Attack On Titan / Tropes M to R

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)

M

• MacGuffin Super-Person:
  • Eren is hunted by everybody so that he either gets to be humanity's greatest weapon, dissected, executed, or be brought back to fellow Titans. It's later revealed that he is also able to control Titans to an extent. This is why people with powers the same as, or even stronger than his were willing to go to such lengths to capture him alive. Christa also becomes an example later on, due to her heritage and ability to reveal the secrets of the Walls. The Survey Corps' solution to this is to sweep both of them under the rug until they reach adulthood, upon which they can deal with it better.
  • The Beast Titan is stated to be this to the Titan Shifters.
• Made a Slave: Even in humanity's darkest hours, there are still some people making profit from selling others to the capital's underworld. Specifically this would have been the fate of Mikasa and her mother (if she wasn't killed) if not for Eren rescuing her and putting them down like the dogs they were.
  • Ymir Fritz was later revealed to be one to the fledgling Eldian Empire.
• Made of Plasticine: Titans fall apart surprisingly easily. Don't think this makes them much less of a threat, though — their Healing Factor more than compensates. Particularly obvious when the Rogue Titan punches another of his kind, and ends up taking off its head and losing most of his forearm.
  • Hange notes that the body parts of a Titan are impossibly light, which might have something to do with this, their speed, and how they even exist without collapsing in on themselves.
• Main Character Final Boss: Eren becomes the Big Bad after he convinces Ymir Fritz to give him the full power of the Founding Titan, intending to wipe out all of civilization outside of Paradis Island so they won't exterminate his people and it's revealed that he's been planning this all along via a Stable Time Loop by influencing the previous wielders of the Attack Titan's power. The endgame revolves around Eren's former comrades teaming up with Marley's remaining Titan Shifters in order to put a stop to him.
• Male Gaze: Discussed in Episode 17, when Reiner refers to the Female Titan as having a "nice ass". Considering it's only partially covered in skin, he was probably making an inappropriate joke. (Alternately it may have been a personal in-joke, considering he's the Armored Titan and knows the Female Titan is Annie, who probably has quite a "nice ass" in her human form.)
• Manly Tears: Rivers of those are shed, and it never detracts from the characters' portrayals. When someone cries, you can be sure that it's because something really got to them, be it the stress of the Hopeless War, a personal tragedy, or other reasons to be emotionally overwhelmed (and because most likely the reader/watcher will be crying just as much).
• Martyrdom Culture:
  • The military does not focus upon victory, but encourages soldiers to die as bravely and in as useful a fashion as possible. Many of the characters, similarly, seem obsessed with finding a way to die in as useful and meaningful way as possible. Eren goes out of his way to call bullshit on this as often as he can.
  • Brought up again later on with Warchief Zeke, who heavily disdains the royal family within the Walls for creating a system where good soldiers are sent to their deaths again and again out of a misguided ideal of heroism. They even muse that by the end, humanity may well be sending their children and elderly out to fight too.
• Mascot Villain: The Colossal Titan. The first Titan seen in the series and the one that kicks off the plot as well as being one of the Titan Shifters, which adds to his mysteries. Its sheer size and recognizability probably factor into it appearing in so many promotional materials, especially with the powerful image of Eren fearlessly trying to slay it.
• The Masquerade: It seems there's one going on, Pastor Nick knows a lot about the titans inside the walls and refuses to tell the Survey Corps about it, and during the Uprising Arc as the Royal Government sends the 1st Central Military Police after the Survey Corp for being too close to the truth. It's enventually revealed that Humanity is not extinct outside the walls, in fact, there is no Titan apocalypse going on. The King of the Walls is the former leader of a massive empire known as Eldia, who controlled the power of the Nine Titans. He decided to retreat to the island of Paradis after being too guilty about the crimes of the Empire. The Titans are actually transformed humans sent by a hostile nation named Marley. He used the Founding Titan to erase everyone's memories and made everyone think that the Titans suddenly appeared and exterminated the rest of humanity, and that they're the last remnants of mankind. The 1st Central Military Police takes care of anyone that questions this official version of the government and invents any technology that might the break the status quo, while the Survey Corps is allowed outside the walls so their eventual deaths can serve as an example of what happens if you step outside the walls.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, along with other residents of Shiganshina when they see the Colossal Titan for the first time peering at them from over the fifty meter wall.
  • Sasha's introduction in Episode 3 when the Drill Sergeant Nasty spots her eating a potato in formation (breaking bearing is the least of her problems). While the drill instructor is distracted with chewing Sasha out, everyone shoots her horrified looks.
  • It occurs later in Episode 5, when Sasha reveals she "borrowed" some meat from the officers' rations.
  • The Scouting Legion gets one when they see that the walls hide Titans in them.
  • The entire nation of Marley and all of the world representatives when Eren attacks Marley in his titan form.
  • All of the Eldians and Eldian-relatives once Eren informs them psychically that he would be killing everyone outside Paradis.
• Mauve Shirt: Titans find recently introduced and named characters to be very tasty.
• Maybe Ever After: The manga ends on this note for Annie and Armin and Gabi and Falco. The first couple have been shown to have romantic feelings for each other and maybe have undergone a Relationship Upgrade, but there were more important things to do at that time, and the final chapter doesn't clarify this issue. In the second case it's not explicitely shown if Gabi finally returned Falco's romantic feelings, but they are shown together with the implication of sharing the future life with each other.
• Meaningful Look: Just after her true identity is revealed and she is overpowered, the gagged Annie pointedly makes eye contact with Eren, who looks extremely distressed when he sees her seemingly helpless. This is even more obvious in the manga, and serves to highlight the respect they hold for each other. See the SnK wiki for the relevant panels.
• Meaningful Name: Quite a few characters.
  • Eren Yeager: "Holy Hunter".
  • Armin: "Universal"
  • Reiner: "Counseling Warrior"
  • Bertolt: "Bright Ruler"
  • Annie Leonhart: "Grace" and "Lion Heart"
  • Connie Springer: "Steadfast" and "Lively"
