Top 10 Worst Changes In Attack on Titan Live Action

Starting off as something of a stubborn jerk, over time Jean became a valued member of the Survey Corp, one that was able to keep a cooler head and always come through in the thick of battle. The live-action version tries to capture that, though is still pushed to the wayside. But that’s not the big criticism we have here. No, we’re annoyed that they killed him off! You have legions of original characters in this flick, but you went ahead and killed off Jean?! Why?!

Eren’s father has not had an easy life, all of which concluded with a brutal demise via turning his own son into a Titan, and being subsequently eaten. Of course, this comes off the back of a million other reveals in regards to Paradis’ corrupt ruling class. Here? He gets shot to hell by military police because of his experiments with Titan serum. Not exactly on the same level as being digested by your offspring, and considering this is the only scene featuring Grisha, it’s a colossal step down.

The mystery surrounding the creations of the Titans was drip fed to fans over an extended period of time, and even then it was told from multiple perspectives, muddling the truth, though the underlying cause seems to relate to Ymir and the power of the Founding Titan. The movies, being on a time constraint, decided to do away with all that and simply showed us that, what else, humans were responsible, and that the Titans are the aftermath of man-made virus. So, less supernatural, more Resident Evil.

Fair warning, these films have a habit of doing away with classic characters from the manga, and instead replacing them with original Japanese characters. Or just writing them out of the world altogether. Case and point, Erwin Smith. You know, the commander of the Survey Corp, strategic genius, willing to stand atop a mountain of corpses just to give humanity hope? Yeah, he’s not here. While we’re happy Hange made the cut, his absence here feels wrong on so many levels.

We have plenty more to say on how these films handled Mikasa. But for now, let’s focus on how they completely removed her backstory. Instead of Eren giving Mikasa her signature scarf in the wake of her mother’s murder, he just gives it to her om a whim the same day the Titans invade. So, there’s no trauma for them to bond over, no reason for Mikasa to cling to Eren, no cause for her to become strong. They just outright undercut her character’s entire foundation. And that’s still not the worst change they made!

The worldbuilding in Attack on Titan is spectacular, adding layer upon layer all throughout its run, all of which stemmed from what was supposed to be humanity’s last bastion behind the walls, located on Paradis Island. Well, don’t get too attached, because the movies instead chose to completely change the setting to modern day Japan. While they still have walls to try and keep out the Titans, the original’s aesthetics are nowhere to be found here. Guess it’s a good thing they won’t be making part three since this uprooted any future prospects of adapting anything to do with Marley.

If you thought the scarf incident was a severe case of backtracking , you haven’t heard anything yet. The fact she and Eren were set up as a couple so early on in the film is already weird enough given their canonical platonic relationship, but then the movie flips the script by pretending to kill her off, bring her back…and not give two shits about Eren. To the extent she acts openly hostile to him. Say what you will about the original’s single-minded devotion, but seeing her beat Eren up and chastise him like they’re going through a lover’s quarrel is borderline character assassination.

I mean, it’s not like they were essential to the story or anything, right? It’s not like they were two of the source material’s most significant and tortured villains. Just swap them out for some other Titan Shifters with much weaker motivations, nobody’ll notice. So yeah, hope you weren’t a fan of these two. Instead, you get Kubal, the leader of the Military Police who plans to use the Colossal Titan for his own ends. And then there’s the wielder of the Armoured, sorry, we mean White Titan. We’ll get to him, trust us.

After witnessing his mother be broken and devoured by a Titan, Eren dedicated his life to slaughtering every Titan possible. Of course, as the story would go on his ideology would expand and shift in ways no one could have predicted, but at the start, he was very much on the vengeance bandwagon. Not in live action. This version barely remembers his parents, and is only motivated to join the military because he thinks Titans killed Mikasa. Only for her to be revealed to be alive later on, thus cancelling out any reason for him to fight. Full credit to actor Haruma Miura, who’s doing best with the material given to him, but the end result doesn’t hold up.

Hooo boy. This guy. Hold onto your gear. An original character, as you might have guessed, Shikishima isn’t only a replacement for Levi, standing in as humanity’s strongest soldier, but he also takes the place of Reiner and Zeke! In that he’s the Armoured, sorry, we mean White Titan, and is also Eren’s brother. That’s…so convoluted. Bad enough they brushed off the most popular character in the series and replaced him with someone far less interesting, but to then fuse him with two others that have radically different motivations…yeah, we cry foul. Oh, and he also wants to bone Mikasa. Lovely.