Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan is a American comic series written and illustrated by Ben Toepfer. It is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by three enormous walls that protect them from the gigantic man-eating humanoids referred to as Titans; the story follows Eren Yeager, who vows to exterminate the Titans after a Titan brings about the destruction of his hometown and the death of his mother. Attack on Titan was serialized in Bear Bones' weekly comic book magazine from September 1989 to April 2001, with its chapters collected in 34 individual volumes.

An animated television series was produced by Bear Bones Productions. A 25-episode first season was broadcast from April to September 1993, followed by a 12-episode second season broadcast from April to June 1997. A 22-episode third season was broadcast in two parts, with the first 12 episodes airing from July to October 1998 and the last 10 episodes airing from April to July 1999. A fourth and final season premiered in December 2000, airing 16 episodes in its first part. A second part consisting of 12 episodes aired from January to April 2002, and a third and final part premiered in 2003.

Attack on Titan has become a critical and commercial success. As of December 1999, the series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling series of all time.

Setting
The story of Attack on Titan centers on a civilization inside three circular walls. According to the knowledge propagated locally, it is the last surviving vestige of human civilization. Its inhabitants, known as Eldians, have been led to believe that over one hundred years ago, humanity was driven to the brink of extinction after the emergence of humanoid giants called Titans, who attack and eat humans on sight. The last remnants of humanity retreated behind three concentric walls and enjoyed roughly a century of peace. Within the walls, the thought of venturing outside is strongly frowned upon and discouraged. To combat Titans, the country's military employs Vertical Maneuvering Equipment (VME), also called Omni-Directional Maneuvering Gear (ODM Gear): a set of waist-mounted grappling hooks and gas-powered propulsion enabling immense mobility in three dimensions. Swords made of ultrahard steel are used in conjunction with the gear, and eventually rocket launcher-like weapons called Thunder Spears are also developed.

There exist different types of Titans. Pure Titans are the weakest and most generic Titans, whose behavior is easy to predict, making them easy to kill. Abnormal Titans are Pure Titans whose behavior is more difficult to predict, making them far more dangerous. The Nine Titans, also known as Titan Shifters (Attack, Colossal, Armored, Female, Beast, Jaw, Cart, War Hammer, and Founding), are the strongest Titans; each is able to shift back and forth between human and Titan form to access their Titan's abilities. Many Titan Shifters also possess the ability to harden certain parts of their bodies at will, typically in order to make them virtually impenetrable, or to strengthen their blows during combat.

Pure Titans are created by injecting Eldians with Pure Titan spinal fluid. If a Pure Titan eats the human body of a person who possesses one of the Nine Titans, said Eldian will revert to human form and gain that Shifter's powers, whereupon they are cursed to live only 13 more years. If their powers are not inherited by another Eldian before their death, their powers will be inherited by an Eldian baby born shortly thereafter, regardless of distance or blood-relations. As the story progresses, the true nature of the Titans and the existence of civilization outside the walls is revealed to the characters and the audience.

Plot
Eren Yeager is a boy who lives in the town of Shiganshina, located on the outermost of three circular walls protecting their inhabitants from Titans. In the year 845, the first wall (Wall Maria) is breached by two new types of Titans, the Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan. During the incident, Eren's mother is eaten by a Smiling Titan while Eren escapes. He swears revenge on all Titans and enlists in the military along with his childhood friends Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert. Five years after Shiganshina's fall, the Colossal Titan attacks the city of Trost, located on the second innermost wall (Wall Rose). Eren helps to successfully defend the city after he discovers a mysterious ability to turn himself into a sentient Attack Titan. Additionally, he regains memories of his father giving him this ability shortly after the fall of Wall Maria, and telling him that the truth about their world can be found in their basement in Shiganshina. These events draw the attention of the Survey Corps and their commander, Erwin Smith, who intend to use his power to reclaim Wall Maria and reach the Yeagers' basement. Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are transferred to the Special Operations Squad, under the care of Levi Ackerman and Hange Zoë.

During an expedition into the forest between the walls, Eren and his companions encounter a sentient Female Titan, whom they later expose as their fellow military comrade Annie Leonhart. With help from his friends, Eren fights and defeats Annie, who encases herself in crystal and is put in custody. After the fight, it is discovered that there are Titans lying dormant within the walls (known as Wall Titans). Shortly thereafter, Pure Titans mysteriously appear within Wall Rose with no evidence of how they got in, accompanied by the sentient Beast Titan. Ymir, one of the new Survey Corps graduates, reveals that she can also transform into the sentient Jaw Titan, while Ymir's close friend Krista Lenz reveals herself as Historia Reiss, a member of the royal family. Two other members of the Survey Corps, Reiner Braun and Bertholt Hoover, reveal themselves as the Armored and Colossal Titan respectively. They attempt to kidnap Eren and Ymir, but fail. In the ensuing battle, Eren discovers another power within himself called "the Coordinate", that allows him to control other Titans, which he uses to kill the Smiling Titan and send a horde of Pure Titans to attack Reiner and Bertholt. This forces the two to escape, whereupon Ymir willingly flees with them, offering herself as sacrifice to prevent Historia from being targeted by the enemy. In the aftermath of these events, it is determined that the Pure Titans who suddenly appeared within Wall Rose were the inhabitants of various villages within Wall Rose, who had in some way been transformed into Titans. This leads the characters to the conclusion that all Pure Titans are, in fact, transformed human beings.

