Manga / Attack on Titan: Junior High

War against drowsiness, middle school classes!

"That day, the human race remembered: the terror of being dominated by them, and the shame of being held captive in a birdcage."

Attack on Titan: Junior High (進撃！巨人中学校, Shingeki! Kyojin Chuugakkou, "Attack! Titan Middle School") is a Spin-Off Babies Affectionate Parody of Attack on Titan. The manga is by Saki Nakagawa and supervised by Hajime Isayama, debuting in 2012. Taking place in an Junior High School A.U., this series follows the everyday life of Eren and Mikasa and their wacky junior high adventures. A 12-Episode Anime adaptation by Production I.G^*with assistance from Graphinica and Asahi Production (returning from the mainline series) started airing in October 2015, like the main anime, it was licensed and simulcasted by Funimation with the latter receiving a broadcast dub in November.

The manga was serialized in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine from 2012 to 2016 and compiled into 11 volumes. It later returned with the short sequel Attack on Titan: High School – Youth! The Marley Academy Next Door, which adapts the original series' Marley arc and ran from June to August 2018.

NOTE: This series is a parody of Attack on Titan and many of the jokes reference material from the show. Be aware of spoilers.

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Tropes appearing in Attack on Titan Junior High:

• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Downplayed. While still antagonistic, the Titans are not murderous beasts, but they are school bullies who enjoy stealing lunches from humans.
  • Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. Here, they are just regular students with none of the Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds tendencies they had in original, but retains most of their character traits.
  • The Moe Titan is just another Titan and gets killed trying to fight the heroes in the original. In this spinoff, she instead has a crush on Jean and helps the main characters in the last episode.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Frieda Reiss is implied to be spooking people for her own amusement, which is noticeably different from her kind, selfless depiction in the original. However, this is downplayed, as being a prankster, while mischievous, is not exactly assholery, and she changes her mind about scaring Krista and instead comforts her when noticing that Krista's already crying.
  • In the manga, her characterization is still inline with the original, being introduced as a Hot Teacher who is very kind to everybody to the point of sometimes being mistaken as romantic advances. Best shown in a chapter where Nile Dok accepting wild flowers from her and Erwin thought Nile was cheating to his wife Marie.
• Adaptation Distillation: As well as the case of Adaptation Expansion and Adapted Out. While all of the episodes are based on straight from the manga, there are gags and details not included in the anime, including mixing and adding new parts to make a more coherent episode and being more faithful to the parts of the original series the spin-off is based on (not to mention avoiding the Black Comedy below to appeal the younger audience). However, this caused several details important in the gags removed, making it a bit ambiguous for the anime-only audience.
  • All of the main characters are in the same class instead of having different classes (Annie, Krista, Reiner, Bertolt, and Ymir are in a different class in the manga), several characters like Hitch and Marlowe are not introduced until later episodes (which is more inline with the original series but makes the details differ), Keith Shadis becomes their homeroom teacher rather than a generic one, and Hannes featured prominently as a janitor (Keith is first shown counseling Eren with Grisha about the legend of a Titan-fighting hero and both characters are seldom making appearances in the manga, while Hannes is primarily just the Wall Cleaning Club Advisor). Also, secondary characters retain their original look instead of the generic look in the manga (Armin's grandpa is a good example, since the animators uses his original anime appearance than the spin off's Japanese stereotype look).
  • The Love Triangle gag is not as strong as in the manga while adding the original series' tics (examples include Ymir's "marry me!" to Krista and Oluo's tongue-biting habit).
  • The first episode discarded the gag about Eren being mistaken for stealing a Titan's PE bloomer (among other things like Mikasa's "Survey" in the manga's first and second chapters) to a combination of the gang went to the Titan Building section of the school (being a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque First Day At School gag rather than a class observation in the manga) and a Crash-Into Hello parody to introduce the main characters (This gag is actually present in the manga in a later chapter) . The students' introduction scene is also expanded to include Sasha's memetic potato incident.