  • Ymir: A primordial giant in Norse Mythology from whom the world was created; definitely meaningful given her implied elite status amongst Titans. Also appropriate that Ymir was killed by the gods who used his body to build the world. Ymir Fritz was used to build an empire as a slave, not out of her own volition.
  • Krista Lenz: "Follower of Christ", "Laurels" (the Roman symbol for victory) Also, Historia in reference to her family's knowledge of the Walls' secrets.
  • Sasha: "Defender of Man"
  • Jean Kirstein: "God has graced me" "Follower of Christ"
  • Marco Bott: "From the God of war" and "Messenger" perhaps in nod to his role as the Sacrificial Lion.
  • The Reiss family: in Portuguese, the word "Reis" translates to "kings".
  • Ackerman: A family name that references someone who would till the fields, and collect the crops that grew from them. Ergo, a reaper.
  • Also Castle Utgard. Utgard is the land of the Jotuns (Giants) according to Norse Mythology.
  • Trost is German for consolation. This is significant as the Battle of Trost ends in mankind's first victory against the Titans, despite suffering massive losses.
• Medieval European Fantasy: More of neo-medieval fantasy, as architecture, civilian attire, and government are reminiscent of the Middle Ages, but the military is more modernized, having 3D maneuvering equipment, guns, and more modern-day uniforms.
• Medieval Stasis: The only major innovation in the past century has been the development of the 3DMG. Everything else is firmly planted in the late end of the Dark Ages (or in the case of the Inner Walls, the Victorian/Edwardian periods). Justified. The Central Military Police have been seeking out and murdering any intellectual thinkers who pushed people to ask questions and seek answers, as well as people who tried to innovate. One unlucky couple was two steps away from inventing a working hot air balloon before the Central MP stepped in. They justify this by saying it ensures stability.
  • Turns out this only applies to the people living inside the Walls. Outside they have access to early 20th century technology, including radio, planes, and zeppelins.
• Memento Macguffin: The key to Eren's basement, which doubles as a Tragic Keepsake.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender: Averted. Both men and women die with alarming regularity, since the Titans aren't too picky who they choose to eat.
• Mental Time Travel: After rescuing Grisha from Gross, Kruger tells Grisha all of the information he gathered while posing as a Marleyan officer. During this time, he divulges a theory by Marleyan researchers that all Subjects of Ymir are connected by "Invisible Paths" which transcend time and space and converge at a single point: The "Coordinate" ability. These paths are speculated to not only carry the flesh and bones to make up Titan bodies, but also the memories and wills held by other Subjects of Ymir. Kruger then adds a considerable amount of merit to this theory when he tells Grisha that he must complete his mission if he wants to save Mikasa, Armin, and everyone else, years before they were actually born. After Grisha questions who those people were, Kruger didn't know either, and wonders who's memories he was seeing at that moment. It's later revealed he was unknowingly tapping into Eren Yeager's memories and was confused because he was not aware of his Titan's true power. It is also revealed Eren used his memories to manipulate Grisha into murdering the Reiss family sans Rod.
• Mercy Kill: This is revealed to be Zeke's ultimate plot. After witnessing the cruelty Eldians suffer at the hands of the Marleyans, stemming from humanity's collective fear of the Titans, Zeke concludes that the best way to save both the world and the Eldians is to use the Founding Titan's powers to sterilize Eldians, ensuring that they will peacefully die out.
  • Armin helps Zeke walk out of this mindset, telling him how life's precious for all the little things, to which Zeke agrees and sacrifices himself to stop his brother.
• Midair Motion Shot: Eren gets one in the first opening, and out of universe a meme focuses on this.
• Mighty Glacier: The Colossal Titan is slower than the average Titan, but also far larger and stronger. He can compensate for this by releasing heat from his body, preventing humans from getting close enough to do any damage.
• The Millstone: Invoked. Rod Reiss argues that only the members of the Reiss Family are able to use the Coordinate to its full extent; this is only partially true, as it's implied that the First King, a Fritz, imparted the coordinate to the Reiss Family with the exact purpose of hindering its use. As a matter of fact, no member of the Reiss Family is shown to have used the Coordinate in the manner that Rod argues, lending some doubt as to his claims. As it is, this also implies that the Fritz Family are the ones who are able. Eren, however, discovers a loophole: he can use the Coordinate if he makes physical contact with someone of royal ancestry, regardless of whether he (or they) are in Titan form.
• Mirror Universe: Geographically-speaking. In this world, the sun rises in the west.
• Missing Mom: Eren and Mikasa's mother, Carla. Her death was the Cynicism Catalyst behind Eren's violent hatred of Titans and his vow to destroy all of them.
• The Mole: Annie, Bertolt, and Reiner are agents sent to infiltrate the military and destroy the Walls, who end up Becoming the Mask to various degrees. Ymir also secretly joined the human ranks, but independent of the others. She compares herself to her love interest, Krista, in that both rejected their pasts and tried to start new lives. How true this is, remains unclear.
  • Zeke Yeager was this to Marley. Maybe.
• Mood Dissonance:
  • Episode 25 of the anime portraying Annie as sympathetic through flashbacks of her past, while simultaneously portraying her Titan form as ugly and monster-like as possible thanks to Titan Eren's beating of her.
  • Eren activates the Rumbling on a bright, beautiful sunny day, creating all kinds of dissonance as millions of Marleyans are brutally slaughtered in the nice weather while Eren fights a bloody war against his former comrades in the sky. Zeke even takes note of what a nice day it is right before he gets decapitated by Levi.
• Mood Whiplash: Hope Spots show up frequently. One moment the situation can be hopeless, and the next moment we're treated to light-hearted character development. The reverse can happen just as often.
  • Even the funny moments are subject to this, such as a flashback to Mikasa and her parents where they pass the buck on The Talk, when there's a knock at the door...
  • An extreme example is Eren accidentally forming (part of) a Titan body in front of the Survey Corps for the first time. The tension builds up rapidly as the Survey Corps intensely yells demands at him and are a hair-width from closing in and killing him... only for Hange to arrive and go absolutely, hilariously, rabidly Squee over it, immediately defusing the situation.
  • Another example comes from the capture of the Female Titan. Eren and the rest of squad Levi are triumphant, and joking about who pissed their pants on their first mission. Then the Female Titan escapes and brutally murders squad Levi, except for Eren, who can only scream in despair, as he's too far away to do anything about it.
    • The anime tends to play this up for as much dramatic effect as possible, and to make the following tragedies just that much more tragic.
