Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan (Manga Discussion)

So I was checking out the timeline and I noticed something interesting. I'm guessing this has been pointed out but I think it's worth bringing up anyway.

According to what we've been told so far the walls were created by the 145th King of Eldia. Presumably they and all the previous kings and queens were in possession of the Founding Titan. Assuming no major incidents each monarch possessed the Titan for 13 years leading to a total reign of 1885 years following Ymir Fritz's death. After this the people inside the walls lived in relative peace for 102 years which brings us up to 1987 years since the death of Ymir.

What's interesting about this is that right after Eren gets the Founding/Attack Titan he has 13 years to live which brings us up to 2000 years since her death. The first chapter of the manga also happens to be To You, 2000 Years From Now. That can't possibly be a coincidence.

edited 22nd Jun '17 7:16:00 PM by Kostya

Yeah, I've noticed that as well.

I have no idea what the explanation for Eren's long dream from the first chapter is going to be but I'm pretty sure it's the only mystery from those days left and it's likely not going to be solved until the final few chapters. It's probably going to be really crazy.

It will involve Mikasa and PATHS, that's for sure.

I think it's probably a dream Ymir sent him. Maybe she could glimpse the future through the Paths and decided to warn him about something. Iit's not present in the manga but I watched the anime and saw brief flashes of Eren's mother being eaten and Hannes dying. Both of those events hadn't happened yet.

People were pointing that out on the last episode of Season 2. A lot of people noticed that glimpse of blood showering the flowerbed was showed again when Hannes sadly died. People have been speculating what exactly that means. Also something that confuses me a bit about that is that I think Eren became a Titan Shifter after the wall was broken, not before it. So why would he have those dreams if they were a Shifter power?

edited 23rd Jun '17 3:20:28 PM by Wispy

P A T H S

The Paths connect all Eldians, not just Shifters. It's possible Ymir used them to send a warning even before Eren had the power.

Huh, I must of never of heard of these paths then.

Eren mentions them around Chapter 88. He says Marley believes there are invisible Paths that connect all Eldians together. These Paths provide the excess matter needed for the Titan transformation and may also be how Titan powers are passed on if the user dies without being eaten by a Titan.

Did you mean:

P A T H S
A
T
H
S

?

We will find out in a year.

I don't know. All I know is that Annie was able to destroy the elite Levi Squad, who had survived several expeditions without casualties, while the average casualty rate for the Scout Regiment was 50% fatalities per expedition. Even if she is the weakest of the enemy shifters, that still makes her a Wake-Up Call Boss.

It's been a while; didn't Eren comment, in the manga, that Reiner's fighting skills were dick compared to Annie's? Hence, being able to easily take him down when he started using his training. Annie still put up a fight in Stohess, but Reiner got his ass beat when Eren began thinking.

edited 23rd Jun '17 10:50:33 PM by SilentColossus

Yeah, Annie is so dangerous because she is so incredibly skilled. She was selected for the Warriors because of her fighting skills, and I think it's likely she (and Marcel) were sent to basically provide support for the Wall Breakers.

Reiner and Bertolt are both tough, but heavily reliant upon the abilities of their titans. They were probably used to those two particular Titans being keystones of Marley's army, with both of them essentially being viewed as invincible.

But Annie's fighting style is specifically meant to remove the advantages of size/strength, and is particularly effective against Reiner. (Hence the jokes of him being afraid of her and getting kicked around when he annoyed her.)

And Annie is a smart, ruthless fighter. She managed to out-smart Levi's squad, tricking them left and right.

Reiner is smart, but he's also one of those fighters used to relying on overwhelming force. He's bigger, tougher, and stronger than anyone else.....but remove those advantages, and he ends up in trouble.

edited 23rd Jun '17 11:30:12 PM by harostar

I've recently caved in and watched a few video clips of the AOT anime from both seasons... and now I'm wondering why I didn't cave in years earlier when I first became aware of AOT's existence.

