Attack on Titan Characters: Full List & Guide

Few anime cast a shadow as long as Attack on Titan. What opens as a brutal survival story about humans penned inside enormous walls slowly reveals itself as a mystery in which almost every soldier is carrying a secret — which is exactly why this cast rewards a proper guide. Below is every character who matters in Attack on Titan: who they are, where they first appear, and how each one bends the story.

All main characters at a glance

Character	Role	First appears	One-line description
Eren Yeager	Protagonist	Episode 1	Rage-driven recruit who vows to kill every Titan.
Mikasa Ackerman	Deuteragonist	Episode 1	Prodigy soldier who lives to protect Eren.
Armin Arlert	Main lead	Episode 1	Timid bookworm whose mind wins the battles muscle can't.
Levi	Survey Corps captain	Episode 9	"Humanity's strongest soldier," blunt and unbeatable.
Erwin Smith	Survey Corps commander	Episode 9	Ruthless strategist who trades lives for the truth.
Hange Zoe	Squad leader / researcher	Episode 9	Manic scientist obsessed with studying Titans.
Reiner Braun	104th cadet	Episode 3	Dependable "big brother" of the trainees.
Annie Leonhart	104th cadet	Episode 3	Cold hand-to-hand prodigy with a hidden agenda.
Jean Kirstein	104th cadet	Episode 3	Blunt realist who grows into a reluctant leader.
Sasha Blouse	104th cadet	Episode 3	Food-obsessed hunter with razor-sharp instincts.
Connie Springer	104th cadet	Episode 3	Loud, loyal, quick-footed comic relief.
Krista Lenz	104th cadet	Episode 3	Angelic small cadet who seems too good to be true.
Ymir	104th cadet	Episode 3	Sardonic loner devoted only to Krista.

Eren Yeager — the boy who declared war on the world

Eren Yeager is the engine of the whole series. As a child he watches a Titan devour his mother during the fall of Wall Maria, and that trauma hardens into a single obsession: to join the Survey Corps and slaughter every Titan beyond the walls. Loud, stubborn, and often reckless, he is easy to underestimate early on, but a shocking mid-season turn reveals he is far more central to humanity's fight than anyone guessed. His fury makes him a hero in Season 1; over the longer story, that same fury is what makes him one of anime's most debated protagonists.

Mikasa Ackerman — the strongest blade in the corps

Cool, quiet, and terrifyingly capable, Mikasa Ackerman is widely considered the most gifted soldier of her generation. Orphaned young and taken in by the Yeager family, she attaches herself to Eren with an intensity that borders on devotion — the red scarf he gave her becomes her emotional anchor. On the battlefield she is worth a squad by herself, cutting down Titans with a precision the veterans envy. Her arc is the slow question of who she is when she isn't defined by protecting Eren.

Armin Arlert — the mind that keeps them alive

Physically the weakest of the three leads, Armin Arlert is also the reason they survive. Bookish and prone to self-doubt, he thinks in strategies and probabilities while everyone around him thinks in swords, and his plans repeatedly turn certain defeat into a fighting chance. Attack on Titan quietly argues that intelligence and nerve matter as much as raw strength, and Armin is the proof. Watch him: his growth from frightened boy to trusted tactician is one of the series' most rewarding threads.

Levi — humanity's strongest soldier

If you have seen one image from this series, it is probably Levi mid-spin, blades flashing. Captain of the Survey Corps' Special Operations Squad, he is a blunt, deadpan, borderline obsessive clean-freak who also happens to be the deadliest fighter alive. A member of the rare Ackerman bloodline, he moves through Titan combat like it's choreography, and his loyalty to his commander gives the corps its spine. He is the fan-favorite for good reason: unbeatable in a fight, and quietly haunted underneath the ice.

Erwin Smith — the commander who spends lives for the truth

Erwin Smith leads the Survey Corps, and leadership here means sending idealistic young soldiers to their deaths for information the walls' rulers would rather bury. Charismatic and coldly brilliant, he is a gambler who plays with human lives and knows exactly what it costs him. His genius is seeing three moves ahead of everyone, including his enemies; his tragedy is that the men and women who "devote their hearts" to his cause rarely come home.

Hange Zoe — the scientist in love with monsters

Where everyone else sees a Titan and reaches for a blade, Hange Zoe sees a research subject. A Survey Corps squad leader with a manic, joyful curiosity, Hange captures and experiments on Titans in the hope of understanding what humanity is actually fighting. The energy reads as comic at first, but Hange's discoveries repeatedly reshape the war, and beneath the excitement is real grief for the creatures — and the friends — lost along the way.