    • The first few episodes are a good indicator for this.. Episode 1 and 2 are absolutely brutal, as they cover the Titans' breach of Wall Maria, and the subsequent mass starvation. Episode 3 is basically an extended comedic introduction for the supporting cast — slapstick, punchlines, the whole deal. Then, by Episode 5, people are dying en masse again.
    • Of course, even the episodes that end on a dramatic and/or depressing note are followed by the calm ending song.
  • As Eren initiates a vicious attack in Marley that kills men, women and children alike, Pieck's crew find her stuck in a pit and toss a rope down to help her...and the rest of the crew not holding the rope humorously display their infatuation for her by all enthusiastically offering a hand to help pull her up (she doesn't accept any of them).
  • Chapter 105: Just when the Survey Corps thought their mission is a success and celebrate their victor, Gabi and Falco infiltrated their Zeppelin using a dead Survey Corps member's 3DM and the former kills Sasha along with various other soldiers.
• Mook Chivalry. Inverted. Scout Regiment attacks the Female Titan three at a time and gets decimated. Then Eren attacks alone and loses.
• Mook Horror Show: Chapter 64 clearly shows how utterly powerful the Survey Corps has become. A well-trained, fully equipped squad of 35 black-ops commandos in their element is decimated, outmaneuvered, and outwitted by seven teenagers with obsolete combat gear. The derailing train of thought from the squad leader's point of view says it all.
  • A similar thing happens in Chapter 101 & 102, with the soldiers of Marley getting swiftly killed by the Survey Corps' sudden attacks utilizing their 3D Maneuver Gear and more modernized weaponry. Porco Galliard is also shocked to see soldiers willing to stand against a Titan as he was escaping and calls them the devils of Paradis Island accordingly.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: Contrasting strongly with Eren Yeager's original view of the world as Black and White. The story fully explores the themes of He Who Fights Monsters, with heroes ranging from the idealistic to the pragmatic and villains that are complex individuals driven by understandable motivations.
• Morality Pet: Krista is this to Ymir, motivating her most heroic moments. Eren and Armin manage to befriend Annie, bringing out the kinder aspects of her personality. The members of the 104th, and Connie in particular, became this to Reiner and contribute to his eventual Sanity Slippage.
• More Dakka: Hundreds of hook-tipped wires are fired explosively from barrels in the attempt to capture the Female Titan, giving off this effect.
• More Expendable Than You: Entire squads of soldiers are tasked with throwing their lives away if it means keeping Eren safe, because of how valuable his special abilities are.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: A universal feature of the Titans.
• Morton's Fork: After Eren is exposed as a Titan Shifter, Weilman gives him a choice at cannonpoint: admit he's a traitor or say he's human. Eren, naturally, says he's human, and Weilman just fires the cannon anyway, pointing out that he can't prove it. Armin finds a way to prove it.
• Mukokuseki: A noticeable aversion. Mikasa's mixed background is commented upon, and she does indeed look different from the other characters with straight black hair and almond-shaped eyes. There is a wide variety of facial features and eye shapes, many of which are stereotypically European in origin. The anime adds to this, making several characters Ambiguously Brown.
  • Most characters from within the walls are all of the same ancestry.
• Mundane Luxury: After the loss of Wall Maria, land becomes scarce and food is heavily rationed. The majority of the population lives off grains, vegetables, and potatoes while meat and diary products are luxuries rarely available to those outside the wealthy Interior. Salt and Tea are also mentioned to be luxuries, and sweets are only shown being enjoyed by the nobility.
• Mundane Utility: In Episode 15, the Survey Corps are seen using their 3D Maneuver Gear to... clean the grime off the walls and windows of an old castle.
• Mutually Assured Destruction: The Titans making up the Walls of Paradis turn out to be this; essentially millions of dormant Titans encased in the walls, all under the control of the one possessing the Coordinate power, and big enough and numerous enough that were they released upon the world, they would bring about the End of the World as We Know It. Neither side wants to risk the entire planet being trampled flat, so for a nice long while, until Marley found out that Paradis was rich in natural resources, with the Walls sitting right on top of it, so they sent in a four-person commando team to hijack the Coordinate to render the inhabitants of Paradis helpless to invasion. Unfortunately for them, Grisha had already taken the Coordinate ability from the Royal family years before, thus setting the events of the plot in motion. Eren Yeager, the current Founding Titan fulfills this trope to the letter.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Annie's momentary breakdown after the Battle of Trost.
  • Hanji and Levi have this reaction when they realized the Titans they experimented and killed were once humans.
  • Falco when he realizes that he led his mentor and superior right into a confrontation with Eren.
  • Gabi when she sees first-hand that the 'devils' of Paradis are normal people just trying to survive against an increasingly hostile world.
  • Zeke after learning Eren was playing him in order to get to the Paths to raze the world.
• Mythical Motifs: The Titans and their origins seem to be themed around the Jotnar from Norse Mythology and the events related to them. While the majority of the Jotnar are monstrous, they are not Always Chaotic Evil (though the exceptions can be counted with both hands), and some are the greatest allies of the Aesir, especially Loki. But after Loki goes too far and is punished somewhat disproportionately, he turns on the Aesir and leads the Fire Giants to destroy the world, dying himself in the process. The Titans aren't so much evil as cursed, with the few who can return to being humans (namely Eren) aiding those within the Walls against their foes. After his actions result in Sasha's death, though, and faced with twin issues of the reality of the world outside the walls and his own desire for freedom, Eren is ostracized from his friends and ends up kickstarting the Rumbling which sees most of the world wiped out. Tellingly, while the final conflict in the story is called The Rumbling, the final arc shares the name with the Norse end of the world, Ragnarok.
• Mythology Gag: There's a flashback of Annie mentoring Eren in a manner suggesting she was putting the moves on him. They're violently interrupted by Mikasa who challenges Annie to fight her instead, to which the two exchange Death Glares before preparing to square off. The other trainees gather around in excitement and Eren is asked which one he would "pick" between them. This might have a been a nod to the official High School AU, where Mikasa and Annie compete over an oblivious Eren's affections.
  • Hitch bashes Jean over the head when she first meets him just like she does in the above mentioned parody.