  • Armin's introduction in the second episode is changed from Eren & Co. visited him to make the quota for the dodgeball tournament, later intending to buy a new futon for him for his birthday gift in the manga to Levi stealing his old one in order to fix it (in the manga this is a standalone chapter) with only Eren & Mikasa visiting, compressed along with the school club gag (the episode changed the detail of the gang's lunch box being eaten by Titans in their class observation to Titan-caused problems that prevented them from joining regular clubs) and Levi and the Survey Club's introduction (his introduction scene is a frame-by-frame parody of the original anime scene instead of the clubroom introduction in the manga since Levi is a Breakout Character).
  • The dodgeball tournament and Annie's character establishment in the third episode. In the manga, the purpose of the gang to compete in the dodgeball tournament is to win the "Umakatchan Ramen" (and also one of the reasons Eren & Co. persuaded Armin to return to school previously) and the Survey Club went on an outing but later intercepted by Annie and the Student Council. In the anime, it is reworked to include the parody of Eren's flashback during his training with Annie, with the ramen gag sidelined to just Sasha eating a random ramen (instead of yakisoba in the manga) in the middle of the tournament and the outing omitted altogether. Annie's interception of the Survey Club is replaced with her curbstomping Eren's group and offered to train him to her techniques (with the details of how she holds her grudge is also changed).
  • Episodes 4, 5, 6, and 9 adapted the manga straight with only difference in details (The appearance of the Titans painting graffiti in episode 4 is an anime-only addition, as well as 5's the introduction to the Sawney & Bean Titans, 6's fan-favorite Moe Titan, and 9's teaser to season 2 of the original anime).
  • The Folk Dance build-up of the school sports festival in episode 7 is omitted altogether, making it focusing more on the Senpai/Kohai gag.
  • The Survey Club gathering in episode 8 is changed to an in-school test of courage parodying the Corps' Expedition, making it possible for the creators to include the Walking Spoiler Frieda Reiss, but omitted Erwin's badass moment.
  • The inclusion of Ilse's notebook side-story parody is only in the anime in order to give a better Framing Device for the Student Council President Election gag.
  • On the other hand, the final parts of episode 11 and 12 are anime original to make the series as more of a stand-alone in case the sequel doesn't get approved (with that said, the school festival arc is also present in the manga, just with a very different direction as opposed to the anime).
• Adaptational Intelligence: The Titans go to school instead of just walking around in a zombie state.
• Adapted Out: There is no mention of Ymir Fritz or indication she ever existed, parodied or otherwise. Instead, Titans are the result of a man (who resembles Zeke Jaeger) developing Titan serum so he can get revenge on his bullies then deciding to inject other students.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Instead of being basically flesh eating zombies, the Titans show reason and intelligence, as well as being willing to use their size to get their way.
  • In the manga, one of the titan girls cries after Erin takes her PE shorts.
  • In the anime, a titan girl has a crush on Jean, and helps the class try to recover the cheeseburger stand in the first season finale.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Bertolt's eyes are gray in this show, green in the main anime, and brown in the main manga.
• Adaptational Super Power Change: Zeke Jeagers counterpart is the closest thing to a Titan Shifter in this series. However he cannot turn into the Beast Titan at will, he must inject himself with Titan serum. He also lacks the ability to create other Titans with his scream or control them, however he is immortal and hasn’t aged since he first injected himself for the first time years ago (retaining the Titans ability to heal/regenerate even as a human).
  • Similarly the Titan serum that he created allows Titanized people to keep their intelligence, although it’s implied it still affects their personality to turn them into “oppressors”. Also, the only reason the school Titans can’t turn back to humans is because they were kids when they were injected, as opposed to Zeke who is an adult.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In the original series, Sasha's In-Series Nickname, "Potato Girl", came from the incident where she was caught eating a steamed potato by Shadis during his Drill Sergeant Nasty routine on the new recruits, and he made her run laps for hours. In Attack On Titan: Junior High, this scene's counterpart is her getting caught eating an onigiri^note rice ball during class introduction. Despite this, her nickname is still "Potato Girl" rather than "Onigiri Girl" or "Rice Ball Girl". However, she does make frequent mentions of potatoes, including writing the word in soap suds on the window she's washing and drawing Connie's head as a potato on a drawing hanging in the background on the wall of the classroom.
