Attack on Titan recap: Everything that happened in the anime so far

❘ Published: 2023-11-03T22:16:09

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Attack on Titan’s final episode is almost here, and if you need to refresh your memory on what happened so far in the series, here’s a brief recap of the series.

Isayama’s Attack on Titan is a masterpiece, which begins as a straightforward survival and revenge story before transforming into something deeper.

AoT throws several twists and turns while also dealing with topics like politics and racism. It’s hard to understand or remember the complex yet spectacular story of Attack on Titan at once, and that’s why we’ve decided to help you remember the crucial events from the story ahead of the final episode’s release.

In this post, we’ve briefly talked about the significant AoT events that happened between Season 1 and Season 4 Part 3 Special 1.

Attack on Titan Season 1 recap

AoT all begins with the introduction of characters Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, whose life turns upside down when Colossal and Armored Titan breaches Wall Maria, unleashing several abnormal titans in the Shiganshina District.

Eren sees his mother get eaten by a Titan, which causes him to enlist in the 104th Cadet Corps and trains with the aim of getting into the Survey Corps. He has only has one goal in mind: eliminate every Titan he sees on his path. After some time, Eren sees a dream where his father injects something into his (Eren’s) body and gives him a key to his office.

After five years of training, Eren finally graduates the training, along with several other mates, including Armin, Mikasa, Sasha, Connie, Reiner, Berthold, and Jean. On their first day of completing the training, they again witness the destruction of Colossal and Armored Titan.

This time, Eren tries to fight the threat, but he gets eaten by a Titan while saving Armin. However, this wasn’t the end of Eren’s journey, as he soon returned to the ground, but this time as a Titan.

Eren fights off other Titans with his newfound transformation, and very soon, Armin, Mikasa, and other characters find out that it’s Eren driving that Titan’s body.

Of course, people inside the wall judge Eren’s loyalty, but he soon gains everyone’s trust by fixing the hole in the Wall Maria with a boulder. After that, Survey Corps takes Eren under their charge, which brings characters like Levi and Erwin into the spotlight.

The Survey Corps takes it upon themselves to reclaim the Shiganshina District, which holds the key to Titans’ secret and history. On this expedition, the group comes across the Female Titan, who almost captures Eren, but the boy is saved, thanks to the efforts of the Survey Corps and Levi, Mikasa.

Later, Armin deducts that Annie, one of their batchmates, is the Female Titan. This leads to Eren and Annie’s fight within the walls in their Titan forms.

Eren wins the second fight, but before he can eat or kill Annie, she uses crystallization to save herself. In the end, we also learn that several Colossal Titans are trapped inside the Walls.

Attack on Titan Season 2 recap

The second season gives us Sasha’s backstory, and we are introduced to the Beast Titan, which can somehow control other Titans.

The Beast Titan uses that power to unleash an attack on the tower where Reiner, Historia, Connie, Berthold, and several other characters are held up.

The Abnormals overwhelm everyone in the tower, so Ymir, who is pretty close to Historia, reveals her Titan form and fights off the Abnormals. Ymir gets badly injured in the process, but Eren and other characters arrive right on time to save everyone.

At this point in time, Reiner and Berthold decide to reveal their true intentions and the fact that they are Armored and Colossal Titans.

Eren is shaken by the betrayal, so he channels all his anger toward the Armored Titan. But with the help of Colossal Titan, Reiner successfully captures Eren and Ymir.

Reiner and Berthold intend to take Eren and Ymir to their village, which is outside of the walls. However, the Survey Corps catches up to them, and after a lot of effort, Eren gets out of Reiner and Berthold’s grasp.

At the same time, the Abnormal that ate Eren’s mother arrives, and Eren tries to turn into Attack Titan since he wants to kill the monster who took his mother’s life.

However, he couldn’t turn into Titan, and Hannes died protecting them. Eren almost loses all hope, but thanks to Mikasa, he channels an ability called the Coordinate, which allows Eren to control the Abnormals. Interestingly, this ability is the reason why Reiner and Berthold were after Eren.

Thanks to Eren, everyone survives the whole ordeal. Reiner and Berthold escape, and Ymir joins the duo. In the end, we learn that the Abnormals, whom we’ve been hating since the start, were actually humans who were somehow turned into Titans.