N

• Naked People Are Funny: It can sometimes be difficult to take the Titans seriously, with their giddy running, flailing arms, and how many of them look like giant naked people. This may actually be intentional, as it serves as massive Mood Whiplash when they flash their Slasher Smile and devour a beloved character.
• Narrator: It would appear to be Armin, based on the same voices.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name:
  • The way Marley treats the people of Eldia is eerily reminiscent of how Nazi Germany treated the Jews right before WWII. To wit. People of Eldia are segregated to a ghetto, forced to wear armbands identifying them as Eldians, horribly abused by police, military, and civilian alike, are taught in school that their race is descended from evil, and made a national scapegoat with the constant threat of the "final solution" constantly hanging over their heads. What's more, the Marleyans have a large blimp and biplane airforce, a national "volunteer" program where children are forced into military duty, and required to snitch on their parents and family members, and the government officials in charge call themselves the "one true race." Hell, one could even argue that Paradis is a concentration camp, what with the island specifically used to intern Eldians and anti-Marley dissents, guarded by the Titans to prevent escape. There is even a scene where Marleyan elites have a discussion that has disturbingly similar vibes of Hitler's Final Solution.
    • In Chapter 93, a Marleyan officer interrupts a conversation between Zeke and his potential replacement, not even bothering to eavesdrop because "Eldians don't need privacy" (indeed they tell him everything except Zeke has royal Eldian blood which is why he can control other Titans, something Zeke has never revealed to anyone). There's also the startling image of several dozen "honorary Marleyans" packed into a train car, although it's possible they chose to be there so they could celebrate a victory.
  • In a dark twist, the Yeagerist faction has become this as well. The group are Eren's devoted followers, co-opting the ideals and imagery of the Survey Corps to push an agenda of Eldian Supremacy. Under Eren's leadership, the group dismantles the government through political assassinations and brings the masses under their control through propaganda, with the goal of establishing a "New Eldian Empire" by carrying out a Final Solution on the rest of humanity. The groups borrows heavily from Marley, instituting a policy with armbands to mark Status, rounding up political dissenters, and executing ethnic minorities while promising them safety if they submit to Eldian rule. Under their reign of terror, most of the cast are arrested as political dissenters and most of the older cast are ultimately badly injured or killed by the Yeagerists.
• The Needs of the Many: Gut-wrenching example. When Wall Maria is abandoned, there are too many refugees to feed and the food supplies look grim. The government's solution is to draft 250,000 people (20% of the population) to reclaim the lost territory from the Titans; only a handful survive. Pixis doesn't mince words about this and goes further to say that if Wall Rose falls, this time over 50% of the remaining humans are going to be sent to die.
  • This is the justification that commanders use in this series when they sacrifice their troops (except for the ones that are just plain Dirty Cowards).
  • Inverted eventually, Eren decides to raze the entire world outside the island so that his friends and the other Paradisians live a peaceful life.
• Nerves of Steel: One of the Eye Catches mentions this among other things as a necessary to use 3D Maneuver Gear properly, since a soldier needs to be able to react and change directions in an instant to avoid disaster all while maintaining perfect balance. As far as characters go, you have to try pretty damn hard to shake Levi from his perpetual level-headed-ness.
• Never Found the Body: Missing persons are grouped together with the dead in casualty reports since unlike other situations where desertion or being taken prisoner is a possibility, they are most likely dead without a body to leave behind. The exception to this is the 57th Survey Corps expedition where many of their dead did have intact bodies because the Female Titan stomped or crushed them instead of eating them.
  • Commander Erwin is savvy enough to not count the human inside the Female Titan dead even after her Titan body is devoured by other Titans since nobody witnessed said person's actual death.
  • Hitch and Marlowe believed Annie to have been killed during the Titan battle in Stohess due to this. Upon their return in the story, they learn from Levi how Annie was in fact one of the Titans fighting.
• Nice Guy:
  • Marco, one of two resident Team Dads, as well as friendly, genial, and always attempting to raise morale. He's also a Bromantic Foil to the more cynical, snarkier Jean.
  • Petra, who acts as Eren's Cool Big Sis within the Survey Corps. The guidebook gives her a rating of 10/10 in Kindness, and it shows.
  • Krista plays with this; on one hand she is a genuinely kind-hearted, sweet-natured girl, on the other she is also obsessed with actively cultivating this reputation, and is prone to putting herself in danger so that she may die a meaningful or glorious death.
  • Falco, despite being a Child Soldier, is extremely nice to everyone. Even to apparent military vets staying in a mental hospital, and enemy soldiers in their territory.
• Nightmare Face: Many Titans are characterised by this trope, their face being stuck into a perpetual expression that more often than not includes rather disturbing grins (as a result of the facial skin being unnaturally streched).
  • A great example of such an expression is that of a 2-3 meter Titan◊ encountered inside Utgard Castle.
  • Taken to new heights among mindless Titans with the Smiling Titan, the Titan that killed and devoured Carla Yeager, Eren's mother. Its face is the current image for the Nightmare Fuel section.
  • Among the Titan Shifters, the Female Titan shows an example of this after its fight with Eren's Titan form. As soon as it defeats him, it violently splits open its mouth to swallow Eren, thus capturing him. This◊ is the anime version and this◊ is from the manga.
  • Of course, nothing above can even come close to Eren in Chapter 123, as in the final panel◊ of the chapter has Eren declare his war on humanity using the Wall Titans.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Episode 22, while Mikasa and Levi attempt to rescue Eren from the Female Titan, who moments earlier had swallowed him, Levi formulates a plan to get him from the Titan. At first things go extremely well, with Levi managing to disable the Female Titan. Mikasa notices that the back of the Female Titan's neck is exposed, and tries to go for the kill despite Levi telling her to focus solely on rescuing Eren. Unfortunately the Female Titan is still able to move one of her arms, and attempts to grab Mikasa. Levi saves her, but he ends up spraining his ankle in the process of blocking the Titan's hand. While they do rescue Eren, the injury Levi suffered would end up costing him dearly later on after they arrive back inside the Walls.
    • Later on in the same episode, two soldiers berate Commander Erwin for not getting the body of their fallen friend. Levi tells them that it's too risky due to him having died near Titans, and that recovering the body at this point wouldn't matter, as he's dead anyway. Unfortunately those two guys went back anyway for the body, bringing two Titans with them. The friend's body falls off the horse, and one of them gets eaten. The second guy nearly suffers the same fate until Mikasa rescues him. To make matters even worse, the second Titan is chasing after the main party, and they're forced to dump the bodies of the other soldiers to lighten the load lest said Titan catches up and kills even more soldiers. In the end Levi hands the surviving soldier the Survey Corps patch from the first fallen friend, which is heavily implied to be a comforting lie and actually Petra's badge he took earlier.
  • When Reiner and Bertholdt reveal themselves as Titan Shifters, they admit that they heavily regret their actions and didn't fully understand the consequences when they began their attack, to the point where Reiner has experienced Sanity Slippage to escape the overwhelming guilt. It's implied that a little kindness here could have broken at least one of them into a complete Heel–Face Turn, or set them up to do so later on... but no, Eren promises to murder them as excruciatingly as possible.
  • Both Levi and Hange end up doing this, in separate instances after they capture the Female Titan. In both cases, they said straight to her face in exact details what they planned to do to her and the pleasure they would get from it in the process, scaring her enough to muster the strength to break free of the traps.
  • Falco when he realizes he led Eren straight to Reiner.
  • Gabi shooting Eren led to the circumstances which led to Eren unleashing the Wall Titans on the world.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • In a Catch-22 situation, Reiner reveals that the Titan Shifters are willing to leave humanity alone if Eren comes with them willingly. He likely would have done so, had the Titan Shifters not ruined his life by getting his mother and countless friends eaten by Titans. But it's implied that Eren's Titan shifting abilities were given to him as a result of the attack on Shiganshina; if that event had not occurred, then there would be no second option in the first place.
    • Heck if the Shifters hadn't attacked in the first place the events leading up to Chapter 86 probably wouldn't have happened (it's unknown if Grisha would have ever revealed his past but the attack accelerated it) and Eren & Co. wouldn't have learned that they're being attacked not by a group of Titans but an entire country outside the walls that believes they are a threat.
  • Eren points out that the greatest mistake of Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt was teaching him how to fight.
  • Had Annie not spared Armin's life as she slaughtered her way through the Survey Corps, he would never had exposed her identity as the Female-type Titan.
