it's a statue of Helos, the savior of Marley who joined forces with the Tybur family to overthrow Karl Fritz. It's worth noting that Episode 1 aired in 2013 while Helos wasn't introduced in the manga until 2017.
  • In Episode 37, immediately after Hannes is eaten, a group of flowers being splashed with blood briefly flashes on the screen. The exact same group of flowers splashed with blood from Eren's cryptic dream in Episode 1.
  • In chapter 120, among the pieces of panels and scenes from the manga's history, on the most upper-left, there is a panel of Armin and Mikasa as depicted in the fake previews' high school setting.
• From Bad to Worse: More like from worse to utterly hopeless.
• Full-Circle Revolution:
  • The military junta that overthrows the Reiss family and nobility for control of Paradis eventually ends up no better than them. In particular, just like the previous regime, they become more focused on preserving their own power than acting in Paradis' best interest and enforce their power through their monopoly on control of the army. This comes to a head when the lead officers decide Eren is now a liability to them and must be eliminated. They also want to exploit Historia's royal blood for their own purposes.
  • The Yeagerists who eventually overthrow the military junta don't even make any pretext at playing nice, as they are all zealous, radical Eldian supremacists who wish to see the reestablishment of the Eldian Empire and its dominion over humanity. Naturally, they begin ruthlessly suppressing and purging anybody that opposes them, even their own fellow Paradis natives.
  • For all their propaganda about the horrors of the Eldian empire, the kingdom of Marley is little better than their predecessors. They still use Titans to wage war and are hideously oppressive towards the Eldians, their former masters.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Mikasa's face during Episode 14 when Levi is kicking the crap out of Eren (though it's more like Black Comedy).
  • Probably due to the above, when Historia finally musters the courage to punch Levi and dare him to do something about it, everyone's reaction is shocked... except for Mikasa's, who merely smiles with satisfaction.
  • During the Clash of the Titans arc, Bertolt and Ymir have a serious expository discussion about how their pasts are intertwined, while they completely ignore Eren struggling futilely against Reiner in the background and screaming death threats at everybody. It's funnier than it sounds.
  • Combined with a Brick Joke. When Hange wakes up in the afterlife, among the people to greet them is Gelgar, who finally found a bottle of wine after he died complaining he never got to drink one last cup (the bottle he found just as he died turned out to be empty).
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: When Eren gets eaten by a Titan, Mikasa enters Tranquil Fury mode and orders her team on the offensive, despite clearly not having enough fuel in her 3D-maneuver gear to complete the attack. Only the appearance of the Rogue Titan saves her from getting eaten herself.

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