Two questions:

1. If this thread is for "Manga Discussion", then how come there's no thread for the anime? Or is it a case of Artifact Title?
2. Where did the term "Titan Shifter" come from? None of the Japanese names cited on the wiki properly correlate to this English term. Is it a translation choice on part of a fan-translator that happened to become popular? Or is it used in the official English translation of the manga/anime?

There is a separate discussion thread for the anime.

I'm not sure exactly where "Titan Shifter" came from either. I think it's just a term the fans came up with that stuck.

I will say that the anime makes some moments so much more epic than the manga did. The Bertholt and Reiner reveal in the anime was fucking amazing. There are some moments in the later manga I cannot wait to see animated.

The one thing I dislike about the anime, specifically the English dub, is how they replaced the Titan roars. The high pitched shrieking just... does not fit as well, and I have zero idea why they did that.

edited 27th Jun '17 1:48:20 PM by DarkHunter

Yeah, the anime thread was made I think because it started airing around the same time as The Reveal was happening. So that way people just getting into the series wouldn't be spoiled as people flailed about who the Armored and Colossal Titans are.

The anime is a really good adaptation, that's for sure. The cast are so good, and the music is incredible. And the staff have made some good choices in terms of differences, making things more linear and adding some little details or early reveals that I think made the overall product better. Isayama is a good writer, but the series is his first published work so he definitely has some issues in terms of choices he's made. (The 104th Training being a flashback instead of a linear arc, for example.)

I don't mind the roars that much. It's different, but they went with more "inhuman" as opposed to just having the actor roar and deepening it.

Hasn't Isayama said the anime is functioning a bit like a director's cut? That could explain some of the changes they made to stuff.

edit: Does it bug anyone else that the Title Drop moment in the manga isn't going to work in the English version?

edited 27th Jun '17 2:10:13 PM by Kostya

I guess this is a good time as any to confess that the very first AOT video I've seen was of that very "Bertholt and Reiner reveal themselves as Titan Shifters" scene, huh? Truly, the execution was nigh-perfect; the animation, the shading over Reiner's face (both when viewed from behind and when we later actually see his expression), the musical score from the moment the flag falls down to when Reiner is sliding down Wall Rose with Eren in his hand, it excellently set the atmosphere for the scene. Reiner's emotional anguish over his conflicting loyalties and his tragic decision to proceed with his mission and reject Eren's desperate attempt to handwave his confession and ultimatum, Mikasa's desperation to kill the two Titan Shifters before they actually shift, the Survey Corps(wo)men's struggle to merely avoid being blown away by the gale-force winds accompanying the Colossal Titan's manifestation, Krista Historia's anguish as Ymir is seized by the Colossus, and Eren's own maelstrom of shock, grief and rage at his (now former) friends' betrayal despite everything they've been through and his own attempt at giving them an out of Reiner's confession... and all of that followed by Titan Eren duking it out with the Armored Titan.

I must say, I don't think there was a better way to be introduced to AOT, IMHO. Eren vs. Armored Titan is probably the best battle so far, if only because of how Eren finally completes the evolution of his fighting style as a Titan from reckless reliance on overwhelming physical force to making use of brutally effective techniques to cripple his enemy and negate his advantage.

Isayama seems to not have a problem with alterations to his source work in general, and even encourages it. Apparently all the changes in the live action movie were at his insistence, for one.

The anime I would say has better pacing, and it does a better job of foreshadowing some events.

edited 27th Jun '17 2:20:03 PM by DarkHunter

So I decided to look through some of the earlier pages of this thread. Who is this Rivaille guy everyone keeps mentioning? The name doesn't look like any character I can think of.

Apparently the official spelling of the name is supposed to be "Levi."

How on Earth do you get Rivaille out of Levi or vice versa?

The pronunciation of the name, apparently. Reads like "Lee-Vye," spelled "Levi."

I think I'm misreading Rivaille. If it's Ree-vey or something I can see how it's similar to Lee-vai. I was thinking it would be pronounced like Rai-vale.