Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan

 is a Japanese manga series both written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. It is set in a fantasy world where humanity lives within territories surrounded by three enormous walls that protect them from gigantic man-eating humanoids referred to as Titans. The series first began in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine on September 9, 2009, and it has been collected into 31 tankōbon volumes as of April 2020.

The manga has been adapted into an anime television series produced by Wit Studio (seasons 1 to 3) and MAPPA (season 4). The 25-episode first season was broadcast from April to September 2013. The 12-episode second season was broadcast from April to June 2017. The 22-episode third season was broadcast in two parts, with the first 12 episodes aired from July to October 2018 and the last 10 episodes aired from April to July 2019. The fourth and final season has been announced to premiere in October 2020.

Attack on Titan has become a critical and commercial success. As of December 2019, the manga has 100 million tankōbon copies in print worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series. It has won several awards, including the Kodansha Manga Award,  the Micheluzzi Award, and Harvey Award. The anime series has also been well received by critics with the first three seasons being met with praise for its story, animation, music and voice acting, and has proved to be extremely successful in Japan, U.S., Europe and Asia, thus boosting the series' popularity. Although it has gained significant fame and popularity in Japan's neighbouring countries, political interpretations of the series have caused controversies in China and South Korea.

According to lore, over 2,000 years prior to the present day, a young woman named Ymir Fritz came into contact and made a deal with the “Devil of All Earth", becoming the first of humanoid giants, and imbued with special powers. These creatures later came to be known as Titans (巨人, Kyojin). Her powers were used by her King to establish the Empire of Eldia and, in doing so, crushed the rival nation of Marley. When she died, her titan abilities were passed on, eventually manifesting into Nine individual forms; each with their own special traits. The power of the titans was kept by the royal Fritz family for centuries.

One century before the events of the main storyline the 145th Eldian King, Karl Fritz, became disillusioned by the powers his ancestors had granted him and guilt-ridden over the destructive path the Eldian monarchy had taken. He orchestrated his nation’s downfall, allowing the nation of Marley to rise up in rebellion. In the process, seven of the Nine Titan powers were stolen by Marley. Possessing the Ninth Titan power, the power of the Founding Titan, Fritz took a handful of his people across the sea to the island of Paradis to begin a new, peaceful nation. He created millions of Colossal Titans to be used as part of the construction of three curtain walls, each one named after one of Ymir Fritz’s three daughters: the outermost being Wall Maria (ウォール・マリア, Wōru Maria); the middle Wall Rose (ウォール・ローゼ, Wōru Rōze, sometimes pronounced like rosé) and the innermost Wall Sheena (ウォール・シーナ, Wōru Shīna, alt. "Wall Sina") which housed the Royal family and was populated by the wealthy and elite. Once the walls were complete, Fritz gave the outside world an ultimatum: should war be declared on Paradis, he would release the titans within the walls to flatten the earth. This, however, was a bluff since Fritz revealed to his family that he had renounced all war. If Marley eventually became powerful enough to overthrow Paradis, then he would accept that. He used his Founding Titan powers to create a blood pact which would instill this ideology in any royal family member who inherited his titan, even if they disagreed with it before. Meanwhile, Eldians who remained within Marley as second class citizens were treated poorly, and any form of dissent or disobedience was punishable by exile to Paradis: they were injected with raw titan spinal fluid, turning them into mindless, man-eating ‘Pure’ Titans which would eventually find their way to King Fritz’s walls.

Karl Fritz also used his titan power to erase the memories of most of his Eldian citizens, with those unaffected either bribed into nobility or made into outcasts like the Ackerman family and the Asian clan. The power of the titans was hidden from common knowledge and fear of them was instilled in the Eldian citizens to prevent them from venturing outside the walls. As such, the Eldians on Paradis believed firmly that they were the last of the human race, forced into confinement by the ravenous Pure Titans. Unlike titans with powers, such as the Founding Titan, Pure Titans have no awareness and function purely on the instinct to consume humans; the idea being that, if they were to consume a human containing a power of one of the Nine titans, they would inherit that power and become a sentient human again. Unaware of this information the Eldians formed a three branch military to protect its citizens: the Military Police Brigade (憲兵団, Kenpeidan) who reside primarily within Wall Sina and protect the Royal Family and elite, living a relaxed lifestyle which has resulted in instances of fraud, corruption, and political subterfuge; the Garrison Regiment (駐屯兵団, Chūton Heidan) who guard the walls and the civilian populace, though are known to act lackadaisically since the walls themselves do much of the protecting against titans; and the Survey Corps (調査兵団, Chōsa Heidan) who trek into titan territory outside the walls in order to study and cull them and attempt to reclaim land. The Survey Corps is heavily derided within society because of their high casualty rate and little to no progress in their objectives. All soldiers use a grappling and tethering system called Vertical Maneuvering Equipment (立体機動装置, Rittai Kidō Sōchi) that allows them to jump onto, and swing from, any tall structures using gas canisters to propel themselves forward, though the equipment is useless on flat ground. A box containing spare blades for their dual swords hangs beside each thigh, and the blades themselves are flexible and easily detachable, used solely for cutting down titans. Over the past 100 years the Survey Corp has compiled characteristics of the Pure Titans to aid them in battle. A titan's skin is tough and difficult to penetrate and they regenerate quickly from any injuries, save for a spot on the nape of the neck which is the one and only place where a soldier can make a fatal strike.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Titan