Giants Walk the Earth: An Attack on Titan Primer

I’m not the only one who feels that way. Attack on Titan is insanely popular, a mainstay on the best-seller charts. Not only that, but the first volume keeps charting, meaning more people are getting drawn into the story all the time. In addition to the anime, the phenomenon encompasses spinoff manga, light novels, and side products such as perfumes and plum wine based on the main characters. Go to any comic con, and you’ll spot countless people wearing the winged insignia of the Survey Corps, the troops who leave the walled safety of Earth’s last remaining city to fight the massive, flesh-eating Titans.
Why is Attack on Titan so compelling? Let me count the ways…
The Titans
The villains of this story are giant creatures who are the living embodiment of pointless destruction: All they do is eat people. (It should go without saying that this is a very gory manga.) They are super weird looking, which actually makes them pretty scary, but they are also clumsy and stupid (except for a handful of abnormal specimens with special powers). They don’t seem to feel pain, and they are almost impossible to kill. As the story goes on, though, we learn that there’s more to them than meets the eye…
The world
To escape the Titans, humans have taken refuge in city protected by three concentric walls. The walls have been there for 100 years, so long that no one knows where they came from (there’s even a cult that worships them), and most have lost the sense of danger that comes with having their lives threatened every day. As the story opens, a colossal Titan, larger than any ever seen before, breaches the outer wall, allowing the other Titans to pour in and wreak carnage. Refugees flee to the inner circles, causing disruption, famine, and supply shortages. Politics are an intriguing part of the story, especially with regard to the Survey Corps: Corps members feel they are the last hope of humanity, even as denizens of the comfy inner city are getting tired of paying for them, especially since even specialized training and equipment offers little advantage in the face of a colossal titan.
The characters
The three main characters, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, are children when the Titans break through the first wall. Eren witnesses his mother being eaten by a Titan. The three go into military training together and ultimately join the Survey Corps. They embody the standard manga virtues: Eren is pure-hearted and strong-willed; Mikasa is an amazing fighter; and Armin is the brainy one who untangles mysteries and drives the team forward. There’s also a rich array of side characters, all with their own personalities and backstories: The always-hungry Sasha Blouse, the hotheaded Jean Kirstein, the haughty tactician Captain Levi, the scientist Zoë Hange. Often a character who seems totally incidental will turn out to be important, or at least have an interesting story to tell.
The battles
Although this walled city seems like something out of the Middle Ages, they do have one piece of advanced technology: Three-dimensional maneuvering equipment allows fighters to soar through the air, swinging from trees and buildings like medieval Spider-Men. With the ability to regenerate limbs (even heads), Titans aren’t easy to kill. Their one vulnerable spot is on the nape of the neck, so they have to be attacked from above. The resultant aerial attacks makes for great visuals in both the manga and the anime. While Isayama’s draftsmanship sometimes seems clumsy, he excels at drawing motion; Attack on Titan is a very kinetic manga.

The twists
If the series has a constant, it’s that the rules keep changing. At the outset, the Titans are dumb and zombie-like, but as the story goes on, we learn more about them, and new dimensions emerge. New mysteries about the characters and backstory crop up as others are resolved. While a lot of manga tend to settle into a formula, Attack on Titan throws a real curveball every volume or two, which keeps it interesting. Although it can be real purely for the action, there’s depth here, too: Characters discuss their place in the world, and consider ethical questions such as whether it’s better to study the Titans, or simply kill them.
Isayama expects the manga to run to 20 volumes. Volume 15 is out in Japan, and will be released in the U.S. in March. If you can’t wait that long, there are plenty of spinoffs. Let’s start with the manga:

Attack on Titan: No Regrets, by Hajime Isayama, Gun Snark, and Hikaru Suruga
This compact, two-volume series tells the story of Captain Levi, one of the leaders of the Survey Corps, who started out as a thief in the underground passages of the walled city. This manga feels like a superhero comic at times, with lots of soaring-through-the-air action and a clean art style that is slicker than Isayama’s.

Attack on Titan: Before the Fall (manga), by Hajime Isayama, Ryo Suzukaze, and Satoshi Shiki
Adapted from the light novel of the same name, this is a prequel that takes place about 30 years before the events of the main series. A Titan-worshiping cult throws open the gates of the city, and the Titans come in and devour a number of the inhabitants—then regurgitate them. One of the victims is a pregnant woman, and her child survives—but everyone thinks he is a Titan, so he is locked away in a dungeon. Years later, a young girl recognizes his humanity and helps him, but despite this, he must struggle to prove that he is human and not a Titan.

Attack on Titan: Junior High, by Hajime Isayama and Saki Nakagawa
Is all this people-eating and dungeon-chaining getting you down? Perhaps you’d like to read a light-hearted take on the Titans? Welcome to Attack Junior High, where Titans and humans endure the indignities of adolescence side by side. Eren is still vowing vengeance on the Titans, but it’s not because they ate his mother, it’s because they stole his lunch. With all the characters but a lot less angst, Attack on Titan Junior High is a nice palate-cleanser after some of the darker stories. At 330 pages each, these are nice, chunky volumes as well.
And then there are the novels:

Attack on Titan: Before the Fall, by Hajime Isayama, Ryo Suzukaze, and Thores Shibamoto
The first volume of a trilogy of illustrated light novels, this story is different from the manga of the same name: It’s about the blacksmith who first developed the three-dimensional maneuvering technology that the Survey Corps uses in the main series. The second and third volumes pick up the story of Kuklo, and they will both be out in May.

Attack on Titan: The Harsh Mistress of the City, by Ryo Kawakami, Range Murata, and Hajime Isayama
This novel won’t be out till September; it expands on the first volume of the main series with the story of the fall of Wall Maria and its aftermath.
Have you encountered a Titan yet?