Reiner Braun — the dependable big brother

Broad-shouldered and steady, Reiner Braun is the cadet everyone instinctively trusts. He finishes near the top of the 104th, shoulders responsibility no one asks him to carry, and acts as the older-brother figure who keeps the younger recruits together when morale collapses. That reliability is exactly why later revelations about him hit as hard as they do — but in Season 1 he is the rock, the soldier you'd want beside you when the wall breaks.

Annie Leonhart — the cold prodigy

Small, blonde, and permanently unimpressed, Annie Leonhart is a lethal hand-to-hand fighter who teaches her fellow cadets the martial-arts throws that later save their lives. She keeps everyone at arm's length and follows her own private logic rather than the military's, and that detachment sits at the center of Season 1's biggest mystery — the appearance of an intelligent "Female Titan" that hunts the Survey Corps. Guarded, solitary, and dangerous, Annie is one of the story's most quietly tragic figures.

Jean Kirstein — the honest cynic

Jean Kirstein starts out wanting the safest posting available — a comfortable life in the interior with the Military Police — and says so without shame, which puts him constantly at odds with the suicidally idealistic Eren. But Jean is honest to a fault, and when disaster forces him to actually lead, he discovers he is far braver and more capable than his self-interest suggested. His slow turn from selfish realist into a natural commander is one of the ensemble's best arcs.

Sasha Blouse — the huntress with a potato problem

Introduced stuffing a stolen potato into her mouth during a briefing, Sasha Blouse earns the nickname "Potato Girl" and a permanent spot as the cast's comic relief. But there is a serious soldier under the goofiness: raised hunting in the mountains, she has near-animal instincts, exceptional aim, and a sharpness in the field that repeatedly proves the jokes wrong. She is the warmth that keeps the grim war watchable.

Connie Springer — the loyal live wire

Quick on his feet and quicker to speak, Connie Springer is the energetic, good-hearted cadet who is not always the sharpest in the room but never short on courage. He forms a easy comic double-act with Sasha, yet his loyalty to his squad is bone-deep, and his rural home village becomes tied to one of the series' darker turns. He's the everyman of the 104th — brave, flawed, and completely likable.

Krista Lenz — the angel of the 104th

Petite, gentle, and endlessly kind, Krista Lenz is the cadet everyone adores and half the barracks would die for. She is so relentlessly good that other characters openly joke she seems "too perfect to be real" — and the series means that as a clue. In Season 1 she stays largely in the background as the group's moral softness, but there is far more to her name and history than the sweet face suggests, and fans know her better by who she becomes.

Ymir — the loner who lives for one person

Sardonic, blunt, and openly uninterested in the military's ideals, Ymir is an older, worldlier cadet who seems to care about exactly one thing: Krista. Her devotion to Krista drives nearly everything she does, and her cynical distance hides a long, painful past the series only begins to unpack. In Season 1 she's an intriguing side player; her secrets, like several of the cadets', wait for the story to come.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the main character of Attack on Titan?

The main character is Eren Yeager, a young soldier who joins the military after a Titan destroys his hometown and kills his mother. The story is anchored by his point of view, alongside his adoptive sister Mikasa Ackerman and best friend Armin Arlert, who form the central trio.

Who is the strongest character in Attack on Titan?

Among ordinary human soldiers, Levi is universally regarded as the strongest — he is literally titled "humanity's strongest soldier" and dominates Titan combat like no one else. Mikasa is considered the most naturally gifted of the younger generation. Once Titan powers enter the picture, the balance of power shifts dramatically, but blade-to-blade, Levi stands alone.

How many main characters does Attack on Titan have?

There are three central leads — Eren, Mikasa, and Armin — but the series is a true ensemble. Realistically you need to know around a dozen major players, including the Survey Corps command (Levi, Erwin, Hange) and the standout members of the 104th cadets like Reiner, Annie, and Jean.

Who is Levi and why is he so popular?

Levi is the captain of the Survey Corps' elite Special Operations Squad and the most skilled fighter in the series. Fans love him for the contrast: he is a curt, no-nonsense clean-freak with a dry sense of humor, wrapped around genuine loyalty and buried pain — and his acrobatic Titan-killing is some of the most striking action WIT Studio ever animated.

Who is the Female Titan in Attack on Titan?

The Female Titan is an intelligent, humanlike Titan that appears in the back half of Season 1 and deliberately hunts the Survey Corps rather than mindlessly attacking. Its existence — a Titan that can think, plan, and target specific people — is one of the season's biggest mysteries, and uncovering who is behind it drives the climactic arc. We're keeping the identity vague here to avoid spoiling a major reveal.