  • During the "Uprising" arc, the council succeeds at capturing Erwin and laugh in his face while planning his execution... when the Titans break Wall Rose. Pixis immediately barks orders to save the civilians between the middle and inner walls, but the council leader suddenly orders them to barricade the inner walls and prevent any civilians from entering, with the intent of using their assets to hold out until the newest secret weapon would get them out of the country for good. In the end, the whole thing turned out to be a Secret Test of Character for the council, where the regular military would surrender and sell out the Survey Corps if they gave a damn about the civilians. When they proved their amorality, the head of the military switched loyalties and pretty much ended the civil war in Survey Corps favor. Seriously, how about a little respect for the damned?
• No Conservation of Energy: Titans produce a large amount of body heat, yet they will only eat humans, who haven't been available to eat in large numbers for nearly 100 years. Due to their lack of digestive system, they don't even get nourishment from eating humans, leaving it unclear as to why they keep doing it and where they even get nourishment from. Later in the series, however, it is very heavily implied that the Titans' motivation to eat humans is due to the transformed Eldians desperately trying to find and consume a Titan-Shifter like Eren so that they will return to human form from the miserable existence of being a Titan. If the observations about them slowing down when they're deprived of light is any indication, their bodies act like solar panels to absorb and use energy.
• No Conservation of Mass: It's unexplained where the mass/energy comes from to generate a Titan body by the Shifters. For what it's worth the body mass does seem to release a high amount of heat as energy when the human leaves it and it begins to disintegrate. Later on, it's briefly explained that the flesh and bones to form Titan bodies are transferred through "Invisible Paths" which connect all Eldians. It remains unclear where the Titan flesh and bones originate from before being transferred however.
  • And it gets so, so much worse: At one point, Eren, in Titan form, bench-presses an entire Marleyan steamship and beaches it on the land. Considering that it would take nothing short than a small nuclear detonation^* Consider, for a moment, the fate of American battleship USS Arkansas, which was sunk in Operation Crossroads' BAKER test: It took a force equivalent of 21 thousand tons of TNT to lift it out of the water, and even this wasn't a pure dead-lift like what Eren accomplished; the blast simply upended the ship before slamming it back into the seabed. to lift a ship of that size from the water, the amount of energy that he would require for such a feat, let alone during a normal fighting skirmish, must be absolutely astronomical.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Eren in his first fights against the Female Titan. His rage and determination during their second one in particular scares the crap out of her, particularly when her own brutal attacks and dismembering some of his limbs only slows him down slightly. It gets to the point she tries to escape him by climbing up the Wall, only to be stopped by Mikasa.
  • Mikasa gives one to Reiner and Bertholdt after Reiner reveals to Eren they are the Armoured and Colossal Titans, then tries to grab Eren and run. Before Reiner can actually grab Eren, Mikasa is upon him with a look of complete fury on her face, and slices into Reiner, even managing to cut off one of his hands. She then whirls around on Bertholdt and slashes him across the throat, knocking him to the floor, and then tries to finish him off with a stab through the neck, but is stopped when Reiner shoulder-checks her off the Wall. The only reason they survive is by going into their Titan forms, and while Reiner merely has a look of quiet resignation on his face, Bertholdt's expression is one of complete and utter terror.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: At one point in the anime, Eren can't bring himself to fight because of recent revelations creating subconscious doubt and the fact that he's been severely injured. His friends try to snap him out of it, each in their own way characteristic to them. Mikasa simply says that "The world is a cruel place" and that there is no other option: it's fight or die. Armin tells Eren "Someone who can't sacrifice anything can never hope to change anything" and encourages him to abandon his humanity to combat an inhuman threat. Jean brusquely reminds him that everyone's trusting him enough to give their lives for him and that if they stop now, Marco's death will mean nothing. By the time Eren finishes, we're given a summary of everything that's influenced him and motivates him to keep going on, including the discussion of choices he had with Levi and being forced to live with the consequences.
  Armin: (earlier) Someone who can't sacrifice anything can never hope to change anything.
  Eren: (internal monologue) I know that... that's why I failed. I clung to my companions and my ties to them, and I failed. [I need to] remember... *flashbacks of fallen Survey Corps members and his mother getting eaten* (angrily) I'll wipe you all out... no, I'll kill you! There's no time to figure out if this is the right thing to do! Don't try to keep your hands clean! That's right... this world... is cruel!!! *cue Unstoppable Rage and Titan transformation*.
• No Ontological Inertia: A Titan's body quickly dissolves after their death. Their excessive amount of body heat makes dead Titan flesh spontaneously combust.
  • Titanic organic "armor" on the other hand does stick around even after being separated from the Titan. The Walls were apparently made this way.
• Nobody's That Dumb: When rescuing Eren while numerous Titans are in the area, Krista insist to Connie that he leaves her behind with Ymir, who claims that her captors will kill her if she doesn't come along with them. Connie doubts the claim and even points out that an idiot like him can see how dangerous their current situation is.
  Connie: Well, I don't know how exactly Ymir, is going to get killed, but you guys calm down a bit. No matter how you think about it, the chances of the both of you dying are higher if you stay here now, right? Even an idiot like me can understand that much.
• Noisy Nature: In Episode 59 of the anime, the expeditionary convoy hears an all-too-unfamiliar call that they wouldn't have ever heard had they not ventured beyond Wall Maria, further than ever before: the cries of seahawks signaling their proximity to the sea which had been so elusive to them before.
• Non-Action Guy: Armin himself said that it was "a miracle" that he passed the simulated combat section of the military graduation exam. He makes up for this by being a Guile Hero, coming up with vital strategies and uncovering the identity of the Female Titan, allowing them to lure Annie into a trap.
• Nonindicative Name: The series could be more accurately named as "Attack of the Titans" rather than "Attack on Titan", which sounds like an assault on the largest moon of Saturn. At least until Eren was revealed to be the Attack Titan, meaning that those articles weren't needed in the first place. Subverted in the end, as Eren decides to destroy the world using his Founding Titan and the Wall Titans, meaning the title was completely justified.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Compared to the human characters, the Titans are drawn in a decidedly more realistic and graphic style to emphasize their Humanoid Abomination nature.
• Not Blood Siblings: Eren and Mikasa.
• Not Enough to Bury: In the first chapter, a woman runs up to the returning Redshirt Army and begs them to tell her where her son is. The commanding officer gives her a small bundle which turns out to contain a severed hand — that's all that was left of him after the Titans got him. Apparently this is very, very common for the Survey Corps (if they can even find body parts).
• Not Quite Dead: Eren, and in surprisingly better shape than before.
  • Eren again, in Chapter 138.
• Not Quite Flight: 3D Maneuvering is a process that combines gymnastics, Le Parkour, and Spiderman-esque Building Swing to achieve rapid aerial travel almost bordering on flight. During some long shots of soldiers maneuvering through urban environments, they're effectively gliding in between the buildings. The exceptions are when it's important to the plot for characters to have somewhat lengthy conversations mid-flight, in which case they will stop visibly using Building Swing and seemingly fly straight through their surroundings in order to talk cohesively.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Eren brings this up to Reiner when he meets him for the first time in four years in Reiner's hometown Liberio. He says that he and Reiner are "the same" and that he now understands Reiner's feelings. Eren then proceeds to destroy Liberio in a very similar fashion to the way Annie, Reiner and Bertolt breached Paradis Island's walls.
  • Even later, Jean admits that he can't blame Reiner for killing countless people including his friend Marco when he was also involved in killing his comrades and indirectly involving himself in killing Reiner's friend Bertoldt like what Reiner did. As a result, Jean ultimately decided to forgive him, something that he never expected to do.
• Nothing Is Scarier: In Chapter 38, the soldiers trying to locate the breach at night express the fear that Titans could be anywhere nearby and they wouldn't know until it's too late due to the tiny pool of light provided by their torches.
  • The mere fact that after generations fighting the Titans, humanity knows close to zero about them, let alone how they even came to be.
  • The people inside the Walls slowly learn about the Titans and the world. They wish they hadn't now they know the truth.
• No Zombie Cannibals: Titans don't eat each other, ever. Even Titans that have been seen attacking other Titans (like the Rogue Titan) aren't looking to eat them. However, regular Titans will attack and (try to) eat Human Titans, which is a problem for them. The Female Titan lets out a loud scream that orders every Titan in hearing distance to devour her.
  • In Chapter 50, Eren unconsciously channels his coordinate powers into setting a mob of Titans on the Titan that ate his mom during the fall of Shinganshina. Titans will eat other Titans if ordered to by a higher power, but not on their own.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: After the chapter where Eren and crew finally reach the ocean after 4 years of killing the remaining Titans on the island, we switch to members of the Marley military who are at war on a different continent. Other than Reiner, who is the only one of the traitors to return home, none of the original cast have been seen in many chapters though Marley gets reports that two Titans have been destroying all ships that have been sent to the island, with it heavily implied it's Eren and Armin with his new Colossal Titan form.

