YMMV / Attack on Titan

aka: Shingeki No Kyojin

Only manga-specific spoilers are marked on this page. Beware if you haven't watched every episode of the anime yet.

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The following have their own pages:

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Broken Base
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Fan Nickname
• Hilarious in Hindsight
• Magnificent Bastard
• Memetic Mutation
• Narm
• Woobie

Other examples:

A-D

• Abandon Shipping: Almost all fans of Levi/Mikasa immediately made for the lifeboats after Chapter 56 revealed his last name, indicating he may possibly be related to her. Officially confirmed that they are indeed related (although to what extent is unknown).
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Chapter 53 has everyone worrying about how Eren can't harden. They're referring to his Titan form's crystallization ability, yes, but it's not hard to misinterpret. Even funnier when you remember that he needs to harden so he can "fill up the hole".
  • The fight scene from Episode 21 has some... suggestive shots that the fandom is making fun of.◊ It doesn't help that, Barbie Doll Anatomy aside, both Titans are very physically attractive and completely naked...
  • Eren's Titan fight with The Armored Titan offered some rather funny positions as well, when they're supposed to represent a mount and guillotine from guard◊ in jiujitsu.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Although not a widely hated character, Porco has usually just been summed up as a Replacement Scrappy for Ymir and, to an extent, his elder brother Marcel. Still, it was hard not to feel some sense of loss when Porco sacrificed himself to save Falco from a Fate Worse than Death.
• Americans Hate Tingle: Dot Pixis's character stirred an outrage among the Korean fanbase, especially when Isayama admitted that he was based off of Akiyama Yoshifuru, a historical general of the Imperial Japanese Army who has a complicated and controversial history in Korea. This resulted in a heated debate over the general's war record, angry messages and even death threats towards Isayama, as well as an overall decline of interest in the series in Korea due to what they saw as Isayama glorifying the man.
• Angel/Devil Shipping:
  • Ymir and Krista are as basic an example as they come. Scarily, they're actually one of the better-adjusted and more mutually-affectionate pairings in the show. One more than one level, too, as Krista is often referred to as a goddess and shown with angel wings/halo, and Ymir's nickname within the fandom being "Freckled Satan".
  • Eren and Historia later fall into this as well, especially helped by the narrative paralleling Eren with Fritz, the "devil", and Historia with Ymir Fritz, the "good girl" and "goddess".
• Angst Aversion: For all its popularity, some people are put off by the rather heavy use of Anyone Can Die, the many losses, and Pyrrhic Victories the heroes go through and the overall grim tone of the series.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Zeke sometimes gets accused of being one. Levi takes him down without too much difficulty during their one-on-one fight in the Return to Shiganshina Arc when several previous chapters had been spent building him up as "the most dangerous Titan" and had seen him single-handily annihilate over half of the Survey Corps.
• Anvilicious:
  • In the early arcs of the series, you barely went a single chapter or episode without hearing about how one must sacrifice their humanity to achieve victory against the Titans.
  • As the tone and narrative stepped more into grey territory, the author seems insistent on consistently reminding viewers that "revenge is bad" via the cycle of hatred and "leaving the forest".
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The anime's first season suddenly slows to a crawl during the Forest/Female Titan arc, where the Female Titan chases after the Survey Corps, slowly picking them off, while Eren internally debates whether to use his Titan form. Every episode in the arc features this plot, and they all end in the same place — Eren is still indecisive, and a few more people are now dead, with almost no other plot events or meaningful progression. Some episodes can be skipped entirely since the next episode's recap will manage to cover everything without any loss of detail.
  • The Uprising arc and following the kidnapping of Historia and Eren. This not only switches to a "Overthrow the corrupt government" plot and shoves the Titans into the far background, but keeps going for more than three volumes. Isayama himself declared it an Old Shame and took measures so that the anime adaptation of that arc will rectify that status not just in the fans' eyes but his as well.
• Ass Pull:
  • With almost no debate, there's been very little positive response to Eren's getting the hardening ability, too. It doesn't help that the bottle literally falls into his lap with no buildup or foreshadowing, nor that he ingests it rather than injects it as is the way it's supposed to be handled, nor that he's mastered it within a few panels at the intro of a new chapter, the entire month of necessary work skipped. With the entire plot since Day One centering on fixing Wall Maria and returning to Shiganshina to get to Eren's basement, this inevitably felt a bit cheap.
  • Reiner survives Levi shoving blades through his neck (essentially decapitating him) and his heart by "transferring his consciousness throughout his body", which Levi can only guess is "some kind of Titan power". He then repeats the stunt by staying alive after getting half of his head blown off in human form by transporting his consciousness into his Titan body's nervous system.
  • Zeke is blown in half by a Thunder Spear and is on the verge of death when a Titan suddenly appears, takes Zeke inside its belly, and the process somehow completely regenerates and heals Zeke like nothing happened. The whole near-death experience just seemed to be an excuse to have Zeke see the Paths.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: With how divisive the final arc was, it's no surprise the manga's ending was controversial. Major points of contention are Eren's real motivation for the Rumbling being because he wanted to do it and he loved his friends enough to have them kill him and make them heroes for it; Eren's poorly foreshadowed feelings for Mikasa and how the story revealed them; Armin's gratitude for Eren's actions despite disapproving his methods, not helped by early translations making it seem he thanked him for the genocide itself; Ymir Fritz's love for the king that abused her, ending the titans after Mikasa "freed her from the agony of love" by killing Eren despite loving him; the survivors' change of heart, which felt too little too late as it only happened once they almost died; and the extra pages that detailed Paradis' fate, with an implication that titans may not be gone. The extra pages in particular divided the fandom even further, as many in both sides of the Rumbling split thought they made the story pointless, but it improved the ending for others (even some who thought it was otherwise terrible).
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Bertolt, Reiner, and Annie after The Reveal that they are Titan Shifters. One portion of the fanbase lost all respect and sympathy for them upon discovering what they were responsible for and willing to do, but they remain very popular characters in other areas of the fandom. Reiner gets this more so than the other two. Fans either love him for his caring personality, traumatic journey, and depressing backstory, or they hate him because of his egregious Plot Armor and the fact that he has more spotlight and narrative focus than both Bertolt and Annie.
  • Gabi. At first, she seemed to be a character fans either appreciate as a tragic Foil to Eren, or consider The Scrappy for her arrogance, violent tendencies, and unwillingness to consider Falco's point of view. Then... she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and ends up killing fan-favorite Sasha. Suffice to say, the fandom is very divided on her.
  • Louise, who's inspired by Mikasa to follow in her footsteps and join the Survey Corps; Is she a tragic character who genuinely believes she's doing the right thing in saving her people and doesn't appreciate the greater consequences of helping Eren realize his ultimate plan... Or is she no better than the others in the Yeagerist faction swept up in their nationalistic aims like the much more fanatical Floch? The fact that Mikasa seems to have done everything in her power to keep Louise at arm's length through the course of the conflict doesn't help her case.
