Beyond the Walls: Why Attack on Titan Stands Above the Rest
By Mark Tanner
Attack on Titan, an anime series about humans fighting monsters—or is it?
There are giant walls. There are enormous Titans. There are soldiers flying through the air with swords attached to their waists. There are cities being destroyed and people hopelessly trying to survive.
But that's only the beginning.
As the story moves on, Attack on Titan turns from a survival story into a story about freedom, war, hatred, revenge, and discrimination. What makes this anime so impressive is not just what happens, but how it prepares the audience for what is to come.
Some scenes that you would overlook can become some of the most important moments in the entire series. A line of dialogue, a background design, or a character's decision can contain information that will not make sense until tens of episodes later.
This is why Attack on Titan deserves to be considered the best anime of all time.
It starts with a simple story
The story begins with humanity living behind three 50-meter-high walls: Maria, Rose, and Sina. For 100 years, people inside the walls believe they are the last humans alive. Outside the walls are Titans—giant humanoid creatures that eat humans.
The main character, Eren Yeager, grows up in the Shiganshina District with his childhood friends Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert. Eren believes that as long as humanity is in the walls, they are no better than cattle. He dreams of seeing the world outside.
A massive Titan called the Colossal Titan suddenly appears and breaks through the outer wall. A second Titan, the Armored Titan, destroys another section of the defenses. Titans enter the city, and Eren watches as his mother dies while he and Mikasa escape thanks to a soldier named Hannes.
From that moment, Eren makes one promise: he will destroy every Titan.
At this point, we have a clear understanding of the story. Humans are the victims, Titans are the monsters, and Eren is the hero who will save humanity.
The Twist That Changes Everything
Eventually, the audience learns that the people living inside the walls are not all of humanity. They are only Eldians living on the island of Paradis.
Across the ocean is a nation called Marley, which has spent generations teaching their people that Eldians are dangerous descendants of an ancient empire. Some Eldians live in Marley and are discriminated against and forced to live in restricted areas. Marley also uses certain Eldians as weapons by transforming them into Titans.
Suddenly, the Titans aren’t simply monsters.
They are people.
The people Eren thought were his enemies have their own history, fears, and reasons for fighting.
The series does a complete 180 from its opening seasons. The conflict isn't just humanity vs. Titans; it turns into Eldians vs. Marleyans. This progression is one of the reasons why the series is so powerful.
Foreshadowing
If there is one thing Attack on Titan does better than anyone else, it’s foreshadowing. The show constantly gives the audience information without explaining why it matters.
One of the earliest examples can be found in the name of the very first episode: “To You, in 2,000 Years.” Normally, I wouldn’t think much about a title, but after learning about Ymir Fritz, the Founding Titan, the Paths, and the connection between every Eldian, the title becomes much more significant. From the very first episode, the show was hinting at a connection between the past, present, and future.
Another example is when Eren wakes up from his dream in the first episode.
Eren wakes up crying after seeing something he can’t comprehend. The audience has no idea what he saw, and we never hear about it again until one of the last episodes. After learning about the Attack Titan’s abilities and Eren’s connection to memories across time, the opening scene makes a lot more sense.
The Basement
For several seasons, one question hangs over the entire series: What is in Eren’s dad's basement?
In the first episode, Grisha Yeager tells Eren he will take him into the basement when he comes back from work; unfortunately, after the Titans invade, he dies. The basement becomes a symbol for the entire mystery of the story. The belief is that reaching it will reveal the truth about the Titans. When Eren and the Scouts finally reach it, they find photographs. For a second, it seems very anticlimactic; instead, it proves that humanity exists beyond the walls.
The basement doesn’t just answer a question; it is the exact point at which the story changes from just humanity vs. Titans.
Reiner and Bertholdt
One of the most shocking moments of the season is when Reiner casually reveals that he is the Armored Titan and Bertholdt is the Colossal Titan. There isn’t a dramatic transformation sequence. Reiner simply tells Eren. The crazy part is that the show had already given clues about their identities.
Reiner and Bertholdt show little to no knowledge about the Titans and the world outside the walls. Their behavior becomes more suspicious when rewatching earlier seasons because now the audience knows what they were hiding.
What’s even more impressive is how Reiner’s mental state becomes part of the foreshadowing. He begins struggling to separate his identity as a soldier inside the walls from his identity as a Warrior from Marley. What originally looks like strange behavior becomes evidence of his psychological conflict.
What's Hiding in The Background?
Sometimes the foreshadowing isn’t even in the dialogue. One example is that you can see grown Eren in some of the scenes from season one. The series repeatedly places important details in front of you without making them the center of the shot. We also later learn that the Titan who kills Eren’s mom was commanded by Eren to kill her instead of Bertholdt.