O

• Oblivious to Love: Eren persistently believes that Mikasa's desire to protect him is a Big Sister Instinct.
• Offing the Offspring: Kenny Ackerman to Levi Ackerman, though they're not father and son, but rather uncle and nephew.
  • Historia's mother first words to her were "If only I had the courage to kill this girl". Her last words were "If only you'd never been born".
  • Ksaver's wife killed their child and then herself upon discovering her husband was an Eldian.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In Chapter 82 last time we see Levi he is alone, in the open field away from shelter, on foot without a horse and with a literal army of Titans charging at him from all sides. When he reappears in the next chapter he is completely unharmed, just winded out and drenched in Titans' blood from head to toe, having singlehandedly slaughtered them all.
• Off with His Head!: The second Titan that the Rogue Titan fights in Trost suffers this fate. His head is punched clean off, and flies quite some distance away as well.
• Oh, Crap!: The manga can also be named Oh, Crap!: The Manga.
  • The standard reaction to a Titan's jaws closing in on soft human skull. Or just seeing one show up in general, which usually indicates things have really gone downhill.
  • The moment that Colossal Titan and Armored Titan showed up out of the blue and easily eradicated 100 years of protective solace reminded everyone of their place in the world as prey items.
  • Most of the Survey Corps soldiers unlucky enough to face the Female Titan only have seconds to realize that their opponent is no mere Aberrant Titan before she reduces them all to bloody stains.
    • On that same note, the Female Titan herself has this look after Erwin manages to successfully trap her inside the forest. She has that look again when fighting Eren in Titan form.
  • Bertholdt freaks the hell out when Reiner super casually just tells Eren that the two of them are the Colossal and Armoured Titans with the rest of the Survey Corps (who unbeknownst to the two of them already suspect this) and Mikasa just a few feet away. He looks close to panicking during the entire conversation
  • Reiner and Bertolt's reactions when Eren inadvertently commands a horde of Titans to kill them.
  • Reiner has a huge Oh Crap moment when he realizes that Eren has situated them right under the homes of Eldians all gathered to watch a play taking place right above the basement he lured Reiner to, and he cut his palm, letting Reiner know that if Eren wants, he could Titan-shift, causing who knows how many deaths. Falco, who was an unwitting part of Eren's plan, is surprised to see Reiner so fearful.
    • Falco has his own when he does the math and realizes that Reiner's old friend "Mr. Kruger" would have met him during his time on Paradis, even more so when Eren reveals his regenerating leg and mentions the letters Falco carried for him.
  • After Willy Tybur's declaration of war, when Eren takes his hand, talking about how their motivations are similar, Reiner goes wide-eyed as he sees the telltale lightning that indicates an imminent transformation.
  • Pieck's reaction when she sees people with 3D Maneuver Gear leaping over her. She was on Paradis Island and immediately knows what the presence of people carrying such equipment means.
  • Porco's reaction when he the Paradis soldiers coming for him. He is used to having everyone cower in fear before his Titan form. However, the only enemy Paradis has had to fight for the past 100 years were titans, they have developed very specific techniques for fighting titans and are not afraid.
  • Almost every named character in Shiganshina and the Eldians outside Paradis has the same reaction when Eren unleashes the Wall Titans.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: After everything they've been through, Eren and Jean still choose to settle their arguments with their fists. When it happens again before the mission to reclaim Wall Maria, no one breaks them up, knowing they'll just tire themselves out eventually.
• Older Than They Look: Levi. He's shorter than Eren and looks to be only a few years older than him but the author said he is surprisingly old compared to how he looks (he's later revealed to be in his thirties).
  • Also Historia. She's only 4'9 and has a petite stature to match, easily small enough to pass as a ten year old. Yet, she's in her mid-teens, around 15-16.
• Omake: The official website releases Yonkoma with each episode broadcast... until the next week. Fortunately they've been archived.
  • And now a properly animated omake exists, except 1. they don't follow the yonkoma plotline proper and 2. every episode ends with the Colossal Titan popping our heroes like pills for laughs.
  • The manga has fake previews for the next volume. Recently they've been a semi-continuous High School AU plot, featuring janitor Levi and goth Mikasa, amongst others.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: The chanting in "XL-TT", the series's go-to 'oh god we're screwed now' track, may not be in Latin, but it's certainly ominous.
• One-Man Army:
  • Mikasa can achieve on her own what three other special forces needed teamwork to achieve. Levi does the same but easier.
  • Every Titan Shifter is capable of fighting dozens of Titans if they need to, not to mention mow over dozens of Red Shirt soldiers as well.
  • Later, Eren becomes one-man Apocalypse Wow army.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted, with the main character no less. There's Eren Yeager the 104th cadet and Eren Kruger, the Marleyan soldier. Later on, it's revealed that Kruger was actually a very important, benevolent force in Grisha's life, so it would seem that Eren Yeager was named after him.
  • A minor Red Shirt character from the beginning of the story, Moses Braun, shares his surname with Reiner Braun, one of the major characters.
• Only Six Faces: Avoided, especially after the Art Evolution and in particular among the main cast. Some of the varied facial features and body types are pretty impressive and the anime does an excellent job translating these.
• Only in It for the Money: Levi calls out the merchant guilds for being greedy pigs. Ostensibly they want Wall Rose permanently sealed off for humanity's safety but really they don't want Wall Maria to be retaken so as to profit from the lack of farmland and high number of starving refugees.
• Ontological Mystery: How and why did the Titans appear over a century back? How did they become so numerous as to make humans an endangered species when they don't even have a way to reproduce? Why is their biology so improbably weird? Were humans more or less technologically advanced before the coming of the Titans? Where exactly in the world is the Walled City? How were the walls constructed in the first place? Is the setting another world where there are humans, or was it Earth All Along? What's the deal with some humans being able to turn into Titans? Who (or what) is Ymir? How did Ymir even become the First Titan?
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Levi who is normally reserved and solemn makes an effort to talk and joke with Eren after his personal squad was killed by the Female Titan. Eren points out he is rather talkative. Levi responds that he is always that talkative, which implies that he isn't, but was making an effort to calm and distract Eren from his thoughts.
  • When Annie/the Female Titan was correctly outed, they began to smile and laugh madly, which was jarring because this was one of the very few times we see Annie having an expression other than cool indifference.
  • Chapter 51 gives us two. Erwin sports a creepy Slasher Smile after finding out the possibility that Titans were once humans. It was so unnerving that even Levi was alarmed/frightened by it.
  • Eren's shows an uncharacteristic amount of compassion and understanding to Annie when he finds out they are a traitor. This shows how deeply he respects her, and makes a very striking contrast to his more typical reaction when he learns that Reiner and Bertolt are traitors.
  • In Chapter 67, the situation is bleak enough that even Sasha has lost her appetite.
• Origins Episode : Chapter 86-87 along with the anime adaptation from the latter half of Episode 56 to the first half of Episode 58 reveals the secret Past of Eren’s Father Grisha, the world outside the walls and how he became the Attack Titan
  • Chapter 122 finally reveals how Ymir became the founding titan and how her daughters consume her flesh to become Titans that led to the creation of the Nine Titans, the subjugation the Eldians made on the world and the world of Attack of Titan.
• Our Giants Are Bigger: Our biggest giants also lack skin.
• Our Hero Is Dead: Eren is eaten by a Titan during the Battle of Trost while saving Armin. He survived via his Titan-shifting abilities.
  • Eren dies later for real after attempting to restart the Rumbling at the hands of Mikasa, but not before Titanizing the remaining 104th and the Warriors not in Titan form.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Titans have several zombie-like qualities. Their human-like qualities, thirst for human flesh, refusal to die except when hit in the nape of the neck, statues as The Horde, and the fact that they've driven humanity to the brink of extinction except for communities guarded by enormous walls surrounded by Titan hordes are all common elements of Zombie fiction that the Titans have. There's a distinct possibility that they actually ARE zombies, in that they were once humans that got permanently Titan-shifted somehow.

  • They were purposely made into Titans as punishment. The Titans are a weapon and humanity has full control over them. The people in the walls are basically prisoners.

• Out-Gambitted: The Central Military Police, who had tortured Pastor Nick to death and had been working for a shadowy conspiracy in order to kidnap Eren seemingly get the upper hand on Levi and co when they flush them out of their hideout and then enact a plan to kidnap Eren and Christa that goes off without a hitch. But then it turns out that Levi and the 104th were not only warned about their location being compromised, but also of the kidnapping plot: Eren and Christa were in a different area, completely safe. They'd kidnapped Armin and Jean disguised as Christa and Eren. Levi and co never even lost them.
  • The resident chessmasters, Armin, Hange and Zeke were completely outsmarted by Eren because all of them chose to underestimate him and his true motives.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Happens several times due to the nature of the series and its Child Soldiers. And due to the fact that Titan shifters die 13 years after inheriting their powers, it's even more common than that.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: The second OVA, which is based on the manga's "fake previews", takes the point of view of the supporting 104th trainees, and is meant to be much more comedic and nonsensical than the rest of the series.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Titans. What makes them particularly terrifying is that humans have very little understanding of them and don't even know where they came from exactly.
• The Outside World: Humanity has been reduced to a small population inside three different Walls (Maria, Rose and Sina), because of the Titans which are giant human-eating monsters who drove humans to their near extinction, anything regarding the world outside the Walls is considered heretic, the protagonist Eren, and his friend Armin are two kids who wish to see everything outside, given that humanity has remained inside for a little over 100 years, mundane concepts like the sea or deserts strikes them as fantastic.
  • The characters eventually learn what lies outside. It'd probably be better for them if they hadn't.