  • Hange Zoe as of the final arc; some fans believe their "No-Genocide-Under-Any-Circumstances" stance and their willingness to ally with Marley and the Warriors shows they are the face of bringing peace between Eldia and the world. Other fans believe Hange is a hypocrite and a traitor for condemning their own people to die to save the people of the world, which had been responsible for the suffering of Eldians.
  • Connie Springer; has his focus in the final arc been productive towards his Character Development with the loss of his comedy relief status after losing Sasha, or has the very same thing done little more to put him Out of Focus and effectively make him The Load among the survivors of the 104th, particularly with Armin, Mikasa, and Jean all seeing considerably higher stakes in their new struggle to stop Eren? It's no secret that Sasha was the true fan favorite when it comes to the former comedic duo, and there's a considerable number of fans who question his relevance in the current stage of the plot.
• Better on DVD:
  • One of the most recurrent complaints about the anime is its supposedly slow pacing. However, this complaint is way more common among those who watched the show in simulcast (and thus had to wait a whole week for each new episode) than among those who watched the whole thing in a few days.
  • The DVD & Blu-ray releases also clean up a lot of the Special Effect Failure and other poor animations that were present in the initial broadcast, particularly noticeable in Episodes 10 — 13 (as the animation team was getting rushed and undermanned at this point in time). This comparison video for episode 13 shows the difference.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During the anime adaptation of Eren and Annie's Titan battle, Eren's Titan undergoes a sudden drastic transformation after being subdued by Annie. Its eyes glowed blue, its teeth became razor-sharp, its skin was literally burning, and its strength increased several times over. During all of this, Eren himself develops Voice of the Legion and starts internally screaming that he'll destroy the entire world and declaring that he is free. This event was never mentioned again after the fact by any major character who witnessed it. Although unconfirmed at the time of this writing, it's widely speculated that this event is in some way connected to the true nature of the "Attack Titan" and its inherent desire to seek out freedom, no matter the cost. As of Chapter 123, this is partially true. The form itself appears to be some kind of Super Mode, as the Attack Titan's true power is the ability to peer through time and influence prior holders of the power. Why Eren was speaking with multiple voices remains unexplained.
• Breather Boss: One thing is certain: Rod Reiss's Titan definitely made itself insanely easy to remove as a problem. The Titan was so big, it moved too slowly to prevent the humans from preparing for its arrival. It grounds away its face and body, meaning it couldn't resist when a cartload of bombs was stuffed into its mouth. And its insane body heat meant that they didn't even have to worry about lighting the damn thing and getting out of the way—it lit the explosives itself. It would be a Self-Disposing Villain, except that it's not a question of morality—Historia kills her father after his human body is exposed, and actually asks to be celebrated as the one to kill him even if it ends up not being the case.
• Cargo Ship: Levi x Cleaning is a popular ship, and can get fairly insane.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Annie being the Female Titan is hardly the most surprising reveal in the series, due to their similar hair and fighting styles.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Gabi remains one of the most hated characters in the series for her bratty attitude and her murder of Sasha. It's nevertheless satisfying when she faces the consequences of her actions and the people she hurt in chapter 111.
  • Zeke spends much of the series as a Straw Nihilist who betrays and kills many people (many of them are Paradisians) out of the belief he's freed them from suffering. Poetic justice occurs when he's subjected to endlessly creating Titans to serve the brother that betrayed him after failing to convince Ymir Frtiz.
• Complete Monster: In chapter 122—"From You, 2,000 Years Ago"—Fritz, the first King of Eldia and the mythical Devil of All Earth, was a cruel tyrant who ran an empire on conquest, with countless slaves endlessly abused out of their very sense of self, many having their tongues removed. When the young slave Ymir was accused of freeing pigs, the King tried to have her hunted for sport, whereupon she found the power of the Titans. Using her to exterminate and kill all in his path, the King raped her to produce children to inherit her power and upon her death (taking a spear meant for Fritz), forced his daughters to eat her corpse raw, unleashing the new Titans on all his enemies to found an empire on genocide and blood.
• Crack Pairing: Erwin x Bertolt is becoming a popular crack-ship (partly due to the Sesame Street name overlap), often with a dash of Dom/Sub for flavor.
• Crossover Ship:
  • For some odd reason, some artists on Pixiv are fond of pairing Eren with Erika Furudo from Umineko: When They Cry. There's even a tag for the pairing.
  • Various artists on Tumblr have Eren paired up with Peko Pekoyama from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. It's listed under the tag #pekoeren.
  • Hange and Newt, from Pacific Rim tend to get paired together due to their shared obsessions with the monsters that are trying to kill them.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Zackly torturing a captured noble. This wouldn't normally be funny, but the fact that the guy appears to be held in some kind of BDSM setup with a funnel up his ass can be funny.
• Cry for the Devil: After certain revelations, quite a bit of time is devoted to showing the Titan Shifters in a sympathetic light. This makes it a bit of Fridge Brilliance, as all three are accurate reflections of real-world Child Soldiers that commit atrocities. Annie's flashbacks to her childhood, as well as Reiner and Bertolt spiraling towards the Despair Event Horizon show that they are, as Word of God describes Annie, ordinary kids forced to do terrible things.
• Death of the Author: Despite Isayama correcting on an official guidebook mistakenly stating Eren to have feelings for Annie, many Eren/Annie fans still choose to believe he unknowingly developed a crush on her during their training sessions (usually pointing to his panic at learning who she is as well as Mikasa actually questioning his feelings for Annie in canon), but that he got over it after learning who she was and/or after her long absence. They will also point to Isayama naturally correcting on such an out-of-place statement as romance has little to no focus in the series, least of all to Eren.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • Parodied with the Jean/Mikasa ship about Jean's status as the fandom Butt-Monkey.
  • Played straight with Historia's unnamed consort, or as most fans call him "Farmer-kun", who has a sizable hatebase among Historia/Ymir and Historia/Eren shippers; the latter especially among those who believe that Historia having a child was Foreshadowing for her and Eren getting together, not helped in part by certain fan translations actively having Historia express wanting to have a child with Eren when it wasn't the case in the official translation.
• Draco in Leather Pants: This is inseparable from Ron the Death Eater in this case. Initially, after the Shifter Trio were revealed as being the villains they are, Reiner and Bertholt were initially given much more lenient treatment than Annie due to lacking her sadistic moments and brutality, and as a result of their general friendliness and Reiner's insanity, it was common to paint them as worthy of a redemption arc. Later on, Annie happened upon Reiner restraining Marco after realizing He Knows Too Much, and called him a piece of shit while Reiner frantically yelled for her to take his maneuver gear to prove her loyalty and get rid of a liability. After this, Reiner became the most consistently loathed member of the trio with Annie becoming the one the fandom considered the most sympathetic and worthy of redemption. This kind of ignores how Annie didn't tell Reiner to let Marco go or cut his throat or just knock him out, she told him to make Bertholt do it, and also ignores how she did, in fact, take the gear, as well as how the act broke Reiner as much as or more than Annie. The fandom still being very attached to Marco even long after his death likely has a lot to do with it as well. Nowadays Reiner has become the most sympathetic member of the Titan Trio due to being the main protagonist during the Marley Arc and revelations about how awful his life has been since day one.