• Almighty Janitor: Hannes is a janitor in Attack on Junior High. Also, every member of the wall beautification club, which is actually a cover for the Scouting Regiment.
• Animal Motifs: Played for laughs. Jean's horse face is a recurring Running Gag, Connie's is being compared to a monkey, Hitch has cats, and Reiner is like a gorilla.
• Art Shift: Episode 8 plays this for laughs; whenever one of the characters freaks out and starts screaming, their appearance changes to resemble their art in the original anime series.
• Badass Bookworm: As the result of the High School AU setting. In the anime, Levi even fares better than Hange at their math grades.
  • Again, Mikasa, who manages to gain an almost perfect score in her tests (only second to Armin). Seems like in this spin-off, the characters' stats are measured from their academic grades as well as extracurricular activities…
• Batman Gambit: When Eren is looking for Levi in the 2nd episode and expresses interest in joining the secret club, Hange offers him a simple test of tossing a plastic bottle into the trash. As soon as it lands inside, Levi bursts in and smacks Eren with his paper fan for not properly sorting the recyclable materials.
  • In the manga, Hange instead pulls a face to entice Levi into coming along and smacking her for pulling 'dirty' faces. However Hange ducks out of the way, and Levi smacks Eren instead.
• Bittersweet Ending: The anime's season finale has this, even though the tone of the ending is largely positive. The Colossal Titan ate the entire cheeseburger stand, and there's no indication that any of the other snack stands were reclaimed, but Eren does manage to save one cheeseburger, avoids getting eaten, and his minor victory against the Titans has made him a symbol of hope for the other human students, who now celebrate him as Chee-burg the hero rather than shun him as Chee-burg the maniac. It's also implied that Erwin managed to pardon the others from their detention and is convincing the school to change the rules to better protect humans from Titans.
• Bizarrchitecture: The Titan's school is made with at least a dozen human sized schools stacked directly on top of each other.
• Black Comedy: While the anime itself is fairly clean, the manga's humor includes references to pedophilia, child abuse, violence, and sexual humor far beyond its suggested teen+ rating.
• Bland-Name Product: A Mindows 99 computer, a Wee U, a purple Dragon Ball, a PS7, and a yellow rat plushie can be seen among the prizes that Annie and Mikasa win for Eren in a shooting game.
• Book Dumb: Connie and Sasha, more so than in their main series counterparts. In Connie's case, he ends up going home, forgetting that he was supposed to take remedial classes. And they are supposed to be the eighth and ninth in the top ten students as in the original series respectively…
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Sasha discusses the joys of camping as "Cooking smores, eating smores, throwing up to make room for more smores".
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The best way to summarize the manga's human faculty members and staff (which makes it funnier when you compare them to their original series self). Erwin is a dork, Frieda being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Nile Dok is the faculty's Butt-Monkey, Hannes Likes Older Women, Dot Pixis is The Alcoholic Nightmare Fetishist, and Darius Zackly is very much a Cloudcuckoolander with a literal Real Men Wear Pink. Keith Shadis may be a Drill Sergeant Nasty, but he has Cerebus Syndrome as Erwin gains more admiration from the students. Perhaps the only staff being considered "normal" is Class 1-4 homeroom teacher, but that's because he is considered a generic, Canon Immigrant character compared to the rest of the faculty members.
• Butt-Monkey: Although almost every cast member takes a turn being this, Jean is by far the biggest example. He makes numerous attempts to become the most popular kid in the school, and every attempt backfires horribly. Nile Dok also gets an honorable mention for being continuously insulted by the students for his looks, while his arch nemesis Erwin continues to gain the love and admiration of the student body.
• The Cameo:
  • Farlan and Isabel appear briefly in Episode 11 of the anime, watching in the audience as Jean kisses a Snow White mannequin for the class play. They have a more permanent role as transfer students in the manga.
  • Both the manga and anime have a glorious cameo by Revo of Linked Horizon, who wrote all the opening songs of both the original and spin-off series up to date, praising the In-Universe band No Name. He also appears to be one of the school's committee member, as his portrait is displayed in the school hall. Bravo!! indeed.