Eren’s father, Grisha, seems mysterious and vague from the beginning. His secrecy surrounding the basement seems weird. Then the audience eventually learns about his life in Marley, his first wife Dina, his relationship with Zeke, the Eldian Restorationists, and how he received the Attack Titan. This is the special quality of Attack on Titan: the story doesn’t always give you new information. Sometimes it gives old information a new meaning.
Eren was Foreshadowing His Own Ending
Early Eren is easy to understand. He wants freedom; he hates Titans; he wants to protect his friends. Later, he becomes much more complicated.
He learns that the future is already visible to him through the Attack Titan’s ability to access memories. He discovers that his actions helped influence his father’s decisions in the past. Eventually, the line between cause and effect becomes incredibly blurred. Eren is now the reason the story happened.
One of the biggest examples is Eren convincing his dad to kill the Reiss family. Earlier in the show, we think Grisha acted all on his own, but later we discover Eren’s future memories influenced him.
The angry kid from the first episode eventually becomes someone capable of doing terrible things because he believes they are necessary to achieve freedom for his friends and his people. The tragedy is that Eren spends his entire childhood wanting freedom, only to become a slave to it.
The Opening Songs
Even the opening songs contain clues. The series’ openings and endings often contain imagery involving characters, Titans, the Founding Titan, the Paths, walls, bloodlines, and the outside world. An example of this is in the second opening, when Hange stares at a Titan head-on through a cracked window, which makes it look like she is missing an eye; later on, Hange does lose one eye due to the Colossal Titan's explosion.
The ending sequences are especially interesting because they sometimes contain images connected to historical events and characters that the audience has not fully learned about yet. It’s almost like you've known everything since the beginning, but you just didn't know what to do with the information.
The Birds
Throughout the show, there are countless shots of just birds flying in the sky. These birds are a representation of freedom, especially because Eren dreams about being free beyond the walls.
The symbolism becomes more meaningful after the ending, when we learn that freedom is one of the central questions surrounding Eren. Eren wants to be free from the walls. Then he wants freedom from Marley. Then he wants freedom from the cycle of war. Eventually, his pursuit of freedom causes him to take away freedom from countless other people. The show asks the question: can anyone truly be free if they are always bound to fate?
Side Characters Big Stories
Attack on Titan really stands out because of its characters.
Levi is not just the strongest soldier. His story is about loss, the weight of responsibility, and having the will to go on while everyone around you doesn't make it.
Armin is not simply the smart character. He struggles with his toughness and whether he really deserves the power and responsibility he is given.
Mikasa’s relationship with Eren becomes connected to questions about love, loyalty, and what you would do if saving the person you love means never being able to see them again.
Reiner is not simply a villain. He was a teenager who was manipulated into becoming a weapon and is dealing with two personas: the weapon from Marley and the soldier from Paradis.
Zeke believes that his euthanasia plan was really the best option to end the suffering of his people.
Gabi starts off almost like Eren, someone who is willing to do anything to save their people, but she later learns that Eldians are not what Marley says they are, and she is forced to question her beliefs.
Nobody is simply “good” or “bad.”
Who Is The Villain?
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Attack on Titan is that there really is no wrong or right side.
At first, the Titans are the enemy.
Then the Warriors from Marley are the enemy.
Then Marley becomes more complicated as we learn that they were just taught to hate Eldians.
Then Eren himself becomes someone the audience has to question, as he killed 80% of humanity.
Instead, the series shows how hatred can survive for generations, and the cycle of war is never-ending.
Attack on Titan doesn’t excuse the terrible things characters do. Instead, it asks the audience to understand why people do them.
Why It has Such an Impact
The biggest reason why Attack on Titan stays with people is because it leaves you with questions when the episodes end that have no easy answers.
What does freedom actually mean?
Should people answer for the sins of their ancestors?
And perhaps the most important question:
How far would you go to protect the people you care about?
The series forces you to think about war from multiple different points of view. It shows how the victims from one point of view are really causing so much harm to the other side. It shows how propaganda can influence children. It shows how fear can lead to hatred and how hatred can lead to violence.
The Writing
Attack on Titan animation is incredible. Its action is peak. Its music can elevate a scene, making you feel it on a deeper level. Even though these little things are part of why AoT is amazing, it's not the main piece. The real achievement is the writing.
Attack on Titan trusts its audience enough to hide answers in plain sight. It allows characters to change in ways that are sometimes uncomfortable. It makes viewers question who they want to support. And when the story ends, it encourages people to look back at the show and realize what was in front of them all along.
A great show entertains you.
A great show makes you care about the characters.
But the greatest show makes you want to come back and experience it again just to see what you missed the first time.
That is what Attack on Titan does.
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