E-H

• Evil Is Cool:
  • Kenny Ackerman for his antipersonnel 3D maneuvering gear skills and overall Clint Eastwood-like appearance, though he's not entirely without some hammy qualities.
  • After Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and becoming a full-on villain, Eren himself falls into this for some, as his newfound cold, collected demeanor has made him a very different kind of badass from his more familiar berserker self and seems to have won over those who were not fond of his arguably more generic Shonen Hero-esque origins.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Alleging that Attack on Titan is antisemitic due to the parallels between Eldians and Jews will earn you angry fans reminding you that the series portrays the oppression of the Eldians as a bad thing.
  • On a similar note, claiming that Attack on Titan glorifies Fascism isn't exactly the best way to make friends with fans. Becauses, those said fans will angrily remind you that the series is very vocal in its criticism of Fascism as a political ideology, later sees the Eldians fight the Marleyans, who are modelled after two of the most infamous Fascist regimes in all of history: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and when the Yeagerists come into full force, almost none of the main characters have anything nice to say about them and fight them with little hesitation.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With SNK, due to Acronym Confusion between it and this series' Japanese title. This has caused many headaches for fans of the former on social media and blogging sites that use searchable case-insensitive tags, as they now have to abandon the "snk" tag in favor of "shin nihon kikaku".
  • More recently with Code Geass, due to all the direct comparisons of the "Lelouch Ending" talked by Attack on Titan fans to the point it was starting to annoy the Code Geass fandom. Not helped that there is a lot of comparisons between Eren and Lelouch. The fact that Attack on Titan even ended on a similar note to Code Geass, ergo making the "Lelouch Ending" canon, did not help especially given how polarising the ending for Attack on Titan was. So expect a lot of Code Geass fans to mock Attack on Titan fans for trying and failing to live up to the ending of Code Geass.
  • With, of all things, Pretty Cure ever since HuGtto! Pretty Cure won the 2019 r/Anime Anime of the Year award over Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2. This resulted in mass confusion and anger over how Attack on Titan lost to what they perceived to be a no-name anime aimed for girls (ignoring the fact that HuGtto! is one of the darkest Pretty Cure seasons to date). Naturally, this is a pretty one-sided rivalry, as Pretty Cure fans are just happy to see the series get any form of prestigious recognition in the west.
  • A one-sided rivalry against the Bluey fandom, of all things. AOT fans always want their show to be the highest rated on sites such as MyAnimeList, and when they found out that "Sleepytime" was higher rated on IMDB than "Hero," they started to review bomb Bluey. In the end, the Bluey episode descended 15 places while "Hero" remains second only to "Ozymandias."
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Levi's past, prior to the release of A Choice With No Regrets.
  • The Titan Shifters' pasts and motivations.
  • The following scenarios if Annie, or later Reiner and Bertolt had succeeded in kidnapping Eren.
  • Bertolt sleeping in strange positions.
  • The events that led to Marco's death. That is until Chapter 77 came along...
  • How exactly Eren Kruger managed to acquire the "Attack Titan" in secret while posing as a Marleyan officer.
• Fanon:
  • Annie and Mina are assumed to have been friends, since they were shown to have sat together for their meals and Annie is shown to be apologizing in horror to what appeared Mina's dead body after the Battle of Trost (in Annie's visual novel however, it's revealed that the body she apologizes to is someone else).
  • Bertolt is often portrayed as a bookworm in fanart, likely because he's introduced in the Training Flashbacks reading a book.
  • Many fans like to think that the harnesses for the 3D Maneuver Gear leave distinct, rope burn-like bruising on those who use it, as often displayed in fan art.
  • Heck, the WMG section has an entire list dedicated to the things we're pretty sure about but have yet to be given clear confirmation of.
  • Many fans assume Levi/Rivaille is of French descent due to the "Rivaille" spelling of his name; however, Word of God says that the "Rivaille" spelling is a translation error and the correct spelling is "Levi".
  • There is also a lot of speculation of Levi being Jewish due to his first name (although his namesake as revealed by Word of God was actually a fundamentalist Christian). His family name, Ackermann, could point into a Ashkenazi direction instead.
  • Since the introduction of Levi's former mentor Kenny Ackerman, there seems to be a popular belief going around that the two of them had a parent-child relationship once. This was later confirmed in the manga.
  • Prior to the anime establishing that he's a blond, fan artists seemed to agree that Galliard was a Fiery Redhead.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Fanfic writers seems to be big on putting the characters in real-world (especially school-related) AUs where they face more mundane and lighthearted problems. This is likely a reaction to how bleak and brutal the original show is, so writers want to imagine the characters they love in happier times. The creators seem to have acknowledged this with the Attack on Titan: Junior High spin-off, an official middle-school AU.
  • A fairly popular story idea is an OC, who may or may not be a stand in for the author, going to boot camp with the rest of the characters in the 104th, falling in love with one of the canon characters (Usually Annie Leonhart), and then joining the Recon Corps so they can continue to be involved in the main characters adventures. Due to the fact that manga is both pretty long and ongoing, these stories don't normally end, and often times just end up going on indefinite hiatus.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Any pairing involving Bertolt, Annie, or Reiner with the other characters.
• Fountain of Memes: Levi has been made fun of by the entire fanbase, kinda going with his Ensemble Dark Horse status. See here for most of his parodies.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Bizarrely enough, with Free!, despite the rather dramatic contrast in tone. It started with some jokes by fake SNK characters on twitter and Tumblr helped it escalate from there. About their contrast in tone, case in point.
  • Ditto for the fandom's friendship with the fan base of Pacific Rim.
  • And with Titanfall, largely because of the name and the fact that the Titans in both series are best defeated by a hitting a weak point on the back of the neck.
  • Also with Phantasy Star Online 2: cross-promotion in the game allowed players to dress as characters from the manga, and both have their fair share of colossal enemies to slay. The boss fight against Magatsu, itself, is essentially AoT if it were a science-fantasy story.
  • Along with Game of Thrones, due to the rather high number of similarities between the two series. Apparently, Isayama himself binged the first 6 seasons in one sitting. This eventually came full circle in SNK itself when several Titans Annie was leading to the Walls in Chapter 96 were deliberately designed off of several characters from GOT.
• Gateway Series: The anime seems to be the gateway anime of The New '10s for Western fans, thanks to its popularity on both Crunchyroll and the revived Toonami.
• Genius Bonus: When the 104th members were taking shelter in Castle Utgard, Ymir rummages through boxes and finds a can of herring. Herring are only found in the ocean. The fact that Ymir and Reiner both knew about herring was an incredibly subtle hint that both of them are not from the Walls.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • A surprisingly large percentage of fanfic (somewhere between 30-40% on fanfiction.net at least) for the show is written in Spanish (to give you an idea, the show got a Blu-ray release in Spain just a few months after the show ended in Japan, with a pretty quality dub to boot) and Indonesian. In fact, according to a user on DeviantArt, SNK is so popular in Spain that they have their own SNK themed conventions!
  • Jean only ranks 9th on the official Japanese popularity polls. English viewers might be surprised at that, since he's easily one of the most popular characters in the West.
  • North Americans LOVE Attack on Titan, so much so that in early May it's going to be aired on the newly revived Toonami block on a good time slot!
  • Also, Attack on Titan is so popular in Latin America that, when Funimation licensed the second season for that region and Crunchyroll announced it, the anime went to the 'Popular Shows' section, along with Naruto Shippuuden, Dragon Ball Super and One Piece.
• Growing the Beard:
  • The Female Titan arc and the lead up to it, where focus diverts from the main trio and becomes more of an ensemble story is considered a vast improvement by some.
  • Done again with the advent of Chapter 90 onwards, in which the series quickly developed a mature, nuanced worldview.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work: Attack on Titan has seen great success in anime and video game adaptations. However, bringing the Titans to live action has proven to be difficult. The story is long and takes its time building the world and lore of that ultimately drive the Ontological Mystery of the series. Almost every character has lengthy backstories that often tie into other characters which helps explain their motivations and goals. Finally, the titular Titans are massive humanoid abominations that leave lots of destruction in their wake. Fights against them involve lots of swinging with the omni-directional mobility gear like Spider-Man or Titan vs. Titan battles akin to Kaiju works. To bring the Titans convincingly to live action would need an equally titanic budget. All of these issues have led to the series having a hard time coming to a live action medium:
  • The two live action films from 2015 suffered from a case of Compressed Adaptation. They tried to fit the first 25 episodes of the anime into two movies, leading to many important characters and plot points being Adapted Out. The characters that did appear were radically different from their anime versions to the point where they might as well have been new characters. The movies also did NOT have the budget to make the Titans look imposing, leading to lots of Special Effects Failure and Narm. The only other crack at a live action version of Attack on Titans has been from Warner Bros, whose adaptation has been stuck in Development Hell.
  • The stage musical went through a Troubled Production in an attempt to bring the swinging action to the stage. The death defying acrobatics used by the omni-directional movement gear is easy enough to convey in print or animation; doing it in a theatre setting is much easier said than done. It would require lots of safety harnesses and wires (and all the financial and logistical issues that come with it) to do safely, as well as athletic actors to perform the stunts. During testing for the original musical, acrobat Kazutaka Yoshino suffered an injury during rehearsals and ultimately died from his injuries, putting production on the musical on hold. That said, a musical for Attack on Titan did get off the ground in 2023, to favorable results.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Everything good involving Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie once you find out that they're human Titans bent on wiping out humanity.
  • Every single Titan kill, now that we know that all Titans are humans trapped in Titan form. Particularly bad are the scenes where Levi not only effortlessly takes out Titans, but taunts them and plays around with them after injuring them before killing them. No wonder he looks so distraught at that reveal.
  • Eren being a Memetic Loser was a common problem for him, since if he wasn't in Titan form he did little against them otherwise, like he simply wasn't all that capable thanks to being classed as average. In fact, it's only due to being a Determinator that he made it to the top five of the 104th Training Corps. Then it turns out his instructor tried to sabotage his training so he wouldn't follow in his father's footsteps of self-destructive revenge. It didn't work, and ironically Grisha Titanizing Eren saved his life and gave the Scouts a fighting chance where his inexperience would've doomed him otherwise.
  • An arc featuring Grisha Yeager's past reveals that his first wife, Dina, was arrested and turned into a Mindless Titan. Specifically, she became the Smiling Titan, who would go on to devour Grisha's second wife, Carla, and be killed by Carla's son with Grisha.
  • Early on during the "Uprising" arc, Levi's assessment that their situation is so bad that one day Titans would pop out of the ground or come raining down from the sky given everything that's been happening became far worse after it's shown that the Marley Military actually uses Titan airstrikes on enemy strongholds.
  • The 104th's promise to reunite when they are old, and have a drink together. Then we learn about the Curse of Ymir, which limits a Titan Shifter's lifespan to 13 years. Several of the people making that promise will never be able to grow old, because their powers will kill them in their 20s. Bends back over to Heartwarming at the ending of the series, since the since the end of the Power of the Titans allows the former Shifters to escape the curse of Ymir and live normal lifespans.
  • Every time that the characters claim to be fighting on behalf of "humanity", after The Reveal that the people inside the walls are in fact not the last remnants of humanity, and that rest of the world fears and despises them for their ability to turn into Titans. This is especially true for Eren, since he ends up killing most of humanity during The Rumbling.
  • One of the anime's omake makes a joke about Armin looking better in a bunnygirl suit than any of the girls. In a later manga chapter, Armin is captured while Disguised in Drag, and while tied up is molested by an old man who didn't know he was male.
  • Jokes concerning Sasha's Big Eater antics become harsher with the revelation that her obsession with food is the result of her village starving when refugees wiped out their food source.
  • Levi's short stature, and obsession with cleanliness become this after his backstory is revealed. Raised in the Underground slums, he grew up in squalor and was discovered by Kenny nearly starved to death with his mother's rotting corpse nearby. His growth was stunted as a result of childhood malnutrition and the Vitamin D deficiency that plagues people living in the Underground.
• Ho Yay:
  • Eren and Armin due to them being extraordinarily close to one another. They've hugged one another in relief, Armin has blushed while holding Eren's hand and Eren was adamant that Armin's life should be saved over Erwin's, to the point of fighting Levi and Hange over it. Their scene together in the final episode added a lot to this, with the two promising to share the sins of the Rumbling together and meet up in Hell when they both die. Some fans even thought that their final embrace was going to end with them kissing.
  • Eren and Jean.
  • Reiner and Bertolt, due to being Those Two Guys and further fueled with Reiner being Ambiguously Bi.
  • Jean and Marco, especially in the anime. Marco is Jean's best friend and their respective qualities complete each other nicely. Not to mention that Marco's death is very hard on Jean and serves as a major catalyst for his Character Development.
  • Erwin and Levi. Interestingly enough, it took only one line to do this. The fact that they're voiced by Daisuke Ono and Hiroshi Kamiya probably helps. Since Erwin lost his arm, Levi's devoted behavior has only become more pronounced, with him threatening to break Erwin's legs to keep him from endangering himself in battle in Chapter 72 really standing out.
  • Armin and Jean, due to Armin having saved Jean's life three times.
  • Ymir and Krista, who have many moments throughout the series. Word of Gay confirms that their relationship is romantic in nature. It gets the Portmanteau Couple Name YumiKuri (yumiru x kurisuta).
  • Mikasa and Annie.
  • Mikasa and Sasha, thanks to that scene where Mikasa shoves bread into Sasha's mouth.
• Hype Backlash: Regardless of it being anime or manga, some people feel the series as a whole is way too overhyped, especially since fans praise it as the "best series ever!" or Darker and Edgier than it really is, and it's virtually impossible to find an anime fan who hasn't seen or heard of it. The growing evidence of the author's controversial political views has also led to more and more readers turning against it.