• Casting Gag: At one point, Levi is seen playing basketball with his own head while wearing a jersey that is very reminiscent to the Rakuzan uniform from Kuroko's Basketball. The jersey also bears the #4, a reference to Hiroshi Kamiya voicing the young Rakuzan captain, Seijuro Akashi.
• Chickification: Annie and Krista as cheerleaders? Krista is already a Girly Girl in the main series so she's aversion but Annie plays this straight.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Reiner. Best shown during his election speech and his idea of opening a maid cafe for the festival. Though he targets it mostly on Krista.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Ymir hates it when anyone shows any signs of affection towards "her Krista".
  • Mikasa and Annie towards Eren in their Love Triangle.
  • Hannah certainly did not like it when Franz was falling for Armin, who dressed up as a cute bunny saleswoman for Eren's cheeseburger stand.
• Crash-Into Hello: Eren literally crashes into almost all the main cast (barring Annie, Reiner, Bertolt, and Marco) with hilarious results. Crashed into Krista? The classic interaction, until Ymir breaks them and Eren gives 10 yen as change for her toast. Crashed into Sasha? He shatters her whole watermelon and gives a sticker instead of money (with Sasha getting pissed and Mikasa lampshading that how she can eat it in the morning. Crashed into Jean? Just step on him, but Jean is amused because he can see Mikasa's underwear. Even Mikasa tries, but fails to have the expected result because she hit Eren too strong he flies right to the front of the school's gate. At least, she prevents him from crashing into Connie, who has no clue what's even going on.
  Krista: 10 yen... What am I supposed to buy with this?
• Curb-Stomp Battle: What happens every time Eren tries to fight the titans. He gets his ass kicked, a lot.
• Dark Horse Victory: Episode 10 focuses on various characters running for student council president, particularly Eren and Jean. Who ultimately wins the seat? Marco, and he wasn't even running.
• Decomposite Character: The Colossal Titan and his human form, Bertolt Hoover, are separate characters in this series. To a lesser extent, two of the "Seven Wonders of Attack Jr. High" are "The Dancer" and "Screaming Skeleton", who are actually science room dummies based on two important Titans from the main series. They're based on the Rogue Titan (now officially called the Attack Titan) and the Colossal Titan, and are separate characters from their human forms, Eren and Bertolt, respectively.
  • Composite Character: "The Dancer" is clearly in the shape of the Rogue Titan, but his name refers to the Dancing Titan.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Why does Eren hate the Titans so much? THEY STOLE HIS CHEESE HAMBURG STEAK!
  • And Annie hates Eren because he made it embarrassing for her to like Cheeseburger lunch.
• The Dreaded: Mikasa and Levi (again), to a comedic degree. For Mikasa, her Quicksilver-esque running speed makes Reiner and Bertolt cower when they compete for Ilse's notebook in Episode 10.
• Dog Food Diet: Levi gives Hange a bag of dog biscuits so she can feed the titans with it and buy something with the meager cash she has. Instead, she's all too happy to eat the biscuits herself.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Keith Shadis is Year 1 Class 4's homeroom teacher, and he's even worse than his main series counterpart.
• Failed a Spot Check: In the first episode, after taking a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque, no one realizes that they are in the Titan building despite the size of the facilities.
• Fanservice: The manga is chock full of it, despite most of the characters being around 11-14.
• Fantastic Racism: Eren is initially seen as a racist and treated as an outcast by his fellow students because of his rather disproportionate hatred toward titans. Subverted later on as the school yard bullying the Titans inflict upon the school children becomes more violent and egregious.
• Flanderization: EVERYONE'S personalities are ramped up in this. This series aired after Season 1 of the main series concluded and while Season 2 was in production, so this series mainly parodies the characters' personalities from Season 1 of the main anime.
  • Eren is a revenge-obsessed maniac wishing destruction on the Titans to a ridiculous degree.
  • Mikasa is The Stoic, with almost no change to her default somber facial expression and almost always speaks in a monotone unaffective tone. Her emotional attachment to Eren caused by her Ackermann power of protecting their host at all times is exaggerated to the point she uses Eren as a Living Emotional Crutch, breaks up multiple fights between him and Jean, acts like a mother to him rather than his adoptive sister, and shuts down when he's not around, only emoting ever so slightly when she detects Eren is in trouble.