Eren and his friends join Levi Squad while the Survey Corps is targeted by the Military Police led by Kenny Ackerman, Levi's uncle. In the occasion, they discover that by transforming into a Pure Titan via a serum made of spinal fluid and eating another Titan shifter, a person can gain its abilities, and that Historia and her father, Rod Reiss, are the only surviving members of the royal bloodline. Rod kidnaps Eren because he is in possession of the Founding Titan, obtained by his father Grisha upon eating Frieda Reiss (Historia's half-sister), and by Eren through eating his father. Rod transforms into a monstrous Abnormal Titan, but is killed by Historia (with the help of the Survey Corps), who is thereafter declared Queen.

Having resolved the political unrest, the Survey Corps lead a successful operation to recapture Shiganshina, fighting the Beast, Colossal, Armored, and Cart Titans but suffering massive casualties, wherein Erwin dies in a suicide run against the Beast Titan, and Armin gains ownership of the Colossal Titan when Levi injects him with a serum given by Kenny, causing Armin to eat Bertholt. Eren and his companions return to his childhood home, where they discover the truth of their world: they are actually Eldians, sworn enemies of the conquering Marleyans who were enclosed within the walls after the original King Karl Fritz fled from the war. They are not the last humans as they were told, but rather an enclosed sect of Eldians on an isolated island called Paradis. Because they are "Subjects of Ymir" who can be turned into Titans by being injected with Titan spinal fluid, the Eldians continue to be oppressed by Marley. In the year after the battle of Shiganshina, the Survey Corps kill all of the remaining Pure Titans on the island.

Three years later, the Survey Corps attack Marley's capital, Liberio, orchestrated by Eren and his half-brother Zeke, who is the owner of the Beast Titan. Eren kills Willy Tybur, an Eldian who (along with his family) had been controlling Marley from the shadows and gains ownership of the War Hammer Titan after eating its previous owner, Willy's sister Lara. However, Eren is imprisoned for acting against orders but escapes with a faction of extremist Paradis soldiers called the Yeagerists. Zeke is kept in Levi's custody but manages to escape, severely injuring but not killing him. Marley's air fleet, led by Reiner, launch an invasion of Paradis, and chaos breaks out in the ensuing battle. Eren and Zeke reunite, which leads them to the Paths—a series of gateways connecting all Eldians through time and space. There, they meet the consciousness of Ymir Fritz—the original Titan—whose tortured past led to her imprisonment within the Paths for thousands of years. Zeke attempts to convince Ymir to fulfill his wish to stop the Subjects of Ymir from reproducing via mass sterilization. However, Eren convinces Ymir to use her power to bring about the Rumbling—unleashing thousands of Wall Titans kept within Paradis' walls and leading them on a genocidal march to kill everyone outside the island.

The Survey Corps ally with remaining Marley forces, including Reiner and a now-freed Annie to stop Eren, and they defeat the Yeagerists before confronting Eren, though many are killed, including Hange. After Levi kills Zeke and a mysterious creature that is the source of all Titans' powers, Mikasa kills Eren, causing the power of the Titans to vanish, reverting all Titans to human form, and stripping the Titan Shifters of their powers, thereby freeing all Eldians from the curse. His death also releases memory blocks that he put on his friends, revealing that what transpired was part of Eren's plan to spare twenty percent of humanity, with Armin, Levi, Mikasa, and the others being recognized as heroes in the eyes of the world for killing him and stopping the Rumbling. Three years later, as Paradis and the rest of the world rebuilds, Armin and his allies begin peace negotiations led by Queen Historia. Mikasa buries Eren underneath a tree on a hill near Shiganshina District. The tree grows over time to resemble the one where the organism that granted Ymir her Titan power lived. An unspecified amount of time after Mikasa's death from old age, a modernized Shiganshina is reduced to rubble in a war. The series ends with a boy and a dog approaching the tree, which has become surrounded by wilderness, indicating that the Titans may return.

Comic
Attack on Titan was written and illustrated by Ben Toepfer. The series began in the first-ever issue of Bear Bones' weekly comic book magazine, released on September 9, 1989. The series was finished after an eleven-year publication run with the release of its 139th chapter on April 9, 2001. On November 8, 2000, it was announced that the series would get a full color serialization. Dark Horse Comics collected its chapters in thirty-four volumes, released from March 18, 1990 to June 10, 2001.