I-M

• I Knew It!:
  • Many fans suspected the Female Titan to be Annie Leonhart long before the revelation came due to the way it resembled her.
  • Likewise to the above many people guessed that Reiner was the Armored Titan and Bertolt was the Colossal Titan long before it was officially confirmed for many of the same reasons as the Female Titan revelation.
  • Many people also predicted Titans being transformed humans.
  • Most people guessed that Marcel was a Titan shifter and eating him allowed Ymir to become one too long before it was officially revealed, and the repeated instances where his demise is shown in the manga (at least 3 times) have led to the fandom adopting it as a running gag, stating that they'll finally see his death.
  • It's confirmed that Eren ate his father, which many people have theorized for a good while.
  • Many speculated that Annie was involved in Marco's death before it was finally confirmed.
  • Fans were quick to point out that Zeke and Grisha looked practically identical, leading many to suspect that they were related, or at the very least knew one another personally.
  • Many have correctly predicted that humans weren't actually extinct beyond the Walls.
  • The identity of the Smiling Titan as Dina Yeager, Grisha's first wife, was pretty much speculated since she was introduced in Chapter 86 and was confirmed in the next chapter.
  • A few people speculated that the Shell-Shocked Veteran that Falco stops to help in Chapter 94 was Eren in disguise, come Chapter 97 and they were proven right.
  • There were plenty of speculations that at some point between the Time Skip, Zeke defected from Marley to side with the Paradis Eldians. His relationship with his brother Eren explored further notwithstanding, there are shots of Zeke in the manga that portray him action very suspicious. Then, when the Tybur play happens, Zeke acts too casual when Falco summons Reiner to Eren, followed by a disguised Yelena taking Zeke elsewhere while luring Porco and Pieck into a trap. When the Raid on Liberio happens and Zeke shows up in his Beast Titan form, he is taken down far too quickly (and anti-climatically), but notice how Levi cuts his nape open in an odd manner (vertically, not horizontally). Sure enough, Chapter 105 has Hange reveal to Gabi and Falco that Zeke has been siding with Paradis the entire time, presenting both Jaeger brothers in the same room.
  • Most readers of the manga were extremely skeptical about Eren seemingly going along with Zeke's plan to sterilize all Eldians (thereby causing them to go extinct) because it's greatly at odds with Eren's established philosophy. Fans insisted that Eren was just going along with Zeke's plan to gain control of the Founding Titan. Sure enough, in chapter 120, Eren betrays Zeke and says he never had any intention of going along with Zeke's plan.
  • Similarly, directly from the above point, some fans hit the mark on the reveal that Eren was using Zeke for his own agenda, which was his tendency for a Roaring Rampage of Revenge taken to its logical conclusion, the demise of all life outside the island.
  • Most fans were proven right in predicting that Annie will finally return to the story after Eren shatters the Walls.
  • Due to the series unforgivable and darker setting many fans predicted that Eren will die by the end of his series.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Levi is a specific-character example; his overwhelming popularity with fans (including Yaoi Fangirls) has led to some backlash in the English-speaking fandom (mostly on /a/, but also on Tumblr).
• It Was His Sled:
  • Eren can turn into a Titan, and doesn't actually die early on.
  • Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt being the Titan Shifters hiding amongst humanity. Ymir as well, to a lesser extent.
  • Humanity isn't actually extinct beyond the Walls.
  • Eren becomes a Villain Protagonist after the Time Skip.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Eren has more popular ships than any other member of the cast, as is common for main characters. Among the more popular ones are Eren/Mikasa, Eren/Levi, Eren/Annie, Eren/Armin, and Eren/Historia. And then there's one after Eren unleashes the Rumbling: Eren/Freedom.
  • Levi. We've got Levi/Eren, Levi/Hange, Levi/Erwin, Levi/Petra, Levi/Mikasa, Levi/Cleaning, etc.
  • Armin, not as much as the former two, but has a few, Armin/Eren, Armin/Jean, Armin/Mikasa, Armin/Marco, Armin/Annie, Armin/Sasha, and Armin/Erwin.
  • Hange also has a respectable amount; Levi/Hange, Hange/Erwin, Hange/Petra, Hange/Rico, Hange/Moblit, Hange/Mike, Hange/Titans, even Hange/Armin and Hange/Sasha in some parts.
  • Jean counts as well, Jean/Marco, Jean/Eren, Jean/Mikasa, Jean/Armin, Jean/Bertolt...
  • Reiner gets this also: Reiner/Bertolt, Reiner/Annie, Reiner/Historia, just to name a few.
• LGBT Fanbase: The series' numerous characters of ambiguous sexual orientation or gender have drawn a strong fanbase of not only gay fans, but also a strong trans following. Also, in a Biglobe poll of which characters gay manga readers wanted as their boyfriend, two characters from the series (Jean and Reiner) made the top 10.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Quite a number of fans didn't buy Armin being killed off, noting that Levi still had the Titan Serum and he would obviously get it. And that's exactly what happened.
  • Chapter 119 leaves the audience with Eren getting his head shot off. Many fans doubt if it even seriously harms him, let alone kills him. There's already much precedent for this, with Eren having numerous presumed deaths before, as well as both Reiner and Zeke fully recovering from what should have been absolutely lethal wounds. They were right.
• Love to Hate:
  • Zeke Jaeger is a completely unsympathetic monster that nonchalantly wipes out members of the Survey Corps (Erwin included) and compares that to a game of baseball. But there's no denying that his Beast Titan form is awesome in its own right (being one of the most dangerous titans throughout the entire franchise), not to mention being an incredibly intelligent mastermind that can certainly compete with the likes of Armin Arlelt and Hange Zoë. It also helps that he has a sympathetic backstory leading up to his ultimate plan: euthanizing all Eldians.
  • Gabi, oh Gabi Braun. While she has gained some sympathy after going through Character Development that completely removes her from being a Hate Sink, she's still best known as a Marley butt-kisser who is outspoken of the Wall Eldians being devils and, as Eren says it word-for-word, the "brat who killed Sasha."
  • Then there's Floch Forster, who despite being an Eldian-supremacist bigot representing the absolute worst of the Yeagerists' crimes, provides an ooze of entertainment through his outspoken views of Eren ushering in "the New Eldian Empire" and the commanding pressence he brings when he and the Yeagerists get involved. And that's not counting the fact that he has his supporters outside of the AoT universe who empathize with the Yeagerists.
• Memetic Badass:
  • For some reason involving symbolism and a lack of effort to take it seriously, the walnut from the second ending.
  • They didn't build the Walls to protect mankind from the Titans. They built the Walls to protect the Titans from Captain Levi.
• Memetic Bystander:
  • Mylius Zeramuski, one of Eren's ill-fated teammates from episode 5. He's gained the nickname "Background-chan" for being used as a stock background character in the official parodies. It probably helps that he looks like an Expy of Yu Narukami.
  • There's also Nifa, nicknamed Legout◊ for her resemblance to a Palette Swap Armin. (Actually based on an older joke.) She eventually becomes more than a bystander as a member of Hange's squad, prior to being killed off.
  • Commander Meowington, or that one cat that appeared in the background in one of the later episodes next to a pool of blood and didn't seem to care about the Titan attack.
  • Now we have this guy on the left◊ from the Isle's Notebook OVA, who got a lot of attention because of his attractive design. Fans have named him "Nikolas Colton," they gave him an article on the wiki◊ (which was later taken down), are planning a petition to make him an official character, and he's even getting fan art.◊