  • Jean's snobbishness from early in the main series is his defining trait in this series, often resulting him in being the Butt-Monkey.
  • Armin's physical frailty from early in the main series is exaggerated to the point he has a Security Blanket almost at all times, is afraid of the dark, and gets sick easily because, according to Levi, Armin is in poor physical shape. His high intelligence is also parodied to the point he is the only one to get a perfect score on his exams.
  • Connie's stupidity is heavily exaggerated to the point he just walks home instead of studying for a makeup exam, even though in the main series he is one of the top ten graduates of the 104th.
  • Sasha gets called by her nickname "Potato Girl" extremely often. She is shown to be a Big Eater to a exaggerated extent, eating during a dodgeball match and letting thoughts of food distract her from studying.
  • Ymir's crush on Krista is so great that she asks her to marry her at almost every opportunity.
  • Krista's Girly Girl portrayal early in the main series is exaggerated to the point she's an enthusiastic cheerleader, worried about her weight, and welcoming of the advances by both Ymir and Reiner.
  • Reiner's physical size compared to the other cadets is exaggerated by him being drawn much more built than everyone else, even though in the main series, Reiner is not that much bigger than everyone else. Reiner's one-off comment about marrying Krista is referenced and parodied often, to the point that he and Ymir are practically fighting over Krista's attention frequently.
  • Bertolt's meekness and timid nature early in the main series is parodied to the point that he's too timid initially to speak to Annie. His affection for Annie is also parodied in his A Day in the Limelight episode, which centers all around him and Annie being hooked up by Reiner and Ymir.
  • Annie's The Stoic traits from early in the series is parodied the same way as Mikasa's and Levi's. Her martial arts skills are exaggerated to the point she uses roundhouse kicks and low sweeping kicks to deal with everything, such as fending off a comically snobby Jean and serving a dodgeball.
  • Levi's memetic clean-freak habits early in the main series is parodied to the point he attacks Eren when the latter places a plastic bottle in a non-recyclable bin. His The Stoic traits from the same early part of the main series is exaggerated to the point he rarely emotes (at least in the English dub) and wears the same blank facial expression almost at all times. His unmatched combat prowess is parodied to have him adept at attacking with paper fans and taking out a Titan; the entire first-year class during their acceptance into the Scout Regiment; and a team of Eren, Jean, Reiner, and Bertolt all single-handedly.
  • Hange's Cloud Cuckoolander behavior from early on in the series is heavily exaggerated here, almost putting the idea of parody as a gross understatement. Her well-known interactions with the Sawney and Bean Titans are parodied as her keeping them as pets. Her obsession with Titan research and her early spirited reactions to everything are exaggerated here to the point she is a raving lunatic, drawing the ire of Levi to call her by his insult to her in the main series (Four-Eyes or Kuso-megane) many times.
  • Oluo's tongue-biting incident during when he was trying to intimidate Eren in the main series is mercilessly parodied here, to the point that Oluo biting his tongue is basically a Once an Episode thing. There is even one instance he bites his tongue by simply talking.
  • Keith Shaddis is even worse of a Drill Sergeant Nasty on his students than he is to the cadets in the main series because of this.
  • The Titans' antagonism towards the humans are parodied to them being bullies towards the humans and mainly stealing their meals. Their oppression towards the humans in the main series is exaggerated to the point that the Colossal Titan is the principal of Attack Junior High, and even the faculty has to answer to him.
  • This even goes to the nature of 'Titan Shifters'. Annie's Titan calling shout is treated as something she learned at her cram school.
• Foreshadowing: The later episodes of the anime are full chock of these to the original anime (since Season 2 was still in production by the time it aired).
  • Episode 9 is the biggest offender so far, parodying the Shifters' Cryptic Conversation and make it as Bertolt trying to confess his feelings to Annie. Oh, and Bertolt's Secret Identity as the Colossal Titan is also teased too, with signs like he lets out steam with his head turned red all over and the Titan mask he gets in the die-cutting stall.
