Attack on Titan hid its real story behind a wall and a basement door
Hajime Isayama's manga opens as a siege story: humans cowering behind three giant walls from Titans. Over twelve years of serialisation it turned that premise inside out, revealing who built the walls and why, and sold more than 140 million copies by November 2023.
Kodansha published it monthly in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, starting in September 2009 and wrapping up in April 2021, and the chapters fill 34 collected volumes. Its hero, Eren Yeager, lives in Shiganshina on the outermost ring. In the year 845 two unfamiliar Titans, the Colossal and the Armored, break Wall Maria, his mother is killed, and he joins the military with his friends Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert, vowing to wipe the Titans out.
Soldiers fight with Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, waist-mounted grappling hooks driven by gas that let them swing in three dimensions while wielding blades of ultrahard steel. Isayama built a layered bestiary: ordinary Pure Titans, erratic Abnormals, and the Nine Titans, whose holders can switch between human and giant form but are cursed to live only 13 more years after inheriting the power. Eren discovers he is one of them, and his father Grisha leaves him a clue that the truth lies in the family basement.
Reaching that basement rewrites everything. The islanders are not the last humans at all but Eldians confined on Paradis, feared and oppressed by the empire of Marley because any of them can be turned into a Titan. Several trusted comrades, Annie Leonhart and Reiner Braun among them, turn out to be Marleyan shifters. The final arc sends Eren down a much darker road, and his friends end up forced to stop him, a twist that left the ending debated and emotionally raw.
The anime began with Wit Studio, which made three seasons, before MAPPA took over for the fourth. A 25-episode opening season aired in 2013, and the final instalments arrived as specials in March and November 2023. Along the way the manga collected honours including the Kodansha Manga Award and America's Harvey Award, and it now ranks among the best-selling manga ever.
Source: Attack on Titan