  • Parkour Baker,◊ one of the Recon Corps members from Episode 24 who ambushes Annie, is seen for all of five seconds. That hasn't stopped him from gaining a pretty sizable following.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Jean. In canon, his loser status consists of crushing on the oblivious Mikasa and generally being second best to Eren; over the series, he develops into a capable soldier and gains some humility. In fanon, his loserdom is shown through anything from being hopelessly in love with Eren to Mikasa outright hating him. Rule of Funny may be the culprit.
  • Reiner. In spite of being portrayed in-series as a dangerous opponent and well-respected for his talents, the fandom tends to remember his multiple losses and brushes with death more. It reaches new heights in later chapters, where he can't even kill himself without someone or something interfering. Besides the fandom, even official parodies have gotten in on portraying him as unable to catch a break.
  • Despite being the main character of the series, Eren himself falls under this category for various fans. Due to Eren constantly being kidnapped or incapacitated at least once per story arc, many fans see him as a Failure Hero who needs his friends and Levi to constantly bail him out of trouble. And there are various memes out there dedicated to making fun of Eren by stating that, despite his intense desire to kill Titans, he can't seem to do so, even though he eventually does so when he turns into a Titan. This joke isn't just in fanon either as even various official parodies make a Running Gag about Eren's ineffectual desire to kill Titans. Much like the Reiner example above though, it's possible that this is deliberate on the author's part. Taken even higher after chapter 139 where he breaks down crying about Misaka being with another man, with Jean ending up with Mikasa making it worse. Eren has been seen as a desperate cuck and simp.
  • Zeke. Initially the evil genius that is War Chief Zeke, his menace took a heavy dip in his defeat at the hands of Levi Ackerman in the"Return to Shiganshina" arc. Then in season 4 he becomes a punching bag for Levi so much so that he yells in frustration after Levi escapes his traps in fear of suffering another humiliating defeat. Then there's his Beast Titan which initially looks like a looming monstrous threat until the memes make his titan resemble a goofy ape throwing pebbles in contrast to other titans with less exaggerated features and cooler abilities, and let's not forget about the "Monke" nickname. Finally Zeke's grand euthanization plan was mocked by memes, depicting his virginity and/or envy for his lack of a penis, even the plan's name itself is renamed into the "No PP plan". It does not help that Zeke's Japanese VA shares the voice of Dio Brando.
• Memetic Molester: Fanarts often depict Mikasa as a stalker or yandere for Eren. Some of her close ups from Episode 24 helped.◊ In the superdeformed OVAs, it's basically an Ascended Meme.
• Memetic Psychopath: Eren's intense Titan hatred and murderous tendencies already as a child gets blown up in a lot of parodies, even some official ones. The usual scenario is that simply mentioning Titans is enough to hit his Berserk Button.
• Mentor Ship: Eren and Annie (manga).
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Even without the Eren/Levi ship and those who romanticize it (though often in tandem), there exists an uncomfortably large portion of the fandom that thinks Eren still goes gushy-eyed and stammery over Captain Levi, usually with a dash of senpai/heichou to go along with it. This is flat-out wrong, as Eren has shown several times he is afraid of Levi and resents the intense beating he got all the way into the Reiss arc.
  • Some of the supporters of Eren/Mikasa like to view their couple as Incest Yay Shipping because of their status of stepbrother and sister and what plot is sometimes played by them like Brother–Sister Incest in combination with Not Blood Siblings, even though their status of "brother and sister" is not only formal, but also rejected by Eren himself (and apparently by the author through him), who sees in Mikasa a friend and possibly Patient Childhood Love Interest, and not a sister or relative.
  • It has been noted that the series has a large following among the far-right who mostly perceive the Eldians as the faultless heroes of a Black-and-White Morality conflict and also a stand-in for Nazi Germany, even though the series portrays many Eldians as deeply flawed participants in a more Gray-and-Gray Morality battle, depicts the Eldians with iconography explicitly associated with WWII-era Jews, and depicts the Marleyans with recognizeably Nazi-esque style and attributes. Granted, the Yeagerists do take the Nazi attributes even further than the Marleyans do, but that's explicitly pointed out as a bad thing and most of the protagonists (sans Eren) actually go against them.
  • Eren's motivation for The Rumbling is often interpreted as him finding no other way to save his people, the Eldians/the Paradisians. While the conflict gets very dire, most miss the fact that Eren's Rumbling is also killing the millions of Eldians outside of where he activates it, and that he doesn't care so much for Paradis' preservation as much as he does the idea of freedom and his friends surviving this. The political movement made under his name, the Yaegerists, don't share much of any of his actual ideals, and they were the ones who were specifically concerned with Paradis surviving and their "superiority" over the rest of the world. The anime makes it explicitly clear that his true motivations were more selfish and that the final outcome of the story ultimately happens because he is, in his own words, an idiot.
  • Paradis' fate, as revealed by the final chapter and its extra pages. Paradis militarized itself even more, wanting to finish what Eren started, and the surviving 20% of the world just wants to rebuild and negotiate for peace. In the original chapter release, it ends before those negotiations begin; in the Volume pages, the epilogue shows Paradis being destroyed in a war afterwards. This was often brought up by Rumbling supporters as "proof" Eren should have completed it, as the hatred for Paradis would never go away... Except this war happens some time after Mikasa died of old age, which implies the peace negotiations between Paradis and the world were successful for at least a few decades. It could be over said hatred and revenge just as easily as it could be over anything else. Alongside the implication that titans may not truly be gone, the story's underlying message seems to be that human conflict will never end while humans exist, but as long as we endure, we can bounce back from any disaster that comes from this. The anime addressed the trope by having Shiganshina become a futuristic city even more advanced than our own, with the title of the end credits theme implying that it would take 2,000 or even 20,000 years before Paradis sees another war.
• Moe:
  • Armin and Krista. The anime increases the former's moe factor by having him voiced by Marina Inoue.
  • Bertolt seems to get this treatment among some fans, probably because of his Extreme Doormat personality. This seems to have bled into the official parodies, which tend to play up his shy tendencies.
  • Little Jean deserves a mention.
  • Gabi, even leading her to joke in-series that she knows she's so adorable that her commanding officer could never risk her life.
  • Pieck stole the fanbase's hearts for many reasons aside from her intellect and competency, her homely/sleepy-cute appearance, the Delicate and Sickly appeal, her sweet personality. The main culprit? Pieck crawling on all fours, greeting Porco.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Darius Zackly is given a violent shove from Cool Old Guy to The Sociopath with the reveal of his utterly outlandish torture of the nobles he captured.
  • After the Time Skip, Eren's portrayal changes to a Villain Protagonist after he kills innocent civilians—including children—during the raid on Liberio. Mikasa criticizes Eren for this.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The sounds Levi makes when he's taking on the Female Titan. It's just so glorious to hear his battle cries as he manages to nearly defeat the Female Titan on his own, considering many have fallen against it. Including Levi's own comrades, so his grunts were also a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • For that matter, there's also the bellowing roar of challenge/rage/announcing his presence that comes out whenever Eren shifts into his Titan form and/or does awesome things. His roars are described as humanity's anger, after all.
• Music to Invade Poland to: Die Flügel der Freiheit fits the trope quite nicely, starting off like a German marching song.