  • In a more predicting sense, the characters present during the re-enaction of the Trost assault in Episode 12 gives a picture of which characters will be present in the Shiganshina retaking.
• Furry Confusion: Well, Titan confusion, but still. In this continuity, Titans are people (giant, bullying people, but people) who go to school and do homework and have lives of their own. Heck, there's one scene in the manga where a Titan is seen getting its allowance from its kindly old grandmother. Yet, Hange keeps Sawney and Bean tied up and with collars and treats them like pets. However, it is implied in that Sawney and Bean are not intelligent by this series' Titan standards (if not a bit retarded), making them like anomalies amongst the Titans. Both are shown to be unable to communicate normally and usually move on all fours, but can stand on two feet and cheer just fine. There's also the fact that they don't appear to speak the Titan language and keep trying to bite Hange's head off, whereas most Titans in this series eat regular food and will spit out humans who get in their mouths.
• Gender Flip: The Moe Titan (now officially the Peering Titan) is female in this series, but was revealed to be male in the main series long after this spin-off series ended.
• Gratuitous English: Jean has a habit of doing this in the anime. "Come on, my honey!" indeed.
• High School AU: A Junior High School AU in this case. The characters from the original series have all been transplanted into a modern Japanese middle school setting.
• Improvised Parachute: In the opening, Armin uses his futon as a hang glider as the human students fly around a Titan classroom.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Eren's reputation for hating the Titans because they ate his precious cheeseburger steak lunch and making a fool of himself in trying to get revenge for it have earned him the nickname "Chee-burg" or "the Chee-burg bastard".
  • Carryovers from the main series:
    • Sasha is referred to by others as "Potato Girl".
    • Levi calls Hange "Kuso Megane"^note "Four-Eyes" in the dub or "Shitty Glasses" literally like he does in the main series.
• Japanese School Club: As part of the High School AU, the regular clubs such as Reiner's judo club, Bertolt's volley club, Ymir and Krista's brass music club, and others are there along with the three military branches in the original story being parodied as their respective clubs; the MP branch becomes Absurdly Powerful Student Council, and the Garrison becomes the Wall Cleaning/Beautification club under Hannes. The Survey Corps, meanwhile, is an unofficial club (more like an unsanctioned boyscouts) because of their Titan-fighting purpose (which is considered illegal in the school but free during holidays), but still has Erwin backing them up. As a result, the members joined other clubs to cover their membership (Levi is in the almost-suspended Home Economics club and is implied to be on the basketball team thanks to the nice Shout-Out, while Hange is the president of the Biology club).
• KidAnova: Both Reiner and Jean are portrayed as this, constantly thinking about the cute girls at school and how to woo them. Eren manages to unintentionally become this, garnering the affection of both Annie and Mikasa.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Annie, Hitch, and Marlo when they visit the cat cafe in episode 11 (Hitch even borders on Crazy Cat Lady).
• Lighter and Softer:
  • What was once a horrific post-apocalyptic tale of death and destruction is now a Slice of Life comedy that takes place in Junior High. There are scenes resembling people getting eaten by Titans, but then they get spit out, and their lunch is taken instead. Even the anime's opening song, "Seishun wa Hanabi no You ni", gets in on this, taking several musical cues from "Guren no Yumiya" and being sung by the same group, Linked Horizon. The song even focuses the Westminster Chimes into the melody.
  • The anime adaptation can be considered this to the original manga. While the manga features references to pedophilia, child abuse, violence, and sexual humor far beyond its teen+ rating (and certainly far above what junior high kids should know), the anime opts for absurdist humor and generally more lighthearted fodder.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Eren, for Mikasa. Without him, she loses 70% of her strength and confidence.
• Love Letter Lunacy: Jean gets a love letter in his shoe locker, but isn't sure which girl sent it since it didn't have a name on it. It turns out to be written by Annie, who was doing it for a female Titan that attends the same cram school as her. Jean understandably rejects her, and gets smashed into the ground by said Titan.
• Love Triangle:
  • Between Mikasa, Eren, and Annie that this even included in the poster above. Both girls display traits of Clingy Jealous Girl, though Mikasa exaggerates it. Add Bertolt's crush on Annie and Jean's crush on Mikasa to the equation and we have a one sided Love Dodecahedron.