P

• Parental Abandonment: Eren has to watch his mother get eaten and his father goes missing shortly after. Mikasa technically suffers from this twice. Armin loses his grandfather (in the anime) as well, when he's sent out shortly after the fall of Wall Maria to try and reclaim it with a lot of others.
• Parental Substitute: Hannes acts as a father-figure to Eren and Mikasa after their mother is killed and Grisha goes missing. Eren even calls him "Uncle" despite him just being a close family friend.
• Le Parkour: Some soldiers pull off a bit of parkour in Episode 23 as they tumble and somersault their way to restrain the Female Titan.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Eren, when he kills the first two traffickers that kidnapped Mikasa. It establishes that Eren was never completely... normal but the victims really had it coming to them.
  I merely put down some rabid dogs. Sometimes they just happen to look like people.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: Titans. While they do slow down from certain conditions, they never truly stop until their nape is destroyed.
• Perspective Flip: The Time Skip is seen from the perspective of Zeke, Reiner and the Marleyans.
• Plot Device All Along:
  • The fact that the audience never gets to hear Levi's last name.
  • The Walls themselves end up being a massive one after it's revealed that there are Titans buried inside them.
• Plot-Driven Breakdown:
  • Jean's maneuver gear malfunctions while he's attempting to escape two Titans in Episode 12. He immediately notes the timing of it.
  • Eren is unable to transform in Episode 24 after finding out that Annie is the Female Titan, despite her shifting right in front of him. It takes Mikasa, Armin, and Jean (only Mikasa and Armin in the manga) to help him find his resolve and shift.
• Plucky Comic Relief: For a shonen series, the tone is quite serious even when characters are hopeful and there's a distinct lack of deliberately humorous moments in between all the fighting, angst, character development, and solemnness... except for Sasha, the resident Big Eater. Later on Hange Zoe, Bunny-Ears Lawyer and Cloud Cuckoo Lander extraordinaire, helps out with the funny moments too.
• Posthumous Character: Marco dies very early on in the series, but it's this character's death which jumpstarts Jean's Character Development which leads him to inspire others to join the Survey Corps, and also helps Armin deduce the Female Titan's identity.
  • They even show up in a revealing flashback in Chapter 77 where it's shown Marco actually found out who Bert, Reiner, and even Annie were before everyone else. Rather than simply being eaten by a Titan off screen as originally suspected, they directly attacked and removed his gear so he'd be unable to escape. Killing one of their close friends leads directly into their later mental conditions, and gives greater weight to many of the lines said after this event, but before it was depicted.
  • Eren Kruger is also entirely shown through Grisha's flashbacks. Grisha himself counts, as we learn most of his story after he's dead. So do Frieda Reiss, the First King of Eldia, and Ymir Fritz herself.
• Power Incontinence: It turns out that Eren's Titan transformation the second time around was quite uncontrollable, even attacking Mikasa, his sister. As it turns out, he's in some kind of dream state, where things are as they were before the Titans breached the Wall. The last time, when he killed the Titans, was also apparently a dream-like state to him. In other words, his sub-conscious might exert some influence on his Titan form.
• The Power of Hate: in order to transform Eren needs to be in pain (usually done via self harm) and have a specific goal in mind, which is handy seeing as his sheer hatred of Titans gives him a very clear and precise goal when he transforms: to murder every last Titan he sees.
  • Gabi also powered through this, until she sees personally what the Devils of Paradis truly are.
• Power of Trust: Horribly, horribly subverted. 'Trust' is synonymous with 'doomed, with extra grief and guilt on the side, hold the silver lining'. Eren learns this the hard way in Chapter 27.
• Power Trio: Eren (The Hero), Mikasa (The Lancer) and Armin (The Smart Guy). Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie provide a contrasting villainous example with their Big, Thin, Short Trio.
  • Freudian Trio: Eren is the Id/The Mccoy (Hot-Blooded), Mikasa is the Superego/The Spock (The Stoic), and Armin is the Ego/The Kirk (The Heart).
  • The Survey Corps veterans also form one of these. Again, they seem to mirror the main trio, with Erwin as The Leader, Levi as The Lancer and Hange as The Smart Guy.
• The Power of Friendship: What ultimately causes the Titan Shifters' plan to fall apart. All three genuinely started to care about their fellow Trainees, and this causes them to begin making mistakes that expose their identities and compromise their ability to carry out their mission.
• The Power of the Sun: Titans are solar powered. The researchers have to occasionally expose the captured specimens to daylight, so they'll react. They actually don't derive any nutritional value from humans, which leaves in-universe researchers just as puzzled as the readers. This makes the nighttime attack on Castle Utgard that much more of a shock. Hange later states that the most probable reason for the aforementioned event was due to the full moon being present during the attack. Moonlight is just reflected sunlight, which the Titans could still harness and function as they normally would. Much later on, it was finally revealed that only Titans produced using Zeke's spinal fluid can utilize moonlight as a substitute for sunlight due to Zeke's royal blood.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The anime is currently this, the first episode adapted all of Chapter 1 and some of Chapter 2. Episode 2 adapted part of Chapter 2 and expanded on some elements. Episode 3 seems to adapt Chapters 15 and 16, making the story chronological, instead of having them as flashbacks after the Battle of Trost, allowing us to get to know the characters whose lives are in danger.
• Primal Fear: Mixes Giants and Being Eaten Alive together for a nightmare of a world.
  • And in Eren and Mikasa's case, "being a small child and watching your parents get killed."
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Eren Yeager's Character Development summed up.
• Protagonist Title: "Shingeki no Kyojin" is really the name of Eren's Titan form. The English version calls it "the Attack Titan" to at least partially preserve the Title Drop.
• Punched Across the Room: The Rogue Titan does this a couple of times, punching various Titans and sending them flying.
• Putting on the Reich: The Yaegerists establish a fascist regime in the aftermath of the Rumbling. Their leader is showing raising his hand out above his head, and the military are decked out in an aesthetic that mixes Nazi soldier uniforms with modern police riot gear.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • Humanity finally wins one battle against the Titans in Episode 13 during the Battle of Trost. However, it came at a high cost, since hundreds died or were missing in action, and several hundred more were wounded, all to just retake one small town. As the narrator states the hefty casualty count and how none of the survivors wanted to celebrate the win due to how many people they lost.
  • In Episode 25, the Raid on Stohess District arc (and the season 1 finale) is one of these. Annie/The Female Titan has finally been captured and the Survey Corps/Eren are to be spared by the tribunal for now but at horrible, horrible cost, including hundreds of combined military and civilian casualties and a partly-wrecked Stohess district. The part that gets everyone questioning Was It Really Worth It? is when Annie encases herself in a crystal of Titan flesh, meaning they can get no answers out of her.
  • The Return to Shinganshina arc results in the recovery of Wall Maria and a resounding defeat for the Warriors and gaining the Colossal Titan, but it took the toll of 96% of the troops from the Survey Corps to achieve it (199 deaths of 208 total troops), including the life of Commander Erwin. Reaching Grisha Yeager's basement also yielded awful news, as it exposed that the people of the Walls are in the eve of a war against the Kingdom of Marley, the very people that have bombarded them with Titans for a full century, and who are technologically more advanced in warfare and resources. It also shows that the Titan Shifters Eren Yeager and Armin Arlert are now living in borrowed time, as Shifters can only live thirteen years after acquiring the powers due to the sheer toll that it takes on the body, known as "Ymir's Curse", meaning that Eren won't live past 23 and Armin past 28.
  • The Raid in Liberio results in Paradis gaining the Warhammer and the Beast Titans, and also the decimation of Marley's leadership and navy, but as the operation was unplanned and the Survey Corps literally intervened to save Eren, Sasha and several soldiers died at the hands of Gabi, Zeke ends up having a greater say in the Paradisian military giving him a free rein for his coup, Eren turns coat and helps Zeke with his coup, causing a major divide and the overthrowal of the Survey Corps. Marley was back in Paradis despite the above mentioned losses with all the remaining Warriors allying with the rest of the World now explicitly gunning to kill the Paradisians.

Q

• Qurac: The Mid-East Alliance, formed by Middle-east-looking country fighting a war against Marley after they lost the Colossal and Female Titans. Their soldiers wear fezes and in the manga their speech bubbles have arabic script.