N-R

• Nausea Fuel: Admittedly one must have a strong stomach to even begin this series, but the image of Rod Reiss's Titan with a series of round holes in its head after being shot with cannon fire taps into a trypo-horrific disgust. Makes the skin crawl.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Sasha and the potato incident, which is lampshaded in-universe by her and Jean in Chapter 51.
  • Eren losing a leg and getting eaten before managing a single Titan kill. Despite the fact that he gets better and goes on to kill plenty of Titans in his Titan form (he manages his first kill as a human at Castle Utgard), there's a cruel meme about his inability to kill Titans despite his supposed obsession with doing so going around.
  • The state of Marco's corpse after his death, which has lead to a myriad of "Half the Man He Used to Be" jokes and the like.
  • Petra's death at Annie's hands; similar to Marco's death, the bizarre position of her body after she's been smashed into a tree has led to quite a few treehugger jokes in its wake.
  • Levi chastising Eren for his crappy job cleaning up their headquarters. He's been seen as a Neat Freak ever since.
  • The way Kenny stood in Chapter 58 due to just how ridiculous it looked. Not to mention the hilariously over the top lines he shouted while doing so.
  • Gabi Braun will forever be remembered for one thing and one thing only: killing Sasha.
  • Eren's rather narmy confession of his feelings of Mikasa in Chapter 139 quickly has been deemed as one of the worst conclusions to a character ever and destroying his character for many.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Wings of Freedom is considered to be pretty good (especially if you don't mind Koei games).
• Not Badass Enough for Fans: Armin is sometimes a victim of this trope, being physically weak but absolutely brilliant. It extends even into the series marketing, with Levi frequently replacing him as the third member of the Power Trio.
• No Yay: Although we do not know how close Levi is to Mikasa (presumably he's her cousin or second cousin), many fans have given up even the slightest idea of ​​their mating as from Kissing Cousins. Ironically, some fans also take the same idea with ​​Mikasa and Eren because they are foster brother and sister.
• Older Than They Think: It's become a meme that Eren broke the unspoken anime rule of the heroes allowing their opponent to transform/powerup when he attacks the War-Hammer Titan mid transformation. However, one of the earlier cases, one of which the scene seems to be based on frame for frame is when GaoGaiGar from The King of Braves GaoGaiGar back in 1997 punches a regenerating Zonder as soon as it's in reach.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Armored Titan on the Anime Season 1: It makes its appearance in the second Episode and it's never seen again outside of flashbacks until Season 2's Episode 6^note Keep in mind that there were 3 years between Seasons 1 and 2, which makes it this trope for anime-only watchers.
• One True Pairing: Regardless of who is shipped among the Power Trios, Connie and Sasha are almost always paired with each other.
• One True Threesome: To be expected, thanks to multiple Power Trios.
  • Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are the most prominent.
  • Reiner, Bertolt, and Annie are sometimes paired this way, though Annie's opinion of the other two remains unaddressed in canon.
  • Erwin, Levi, and Hange are popular as well. Sometimes, it becomes a foursome with Mike included for good measure.
  • Perhaps an underrated one: Jean, Conny, and Sasha; all three provide comedic moments in a series that is all too well known for its dark atmosphere. Which makes it all the more heartbreaking when Sasha is killed off.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Even during a century of peace, Titans would just wander around the Walls, sitting and waiting for an opportunity to get in. The majority of the human population just adopted the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality and just went on living, until that fateful day that humankind received a grim reminder that they lived in fear of the Titans. After the breach of Wall Maria, humanity has been living in constant fear that the remaining Walls will be breached again.
  • With the discovery of Eren being a Titan Shifter, how many more are living among normal people?
  • As of Chapter 51, there's a strong possibility that most Titans were once human beings. This means anyone is capable of turning into a Titan against their will, with no chance of ever turning back.
• Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Between Chapters 92-93 several readers (including this very wiki) assumed Gabi had a crush on Reiner due to her blushing around him, following him around, her insistence on holding his hand, and the fact that Falco clearly seemed to be jealous of her behavior towards him. But, Chapter 94 revealed that they're cousins.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Humanity In Chains is considered to be a piece of crap.
• Replacement Scrappy:
  • Porco is occasionally seen as this after inheriting Ymir's Jaw Titan off-screen, as well as for his older brother Marcel, the original leader of the Warrior Trio.
  • Sasha fans and Gabi haters alike labeled Gabi Braun as one after they were paralleled with each other after she saved Kaya from a Titanized Nile. Not that Gabi was overly popular beforehand, but the way she was framed as being similar to Kaya's sister-figure was particularly insulting towards a lot of fans.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • With regard to the Warrior Trio, it's impossible to not notice this in tandem with Draco in Leather Pants. Initially, when the crimes of all three came to light, Annie was usually hated far more than Reiner or Bertholt due to her horrific sadism on the field and the latter two's overall passivity, despite them having killed far more people than her. This was turned completely on its head though, with the coming of Chapter 77. Annie happened upon Reiner restraining Marco after realizing He Knows Too Much, and called him a piece of shit while Reiner frantically yelled for her to take his maneuver gear to prove her loyalty and get rid of a liability. After this, the overwhelmingly common reaction was vicious hope that Reiner and Bertholt would die while Annie was held a step above them both in morals and actions. Ignoring that Annie showed more concern for her comfort than Marco's life.
  • The Shiganshina trio gets this as well, mostly Eren, though Mikasa and Armin get their fair share as well. Some people outright hate Eren for being "cruel" when he flipped out at Reiner and Bertolt for being traitors, somehow forgetting they indirectly killed his mother and several of his comrades. Likewise, Armin got a lot of hate when he bluffed to Bert about Annie being tortured to make him lose his cool, seemingly ignoring that his parents and comrades died because of him. And while the Shifters might be Tragic Villains, they're still enemies of humanity and are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.
  • Every major character can fall victim to this, due to the setting's Grey-and-Gray Morality and frequently shifting alliances pitting popular characters against each other. For instance, it's not uncommon to see fans accusing Erwin, Levi, or Ymir of having a total Lack of Empathy due to their occasionally ruthless pragmatism and willingness to do things such as lie or engage in Batman Gambits.
  • In a far less ambiguous (and usually more comedic) example, Eren's parents are sometimes considered to be abusive, despite being shown to have been overall decent and supportive individuals, not just to their son, but to Mikasa as well. Though with Carla it's highly unjustified, it's hard to argue now that we know what we due about Grisha and his horrible slaughter of children and forcing Eren to become a Titan Shifter and thus a target, for unknown reasons. Subverted, because Grisha was being ordered to do so by Eren Yeager from the future, using the Attack Titan's ability of foresight.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • While most of the fandom doesn't necessarily want the antagonists to win as such an event would lead to the death of everyone inside the Walls, many fans consider Reiner, Bertolt and Annie to be more interesting and better written than the protagonists and get quite excited whenever they show up.
  • Many readers have become fans of the Warriors due to many of them being rather likeable, sympathetic, and being genuine True Companions with the exception of Zeke. Their commanding officer Magath is also portrayed as a Reasonable Authority Figure despite being Marleyan. This, in conjunction with Eren increasingly becoming something of a Jerkass to not only Marleyans but his own friends and comrades has had many readers rooting for the Warriors to win, or at the very least knock Eren down a peg.
  • Many began rooting for Zeke after learning the full extent of his plans. Using the power of the Coordinate possessed by Eren and his own Royal Blood, he will request Ymir render all people with Eldian blood be made infertile, effectively subjecting the Eldian race to genocide. Many can't help but support his cause as only Eldians can possess the powers of the Titans, and that so long as the Titans exist, conflicts like those between the Eldians and the Marleyans will continue to persist. These fans believe for the sake of the world and stopping the fighting over the Titans, the Eldians must die out.
  • No matter how many lines he crosses, Eren still has fans who support him. This is partly because, horrible as his end goal is, the outside world did play a part in provoking it with Marley's repeated attempts to genocide Paradis and partly because he just does it with such grace that it's hard not to be impressed.