  • We also have Ymir, Krista, and Reiner. As a Running Gag, Ymir would often thwart any of Reiner's schemes/attempts to get closer to Krista.
• Mundane Utility: The 3D Maneuver Gear is used... for cleaning up walls and windows. Granted, the Wall Cleanup Club is a front for the real Survey Club (they are the spin-off's Garrison, after all), so the gear is supposed to serve their original purpose of fighting Titans. Doesn't change the fact that they also use it for cleanup.
  • Jean also uses it to cheat at a game during the sports festival.
• Not What It Looks Like: In a chapter, Nile Dok was accused of cheating to his wife Marie, who is now pregnant with his third kid after Frieda gave him a bouquet of wild flowers as a motivational present. Erwin was the first to report to the school newspaper, and gave the picture of Nile went with Frieda to the school garden. Ilse, being the one who wrote the news, got irritated and sent the paper to his wife, earning dire from Marie, forcing him to stay at teacher's office. Nile then asked for help from Hannes, Pixis, and Darius Zackly (who is the school's Vice Principal) to testify that he was not cheating. It failed (due to the men having similar testimony to Erwin), but later he was able to amend his relationship before the third kid was born. Frieda later complained to the newspaper club, and suggested that they had better write about her and Krista.
• Only in It for the Money: Hange, both in the anime and the manga. Very much justified, since Hange lives in a dormitory, only receives a meager amount of monthly allowance, and spent too much money on the biology club activities.
• Panty Thief: Eren gets mistaken as one in the first manga volume when he unknowingly steals a titan girl's PE bloomers.
• Perpetual Expression: Connie's usually wearing a laid back one that looks like this: O3O.
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Inverted. Almost every character of importance within the series have been aged down into middle school.
• Pretty in Mink: In an insert pic in the manga, Mikasa is wearing an evening dress and a fur wrap, all so she can look as glamorous as possible, while eating potato chips.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Whenever the Kawaii Titan has a Luminescent Blush, she says, "Blush."
  • Both Reiner and Ymir say, "Smirk" when they individually realize Bertolt has a crush on Annie.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: In the eighth episode, the 1st years participate in the 57th Test of Courage to search for the "Wonders of Titan Junior High", only to realize that the ghost that haunt the school are actually the 2nd and 3rd years pulling the strings.
• School Newspaper Newshound: Ilse Langnar, who originally only appeared as a Post Humous Character in an OVA, returns here as a newspaper club member, becoming the announcer at the school sports festival. The episode where the Ilse's Notebook OVA is parodied, her journalistic notebook contains the key information for the next Student Council President election (which Rico later reveals to be just a made-up rumor by Levi).
• Secret Identity: The in-Universe band No Name, which is actually Levi, Hange, and Mike wearing bandages on their eyes. In the manga, the guys (especially Eren, who is a self-proclaimed biggest fan) know their true identity while other students do not. The anime subverts this, with everyone knows their identity by the time they appears, except Eren (with Jean lampshading it).
• Security Blanket: Armin is almost never seen without his futon, except in his introductory episode, where Levi takes it away from him (but only to fix the wear and tear). He then uses Eren's school jacket as a makeshift.
• Self-Serving Memory: In Episode 6, Jean's flashback to Episode 3 (which introduced Annie) depicts Annie as being smitten over him and fighting Mikasa for his affections, which Sasha lampshades.
• Serious Business:
  • Eren vows revenge on the Titans, simply because they stole his lunch, and Annie vows revenge on him for rant on said incident making it embarrassing for her to proclaim her love for the dish.
  • If you fail to sort trash and recyclables into their proper bins, Levi will make you feel it with his Paper Fan of Doom. CLEANLINESS IS EVERYTHING!
• Setting Update: The original series took place in a European post-apocalyptic future. While the spin-off manga did not explicitly state the timeframe, the anime adaptation was set in 2015 (starting from March and ends on September, if Ilse's enrollment date in episode 10 is of any indication).