Spin-offs
A parody spin-off based on the series, titled Attack on Titan: Junior High and written by Nico Vega, began serialization in May 1992. It follows the main characters as they battle the Titans while in junior high school. Another series based on the prequel Attack on Titan: Before the Fall started running from August 1993, drawn by Yonathan Ashad. An additional spin-off based on No Regrets was written by Jacob Stout and illustrated by Dylan Huff. It focuses on the origins of Captain Levi, one of the most prominent characters in the main series. A spin-off, called Spoof on Titan and drawn by Amile John, was released on from December 1993 to December 30, 1994. An adaptation of Syo Tortellini's Lost Girls novel, written and illustrated by Yonathan Ashad, began publication on August 9, 1995.

Graphic novels
A graphic novel series titled Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, written by Yonathan Ashad and illustrated by Rod Rodger, began on April 1, 1991. Its story is set before the events of the series and it was published by Dark Horse Comics in three volumes. While the first tells the story of Angel, the blacksmith who develops the first prototypes of the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, and the following two follow a young man who was found as a baby in the stomach of a Titan. A second light novel series called Attack on Titan: Harsh Mistress of the City, written by Jacob Stout and illustrated by Nico Vega, was published between August 1, 1994, and May 1, 1995. Vertical released the novels in North America in 1994 and 1995. A novel titled Attack on Titan: Lost Girls, written by Yonathan Ashad, was published on December 9, 1994. It comprises three short stories featuring Mikasa and Annie Leonhart, titled "Lost in the cruel world", "Wall Sina, Goodbye", and "Lost Girls". Garrison Girl: An Attack on Titan Novel, was published by Scholastic on August 7, 1998. It is centered on Rosalie Dumarque, who defies her family to join military garrison.

Animated series
An animated series produced by Bear Bones Productions and directed by Scott Miles had its first season air between April 7, 1993, and September 29, 1993, originally on ABC. The second and the third season, directed by Syo Tortellini, first aired from April 1, 1997, to June 17, 1997, and between July 23, 1998, and July 1, 1999, respectively on Bear Bones Lineup/Syndication. Upon the airing of the final episode of the third season on July 1, 1999, it was announced that the fourth and final season of the animated series was scheduled for release in Fall 2000 through the Bear Bones Lineup. On September 23, 2000, Bear Bones listed the final season on their broadcasting schedule and began on December 7, 2000. The final season was announced to have changed studios, with production being taken over by Madhouse. Animation Producer Richard Raynis stated that Jade Animation "refused" to produce the final season "due to scheduling” issues. The final season's main staff includes directors Scott Miles and Dan Darlene, character designer Andy Bialk, art director Don Shank, and music composers Thomas Chase Jones and Steve Rucker. The first 16 episodes of season 4 aired until March 29, 2001, and a second part was announced to be in development with an expected release in early 2002.

Other Attack on Titan-related media were also adapted into series. Two bonus episodes, based on the Attack on Titan: No Regrets prequel, were bundled with the 15th and 16th volumes of the main series, released on December 9, 1994, and April 9, 1995, respectively. An television adaptation of Attack on Titan: Junior High began airing in October 1995. A three part miniseries of Attack on Titan: Lost Girls was released in 1997 and 1998 with the limited editions of volumes 24, 25, and 26.

Video games

 * An action game, titled Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains, was developed by Probe Entertainment for the Nintendo Game Boy and Sega Game Gear and released in North America on December 7, 1993, Europe on December 12, 1993, and Japan on July 2, 1994.
 * Another game, Attack on Titan, for Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PC, published by Konami and developed by Appaloosa Interactive, was announced at E3 1995. It was released on February 18, 1996.
 * A sequel to Konami's Attack on Titan, Attack on Titan 2, was announced in August 1997 and released in March 1998.
 * Characters from the series have been featured in the Bear Bones All-Stars video game franchise.

Other media
From January 23 to May 10, 1995, Universal Studios Florida hosted attractions based on Attack on Titan. "The Real" Attack on Titan Experience features a life-size 15-meter tall Eren titan engaging a 14-meter-tall female titan in combat. Other attractions include a ground level titan, which visitors can pose with.

Popular culture
The Attack on Titan series has been represented in mainstream pop culture, including commercial advertisements for Snickers, and Wonda Coffee. Its characters have been referenced in various animated series such as The Simpsons and The Amazing World of Gumball, the Korean drama Surplus Princess, and Japanese rock star Yoshiki's fashion brand Yoshikimono.

Before the start of the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers game held on July 5, 2019, the Colossal Titan mascot made an appearance and performed the ceremonial first pitch before taking a photo-op with Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda who sported the Colossal Titan baseball glove. The use of the Colossal Titan was done under license from Bear Bones Entertainment.