S-W

• Salvaged Story: The anime's rendition of Eren and Armin's final conversation was better received than the in the manga. Armin has a much stronger reaction to Eren killing 80% of humanity (when he was originally most upset by Eren seemingly not caring enough about Mikasa's feelings), and instead of thanking Eren for "becoming a mass murderer for their sakes", blames himself for instilling the concept of a vacant and unexplored world that Eren ultimately tried to create, assuring Eren that they're both going to hell.
• Saved by the Fans: Sasha Blouse was supposed to die in earlier chapters, but becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse spared her life, for another 70 chapters.
• Ship Mates: Many fanfics that focus on Armin x Annie as the main couple often have Eren x Mikasa as the Beta Couple.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: There's been some conflict between fans of Levi x Eren and Erwin x Levi, as well as Armin x Eren, Mikasa x Eren, and Annie x Eren. Near the end of the manga, Mikasa x Eren fans were butting serious heads against fans of Historia x Eren.
• Signature Scene: The Colossal Titan's head and hand creeping over Wall Maria is the very first scene that sets the plot in motion, and is prominent in the series' marketing; it's also most representative of the story's main theme (i.e., a Titan invasion that breaks a century-long peace granted by the Walls, and the vastly overwhelmed humans making a last stand against them).
• Special Effect Failure: This◊ hilarious moment in Episode 13 when a Titan foot stomping on the ground causes blue stones to appear instead of regular debris. This can be blamed on a Troubled Production consisting of a rushed schedule and a lack of animators.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Word of God acknowledges Muv-Luv Alternative as a core influence and inspiration, and it shows.
  • Wings of Freedom is one of the best Spider-Man games ever made.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • The back of the published manga can cause this in two different ways since it features the top 10 of the 104th trainee corps. If you've read the first volume or seen enough episodes, you can figure this out easily, and the fact that they're in order from 1-10 going left to right helps. On the back of volume two, Eren, the fifth from the left, is transparent, which one would assume is to show that he was killed in Book 1; but if you look at the later books, he goes back to being solid white, which means that he gets better in Book 2.
  • This happens again with the cover of Volume 14, which prominently shows that Erwin has lost his right arm.
  • The cover of Volume 22 completely spoils Eren, Mikasa, and Armin making it to the ocean.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • The nobles ordering the refugees from the fall of Shiganshina into a hopeless expedition to reclaim Titan territory is meant to show their callousness and disregard for human life. However, the decision becomes quite a bit more justified when you realize that the city that took the refugees was flooded with them and just didn't have enough food to keep feeding them all. It's likely the doomed expedition actually saved the most number of lives possible. And while the heroes unilaterally consider the nobles and government monsters for sending so many people to die, no one ever brings up an alternate solution to the refugee problem that would have caused less loss of life (or, in fact, any other solutions at all). While Historia seizes the land of corrupt nobles and gives it to the people as farmland, it's unclear whether this solution would have addressed the immediate crisis had it been implemented sooner.
  • Zeke's ultimate goal of making all of the Children of Ymir infertile to rid the world of the Titans and the resulting Fantastic Racism they suffer from is depicted as something that makes him a definite part of the Big Bad Ensemble that's him, Eren and the Yaegerists. Though while it is certainly a rather extreme and horrific plan, many fans have a degree of support for it, as seen in Rooting for the Empire above, as removing the Eldian race would prevent people like Marley from further manipulating and subjugating them for their own cruel ends, which would effectively make this a Mercy Kill like Zeke and his follower believe it is. Plus, as Yelena points out, making them infertile and having them slowly die out is certainly much more merciful than committing full-on mass genocide on the people of Eldia.
• Take That, Scrappy!
  • Many fans take pleasure in the Trauma Conga Line Gabi is being forced through in Paradis as her pro-Marley ideals are continually tested and broken by the people around her who are not afraid to call out her behavior. For those who despise her for having killed Sasha, the brutal reality check she receives in Chapter 111 when she is outed for this is especially satisfying.
  • Fans who dislike Mikasa for, among other things, her single-minded devotion to Eren, took a perverse glee in Chapter 112 when Eren tells her that he's always hated her. It's later confirmed to be a lie, but in the moment it's good to see Mikasa's faith in Eren shaken.
  • For those who dislike Floch, the scene in Chapter 128 when he gets his butt handed to him by Kiyomi, an unarmed lady old enough to be his mother, if not grandmother, is really satisfying. This is followed up by Gabi of all people shooting Floch when he attempts to sink the ship they intend to use to reach Eren in Chapter 129. Regardless of his final fate and of Gabi's highly controversial presence, several fans cheered when he was shot out of the sky. Unsurprisingly, very few tears were shed when Mikasa finally finished him off for good in Chapter 132.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The reaction some manga fans had to changes in the anime adaptation. In particular, the changes in Episodes 24 and 25 are a subject of much (sometimes heated) debate among the fans.
  • This is also people's reactions to how Titans sound in the English dub, especially the Rogue Titan. Some people think that now he sounds less like rage incarnate and more like an autotuned T. rex.
  • A lot of fans dislike the 4th opening theme "Red Swan" by HYDE of L'arc-en-Ciel and Yoshiki Hayashi of X Japan. Even though the song is done by two legendary Japanese rockers and that Season 3 would deal with the Survey Corps' conflict with the government instead of the Titans, many fans find that the song should be more suitable as an ending theme and much prefer Linked Horizon instead.
  • Shortly after the Marley arc began taking the series in a more sociopolitical direction rather than survival horror, several fans believed it ruined what had made the series great to begin with, which had continued into the final arc up until Zeke used his spinal fluid to turn several people into Titans, thus reincorporating them into the story.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • A number of Survey Corps members were killed off not long after showing how cool or interesting they were. Such as Mike, who is easily one of the best Titan Killers after Levi, and Nanaba, who gets an odd amount of lip service from sources outside the manga. Both of whom die early in season 2.
  • The Anti-Personnel Control Squad, aside from Kenny, get very little exposure in the series. Particuarly Traute Caven who is said to have dreams and aspirations that we never really get to hear about.
  • The Tybur Family, a group of Eldian Nobles who basically control Marley from the shadows, only exist to introduce the War Hammer Titan and then set up the coming War Arc. Many fans were expecting the Tyburs to come up again in some capacity after the Marley arc, but that never happened. Leaving them very underdeveloped.
  • Yelena quietly disappeared from the story after being a major player before The Rumbling.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • During Season 3's first half, in an arc filled with political intrigue, the Survey Corps, which are the main force that kills Titans, go rogue, becoming effectively criminals living in the woods and alleys. However, by the time a Titan appears and threatens the Walls, everything has been pretty much sorted out. A lot more could have been done with the force that needs to defend the last remnants of the human race having been turned into pariahs by that same remnants.
  • After Annie reawakens in the final arc, she and Levi have zero interaction, even though she's the one who slaughtered his squad during the 57th scouting mission and he should want revenge on her as much as he does Zeke.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: After the timeskip, the author seems to go out of his way to make Eren's actions more and more heinous, from killing several Liberio citizens to the extreme of committing global genocide of anyone outside the walls of Paradis. Despite the narrative demonizing Eren and painting him as the series' ultimate villain, many fans still defend and support Eren (usually as a comparison to the negative reception surrounding the alliance between the 104th and the Warriors) due to him not truly wanting to commit those acts, but simply doing it to protect his people and because he believes seeing them in his future memories already dictates he will still do it no matter what his feelings are. Some even go as far as to suggest everyone outside the Walls completely deserves what Eren is doing to them.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Very, very much when the characters start talking about self-sacrifice and military casualties, even when the plot "punishes" the characters for such cynicism and the author illustrates the meaninglessness of human victims in the war. Armin and Erwin especially suffer because of this at the end of the first season, when they say that the soldier is an instrument and the commander must "give up his humanity" and "sacrifice something" for the sake of the goal, clearly meaning by something the lives of subordinates and actually promoting "the end justifies the means" as the basic morality of the first season. And as if this were not enough, in the 25th episode Erwin clearly hints that he is also ready to sacrifice the civilians, which becomes even more repulsive after the frames with the bloody little girl who is walking next to the corpses of her parents.