• The Seven Mysteries: The "Seven Mysteries of Titan Junior High". Armin apparently is knowledgeable about this. Turns out, it is a prank created by the Survey Club's member to make the test of courage more fun, but the seventh mystery appears to be true, since the ghost girl mentioned by Erwin is actually real and is Frieda Reiss, implied to have been a senior before she became a ghost.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Bertolt said this verbatim after the die-cutting stand owner gave him two masks for him and Annie.
• Shipper on Deck: Played for laughs with Reiner and Ymir trying to do this to Bertolt in episode 9 in order to hook him up with Annie to go to the summer festival (with Reiner trolling about his "operations" to make Bertolt confess his love). Later, the gang catches up and finds the two together and decides to peep, with Armin and Sasha even blushing all over when they think that Bertolt is going to confess (with fireworks and Call Your Name from the original anime playing to boot. Reiner even lampshades later that it was the perfect moment for a love confession). The kicker? Bertolt just wanted to ask Annie if she would go to the die-cutting stand with him!
• Ship Tease: Since the series has many references (see Shout-Out below), the writers did not forget to insert this. The Mikasa-Eren-Annie Love Triangle, the one-sided Bertolt-Annie, the Levi-Hange banter, and the list just goes on and on. Even Crack Pairing and the ship not implied in the original series are also added (while the creators subtly tease Armin-Sasha and Marco-Ilse pairings, the worst offender is Jean's Love Letter Lunacy All Just a Dream harem in episode 6).
• Shout-Out:
  • The manga references tumblr, fanfiction, Leeroy Jenkins, and popular memes.
  • In episode 8, Levi wears a familiar basketball uniform. Bonus points in that Hiroshi Kamiya also appear in both series.
  • The costumes worn in the Snow White play during the cultural festival are very obviously based on the outfits from the Disney version.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Episode 12 of the anime has Armin's original speech and accompanying soundtrack about humanity being livestock trapped in cages to describe the aftermath of the Titans stealing all the food from the school festival.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Safe to say that everyone who died in the original series is alive and well here. The only exception being Frieda Reiss, who appears as a ghost in episode 8.
  • Even the characters fighting the titans just knock them out instead of cutting their kill spots open.
• Spin-Off Babies: Invoked by the chibified art style and the junior high setting.
• The Stoic: Mikasa, to a comedic degree. Mikasa tends to always keep a neutral expression even faced with titans or "ghosts". The only she shows any real emotion is when Eren isn't around, whenever Eren is in trouble, or when dealing with Annie.
• Super-Deformed: The human cast is drawn in this style... however, the titans still live up to their names.
• Toilet Humour: Half of the manga's humor is built off this.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Eren and Annie both appreciate cheeseburger steaks and cheeseburgers. Connie has a love affair with fried chicken (karaage) rivaling Sasha's obsession with potatoes (and yakisoba bread in this version).
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • An English sub for the advertisements spoil the fact that Levi's surname is the same as Mikasa's.
  • The same commercial's sub overlaps with this and Trailers Always Lie/Cowboy BeBop at His Computer. Krista is inexplicably labeled with Sasha's surname and the given name of Frieda Reiss, the half-sister of Krista's true identity (Historia Reiss).
• Tsundere: Annie towards Eren, big time. Whenever she shows this, Mikasa will turn Yandere towards her.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: The “Man That Turns Kids Into Titans”/“The Man With Glasses” is based off of Zeke Jaeger (Eren’s older half brother in the source material). However, he is instead much older (so old that his junior high bullies are all dead now from old age) with no known relation to Eren.
• Was Once a Man: Just like in the source Material Titans were originally humans. In this case they were Students from Attack Junior High who failed their advancement tests and were injected with Titan serum.
• Westminster Chimes: Since this is a High School AU, the opening theme builds it into the melody.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Hange does a flying body press/splash on Oluo in episode 5 (which was aimed at Eren and Jean at first to extort some money for lunch).
• Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: After realizing they were going to be late for class in the first episode, half the cast ends up following Eren and taking a left turn and running towards the Titans' school buildings instead of towards Attack Junior High. Hannes has to come and save them.
  "NOOOOOOO!!! DON'T DO IT YOU MONSTER!!! NOT MY PRECIOUS CHEESE HAMBURG STEAK!!!"

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