Attack on Titan Season 3 recap

After so many battles, we get a slow start to Season 3, with several episodes focusing on the Royal Family and Historia’s struggle to take back her throne, which was rightfully hers.

Meanwhile, the struggle to take back Shiganshina District is ongoing, which is an expedition that has already claimed countless lives. At the same time, Beast Titan, along with Reiner and Berthold, does everything in his power to capture Eren.

In this season, we learn that there’s a world outside of these walls, Marley. Apparently, Marlians were tortured by Eldians, people who can turn into Titans, for several centuries.

Later, we learn that the first Reiss King, who had the power of the Founding Titan, decided to stop the bloodshed. He used his powers to control the Titans and build these walls, but he hid several Colossal Titans inside the walls.

Marley was aware that if his people were ever threatened, he’d unleash these Colossal Titans on the entire world. However, the people of Marley hated Eldians for what they’d done, and they wanted to punish people inside of the walls for what their ancestors did. So, they kept turning Eldians residing in Marley into Titans and sending them to Paradis Island.

It’s also revealed that Grisha Yeager (Eren’s father) turned Eren into a Titan by giving him Spinal fluid. Grisha was the Attack Titan at the time, and Eren got that power after eating his father.

Now, Marley sent its soldiers to capture Eren so they could get the ability to control every Titan on the planet through Coordinate. We also learn that Beast Titan’s host is Zeke Yeager, who is Eren’s half-brother.

In the battle of Shiganshina, Commander Erwin loses his life after delivering the most powerful speech in the history of television. At the same time, Levi dominates Beast Titan and shows the enemy his true place.

Armin, while helping Eren fight the Armored and Colossal Titan, gets burned by Colossal Titan’s steam but doesn’t die. Eren then uses the Spinal fuild to turn Armin into a Titan, who eats Berthold and gets the Colossal Titan transformation.

With a realization that there’s a world outside of the walls, Eren also learns that the world he always wanted to see hates his kind.

Attack on Titan Season 4 recap

The fourth season starts some years after the events of Season 3, where we move away from Paradis Island and get introduced to the world of Marley. In this new world, we see a changed and more mature Reiner, who is haunted by the tragedies he brought on Eldians as a soldier for Marley.

Here, we also get introduced to Gabi and Falco, who kind of mirror the personalities of Eren and Armin when they were children.

Falco gets close to a wounded soldier of Marley, who later turns out to be a grown-up Eren. Eren confronts Reiner for the wrongs he has done, and what’s unexpected is that Reiner apologizes to Eren for taking countless lives in the name of his country.

In the next moment, Eren turns into Attack Titan and kills countless people in Marley. In the midst of all this, Eren also kills the Warhammer Titan and also takes its powers.

The Scouts also arrive on Paradis Island to rescue Eren, and we see another fight between the Beast Titan and Levi.

We also learn that Eren has joined forces with Zeke to carry out the euthanization plan, which is to prevent all Eldians from having children and eventually end Eldians’ bloodline.

Thus, there will be no human with Titan ability left on the planet. To carry out this plan, Zeke needed the power of the Founding Titan, which was possessed by Eren. On the other hand, Eren needed the Royal blood, which is running in Zeke’s veins.

However, it’s later revealed that Eren wanted to use Zeke’s Royal Blood to fully access Founding Titan’s powers.

Apparently, Eren wanted to use the Founding Titan’s power to unleash the countless Colossal Titans on the world. In short, he wanted to start the Rumbling, and even after the combined efforts of several people, Eren succeeds in his plan.

At this point, Eldians divide into two sections – on one side, we have Eldians who agree with Eren and wish the world (except Paradis Island) to be wiped out, and on the other side, we have Eldians who don’t agree with his genocide.

Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Annie, Connie, and other friends of Eren are against him. So, they join forces with Annie (yeah, she’s out of the crystal) and Reiner against Eren.

After getting their hands on the ship and the ultimate sacrifice of Hange, the assembled force arrives where Eren actually is and declares war against their friend.

You can check out our Attack on Titan coverage here, and other anime coverage here.