R

• Race Against the Clock: After Eren initiates the Rumbling and disappeared to parts unknown, Hange and the remaining 104th members form an unlikely alliance with Magath and the warriors to stop him. According to Hange's analysis, the Wall Titans will wipe out the entire continent of Marley within 4 days. 3 days have already passed before the alliance finally reach Eren himself and by then, 80% of the world’s population have already turned into paste.
• Race Lift: Almost everyone throughout the series is Caucasian, but, for obvious reasons, that wouldn't work in a Japanese live-action film with an all domestic cast. On the flip side, that means the film-verse Asian tribes haven't been as thinned out as they are in the main verse.
• Recap Episode: Episode 13.5. This wraps up the Trost arc and makes sure everyone is up to speed before Episode 14, where we get a new intro with a bunch of Late Arrival Spoilers. Namely: The focus is now on counterattack and retaking Wall Maria, the top 10 of the 104th survived Trost (minus Marco) and, with the exception of Annie, who chose Military Police Brigade, now serve in the Survey Corps, and of course Eren is a Titan Shifter fighting for humanity.
• Recurring Riff: Certain notes of Call your name recur and used depending on the situation.
• Re-Cut: In the form of Director's Cut. Seen in the anime adaptation in which most changes were made on the author's request:
  • Episode 22 includes a lot of Tear Jerker not seen anywhere in the original Manga. In fact, there's over 11 minutes of Filler that the author thought was good enough to be in.
  • Episode 23 features Annie histerically laughing when confronted by Mikasa as opposed to the calm, defying smile from the manga. The author said the change was made because the expression he gave her in the manga didn't actually fit the moment nor her emotions.
• Red Herring: Mikasa's headache has been subjected to this throughout the story. Originally portrayed as a result of her childhood trauma from watching her family get murdered, Eren in Chapter 112 claims her headache is a side effect of the Ackerman clan's ability that makes them subservient to a host. This point is reinforced by similar scenes of Levi also appearing to be experiencing headaches when thinking about Erwin (although missing the associated sound effect that happens with Mikasa). Ultimately, this explanation was rendered false by the revelation in Chapter 130 with Zeke explaining to Eren that he has no knowledge of any such "host slavery" in the Ackerman clan and that Eren lied to Mikasa as an attempt to distance her away from him. The real reason for Mikasa's headaches is revealed at the end to be Ymir Fritz peering into Mikasa's thoughts to see if she would make the choice to kill the one she loves the most, Eren.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni
  • Hot-Blooded Eren, who is usually held in check and balanced out by Emotionless Girl Mikasa.
  • Reiner is the Team Dad, prone to acting without thinking things through while Bertolt is The Quiet One. A villainous example, with Reiner conflicted due to his attachment to their fellow Trainees while Bertolt appears to still be loyal to their mission.
• Red Shirt Army: The Survey Corps, of which the main characters are an integral part. Their job is to literally "die as heroically as possible". This is driven home in the cruelest way possible during Commander Erwin's speech he gave to the trainees that thought about signing up in the Survey Corps, though on the other hand, the experienced soldiers of the Survey Corps are also the Badass Army (of the story), especially compared to the Garrison who man and reinforce the Walls.
  • The Garrison troops fall into this trope if the Titans breach a Wall, and are killed pretty easily. When the story starts literally all they can do is die to buy the refugees time to evacuate. Five years later, they are a little more competent and manage to hold the Titans off longer, though they still die like flies.
  • As it turns out, the Military Police Brigade members are this as well. Jean notes that their members keep getting devoured when we finally see them in action during the operation to rescue Eren from the Titan Shifters. On paper they are the most competent branch as only the top graduates of each Trainee Corps get to join, but they have no real experience fighting any Titans, and most members are implied to have been seriously neglecting their training because they didn't think they would ever have to fight.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: In the anime version, the sky above Shiganshina turns red when Eren activates The Rumbling.
• Refuge in Audacity: Commander Erwin's plan to have Levi viciously beat the crap out of Eren in the middle of his trial in order to both defuse the situation and grab everyone's attention for his own proposal probably wouldn't have worked if it wasn't so over-the-top. Even the commander of the Military Police Brigadewho was trying to have Eren executed a few moments ago is stunned at how far Levi goes.
• The Remnant: The Walled City is pretty much all that's left of human civilization (at least as far as it's known), the ruling government emerging from the world's united stand against the Titans. Except it's not. It is, however, all that's left of the Eldian empire, a formerly massive nation of "Children of Ymir", with the capacity to transform into Titans, and who are claimed to have spent the previous 1,700 years raping and massacring those it saw as "inferior races."
  • With the collapse of the Marleyan state during the Rumbling, the Marleyan military contingent at Fort Salta may be this, as far as anyone present is aware.
• Relative Button: Deliberately invoked during the Battle of Trost by Pixis when he states to an army on the verge of desertion that those who want their loved ones to experience the same fear the Titans gave them can leave. A terrified father already hightailing it out of there suddenly imagines his beloved daughter screaming, about to be eaten alive by a Titan. He and other would-be deserters immediately do an about-face and go back into the fight. Doubtlessly, the others imagined their children being eaten as well.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: Absolutely useless against Titans, they'll just grow back. Unless you're lucky enough to pierce the nape of the neck in the process...
• Required Secondary Powers: Supplementary Materials note that using 3DMG requires very high amounts of coordination and balance (borderline-acrobatic levels) to use, much less pull off fancy maneuvers that Survey Corps veterans are seen using, as well as high leg strength, good aiming skills while mid-flight to actually land grappling hooks, and Nerves of Steel to keep it all together and not lose balance when disaster strikes (it's even stated that instructors will cut the cables on recruits to test their mettle). Also, one would presumably need to not be afraid of heights and be motion-sickness resistant.
  • The Titan Shifters also need to cover their skin with armor to be at their most effective, at least when it comes to fighting other Titans. Since Titans have surprisingly frail bodies despite their size, they can easily break their bones if they punch each other too hard, which is the biggest drawback of the Rogue Titan; since it can't armor it's skin ( well, not at first, anyway), it's overwhelming strength completely shatters it's fists with every punch.
• Rescue Romance: Mikasa's undying devotion and implied romantic feelings for Eren seem to stem from how he saved her life when they met.
• The Reveal: The work revels in this. For examples, see Wham Episode below.
• Revenge: Why Eren wants to kill every Titan really bad.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Survey Corps. They try to avert this trope as long as they can, but then the government sends in the 3DM death squads (think about how awesome 3D-Maneuver gear has been used against Titans. Now think about what would happen if you traded the blades for guns installed in the grapple controls.) and sends in serial killer Kenny Ackerman, so they have to step up their game. Armin murders a hesitating Secret Servicewoman to save Jean, and it gets worse from there.
• Rewatch Bonus: This series might as well be called Rewatch Bonus The Series. Even minor details can be reinterpreted when new plot details come to light.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Mikasa tends to do this whenever something happens to Eren.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Eren, frequently, when he assumes Titan form. In Episode 21, he includes actual roaring, after he watches the Special Operations Squad get literally crushed by the Female Titan.
  • Pretty much the whole series is Eren's quest for revenge on the Titans for the last hundred years and all the trauma he's experienced.
  • Eren also does this later when he attacks Liberio, though he did this more out of pragmatism than out of an overwhelming desire for vengeance, as his conversation with Reiner beforehand highlights. Eren's grown enough by this point to understand that the people he's attacking aren't just remoreless monsters and its clear he takes no joy in doing what he does.
  • Eren does this again, now against the rest of the world, starting with Marley. As of the current chapter, Eren has successfully destroyed Marley.
• Rousing Speech: Subverted in Episode 7. Sasha tries to get everyone to pull together saying "If we work together..." but clearly not believing it herself. Mikasa then shows up and sees that the remaining soldiers are too scared to fight, and she herself looks a little distraught having just found out that Eren got eaten. And instead of a big speech, she just insults them and tells them to die like cowards and heads off to fight more Titans. Played straight in that it works.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: At least initially, Armin is more gentle and compassionate compared to Eren's hate-fueled kill-everything mentality.
• Rule of Cool: 3DMG in reality would encounter much the same problem jetpacks do, not enough fuel. And operating one safely, forget it. Damn if it doesn't look cool though.
• Rule of Symbolism: When carrying the boulder to block the gate in Trost, Eren bears a striking resemblance to the Greek Titan Atlas.
  • The final Titan form that Eren adopts at the climax of the story is shaped like a giant cage, which symbolizes how Eren's desires for freedom are just trapping everyone else. It's also moved by long, sinewy strands of flesh extending from an enlongated spinal column, making him look like a puppet.
• Rule 34: Titans have no reproductive organs. This hasn't prevented fans from creating Titan-centric porn.
• Rule 63: The author has released artwork of what Eren would look like if he were a girl.◊

---