  • On the other hand, there is Floch from the Battle of Shinganshina arc. His role is to call out Eren and Mikasa's selfish decision to convince Levi to give the Titan serum to Armin instead of Erwin, which does provide more insight on the series' Gray-and-Grey Morality, but he comes off as more of an unlikable Straw Character due to his constant antagonism extending to the rest of the Survey Corps.
  • Gabi is meant to represent the viewpoint of Eldians living in Marley, and is initially presented as a naive but ambitious military cadet who cares a lot for Reiner, who is her older cousin. However, as the arc progresses, Gabi grows increasingly unlikable due to her treatment of Falco and her buying more and more into Marley's anti-Eldian propaganda. Fans' dislike towards her has reached a peak when she is directly responsible for Sasha's death, and even to this day is regarded as one of the series' most hated characters.
  • Annie shares her true family backstory with Hitch during their horse ride during 125, revealing she was born to a Marleyan woman and an Eldian man, but abandoned her and was subsequently adopted and trained by Mr. Leonhardt. It could have worked to make her more sympathetic in the eyes of fans who only view her as a sadistic monster... had she not stated that if she had to kill everyone she had killed all over again to get back to her father, she absolutely would. It doesn't help that she's accepted by everyone with open arms after removing herself from most of the story, while her two more remorseful teammates were repeatedly lambasted and mauled for their actions (with one of them getting outright killed).
  • By the time the Rumbling has reached Marley and extended to much of the world, one Marleyan guard gives a passionate speech about them all realizing the error of their ways and promising they would do better if they lived another day. By this point, however, no one can really feel any form of sympathy with them because it was only when they were faced with the consequences of their actions that they suddenly felt remorse.
  • Karina Braun realizes why she should NOT have her used her son as a tool for revenge or allow him to become a psychopathic killing machine for an oppressive regime. Many felt that her sudden heel-turn, much like everyone else's, was too little too late.
  • One reason why the ending became controversial within the fanbase is due to how it takes a significant amount of exposition to fully present Eren's full motivation and viewpoint — who at that point had killed 80% of the world's population and destroyed much of its infrastructure and environment. The author's intent appeared to be to emphasize that Eren did not commit horrid acts for the sake of it, but it may fall flat to those who believe he is Easily Forgiven by his friends, particularly with Armin "thanking" him for being willing to go so far for his loved ones (despite still greatly disapproving of his actions, as Word of God has clarified), and Mikasa yearning for him after his death.
  • Ymir Fritz was initially seen as a pitiable character who had a slave mindset so thoroughly ingrained that she continued following King Fritz' will for millennia up until Eren offered her autonomy... but earned ridicule in the finale when Eren suggests that she was actually in love with the King despite his horrifying treatment of her. A number of fans even consider her the Big Bad due to how the plot was ultimately orchestrated to bring her to peace; ironically, this is despite how everything happened because she couldn't choose for herself.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Mikasa's devotion to Eren can come across as somewhat sexist to certain Western viewers, due to differing social values. While, to a Japanese audience, her devotion is a clear example of Pillars of Moral Character, to a Western audience her behavior can come across as making her a Satellite Love Interest. And considering their status as adoptive siblings, that can lead to a heavy dose of Squick for many viewers. It turns into a bit of Fridge Brilliance, due to Mikasa's Asian heritage in an otherwise Western-style culture. Eren himself is the one to scold her for putting him before everything else.
  • The theme of suicide attacks and self-sacrifice in general also becomes a victim of this. While Japanese culture is very positive about the willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the goal or close people, many Western viewers perceived such ideas in the show as over-cynical or even hypocritical, as the main characters avoided the fate of being an "instrument" because of their greater importance to the army and plot.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • A frequent problem, because of the art style. Many characters have lean, athletic builds and several female characters have strong features that are more traditionally thought of as masculine. Without obvious clues such as long hair or names, some secondary or minor characters are easily mistaken as men. Primary examples include Hange (much to Isayama's amusement, but slightly clearer in the anime), Ymir prior to becoming a major character, and Nanaba... who confuses Japanese and foreign viewers alike.
  • The Smiling Titan looks very androgynous, as it has a slender body, large eyelashes, rosy cheeks, and a fairly feminine hairstyle. Still, like every Titan except the Female Titan (who is female) and the Warhammer Titan, it's meant to resemble a male human. It's later revealed that there is a reason for it, as the Smiling Titan was created from Grisha's first wife Dinah.
• Viewers in Mourning: A given considering the high body count of the series, but the most notable cases of this by far would have to be Marco Bott, Petra Ral (who is arguably the most popular of the original Squad Levi), Erwin Smith, Ymir, Sasha Blouse, Hange Zoe, and finally Eren Yeager.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The anime is co-produced by Production I.G, so this is to be expected. Special mention goes to the highly-detailed backgrounds by Studio Bihou and drop-dead gorgeous maneuver gear scenes combining both 2D and 3D animation. Take a look◊.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: It may be one of the most relentlessly serious, dark, violent, and horrifying shonen manga in The New '10s and contemporary decades, easily on par with some of the grimmer seinen out there. There's even a brief mention of kidnapping and the child sex trade in a flashback sequence, and Episode 23 briefly implies the existence of prostitutes in general. Of course, this may or may not make it a throwback to series like Fist of the North Star, which was classified Shounen back in the day, at least until the standards changed.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Although traditionally this manga and especially adaptation is considered a strong anti-war work based on War Is Hell and the deconstruction of the idealized shonen tropes, some fans started looking for nationalist or militaristic messages in this work, after rumors of the author's right-wing views appeared on the Internet. Becomes more justified during the Marley arc when the series steers away from the post-apocalyptic world dominated by frightening giants to a more exposition-driven world of overt politics and war. That the Marley-Eldian conflict involves blatant stand-ins for Nazis and Jews means it's now impossible not to read some kind of political message into the story. Some view it as a commentary on antisemitism and Israel, others view it as a criticism of post-war Japanese society through the lens of The Remnant, and yet others believe it's merely using real-life historical events to make a more general statement about war (themselves split between those who believe it's arguing that War Is Glorious or that War Is Hell).
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • A meta example. Many people who weren't into anime (or had since grown out of it) have checked out the show thanks to its growing popularity, and it's caused the anime fandom as a whole to be back in the game on social media sites like Tumblr.
  • Complaints that the story moves too slowly seem to have been answered by everything after Chapter 50, with most of the proceeding chapters being a Wham Episode of sorts.
  • Fans who disliked the Marley arc for prioritizing exposition over action and the near-complete lack of Titans appeared to become reinvested in the story in the subsequent arc after Zeke begins to Titanize the soldiers who drank the wine tainted by his spinal fluid. Cranked up a huge notch after Eren triggered the Rumbling and unleashed the Colossal Titans on the world.
  • Anime fans were somewhat demoralised when there were rumours that Studio WIT would not be animating the fourth and final season. When the main trailer came out, confirming that Studio MAPPA would handle these duties, viewers were blown away by how well the animation change was handled due to its surprisingly stunning visuals. They claimed that this singlehandedly reignited their faith towards the series going out on a high. Though given the trailer was "pre-animated" (meaning it might be done by a totally different team than the actual final season), it might be a mistake to assume that.
  • While the anime ending has its share of detractors, and remains fundamentally similar to the manga's conclusion, it is considered a vast improvement by some of those who did not like the manga's conclusion and warmly received by fans who watched the anime exclusively. The animation, voice acting, and pacing are highlights, as well as anime-original content such as the final conversation with Eren and Armin addressing issues raised for the manga's version of events.

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