Eren Yeager

"I want to see and understand the world outside. I don't want to die inside these walls without knowing what's out there!"

- Eren Yeager

Eren Yeager is the main protagonist of Attack on Titan. He is from Shiganshina District, a town of the outer most wall, Maria. His adopted sister Mikasa closest friend and Armin have both joined the Survey Corps with him after having their town annihilated by the Titans. He holds a personal vendetta against all titans and his goal is to wipe them off the face of the earth. Ranked 5th in the class. After a near-death experience, he discovers that he possesses the mysterious ability to transform into a Titan. This leads multiple groups to vie for him, viewing him as key to humanity's fate.

He is voiced by Yuki Kaiji in the Japanese version of the anime and Bryce Papenbrook in the English version, the latter of whom also voices Shirou Emiya and Rin Okumura.

Human Form
Eren, seemingly of German origin is a young man of average height & build. He's got a fairly long face, brown hair, and large, round turquoise-green eyes (the brightness of his eye color varies depending on the lighting). His skin seems slightly more tan than that of the other characters. His short hair reaches the nape of his neck and falls middle-parted in front of his forehead in sort of a "curtain" style. His eyes are very sizable and expressive. Being as passionate as he is, his brow is often furrowed, making him appear angry or annoyed. He is first seen wearing regular townsfolk attire which consisted of brown pants, a green shirt with a string holding the collar together and a maroon vest. Later, he is seen in the typical Scouting Legion uniform. He always keeps the key given to him by his father dangling around his neck on a string.

Titan Form
As a Titan Eren's appearance changes quite drastically, yet there are a few qualities that make him recognizable. Along with a massive increase in height, his hair grows to about chin length and his eyes become long and thin as opposed to his normal eyes which are round and wide. His tongue, nose, and ears become more prominent and pointed and his teeth become dagger shaped, multiply and form two rows. Compared to the majority of other Titans, Eren's Titan form seems much more physically fit and stronger, bearing lean muscle rather than a belly.

Personality
Eren is best described as hardheaded and impulsive, which are both attributes of his strong determination to protect mankind and eventually leave the walls. As a young kid, he was so intent on joining the Scouting Legion that he argued with and shouted at his mother, referring to the people in the village as "silly". He gained the desire to kill and destroy the race of Titans after witnessing her death. He cares greatly for his comrades and continuously risks his life to save them. At a young age he displayed violent behavior in order to save Mikasa. Now that violence and anger is directed at the Titans. Besides his strong determination and the willing to destroy all Titans, he has a lack of patience which often puts him into danger and even near-death situations, which usually ends with him being saved by his teammates, especially Mikasa.

It was also noted by Levi that Eren is a Monster, but not due his ability of transforming into a Titan but because that no one can break his will.

Year 844
When Eren was a child, he saved Mikasa from being sold by human traffickers. Three men, which were the killers of her parents, were in a house. Killing two of them, he was caught off guard by the third who proceeded to strangle him. With superhuman strength, Mikasa leapt forward at the man after realizing that it is a "live or die" life they are living. As Eren's father finds them surprisingly safe and unharmed, Eren gave Mikasa the scarf she always wears, and declared her a part of his family.

Year 845
With the invasion of Wall Maria after the Colossal Titan makes a path, Eren discovered the horrors of the life he is living that sets the motion for his future. Seeing the destruction of his town, mindless titans slaughtering humans, and his own mother being eaten alive as he was helpless to save her, Eren remarks that the life humans live is controlled entirely at the mercy of the titans and humans are nothing more than cattle. Being dragged away by a local Stationary Guard, Hannes, Eren swears to kill every single titan in existence with tears of frustration and hatred.

Year 845 to current
After the fall of Wall Maria, Eren, Mikasa and Armin briefly stayed in the “landfill” working on a farm before reaching the proper age to enroll in the military. Here they spent approximately four years in training, Eren placed fifth in his class upon graduation.

Story
Upon graduation, before Eren is able to formally apply for a position in the Scouting Legion, the Colossal Titan appeared the same as it did the day of the fall of wall Maria. Eren attempts to destroy it, but it vanishes in a puff of smoke after having broken the gate open.

In response to the crisis, the new recruits are scrambled and split into squads in charge of spreading to and defending different parts of the city. Eren is grouped with Armin. Upon seeing his comrades killed, Eren leaps into battle after a Titan, only to have his leg bitten off below the knee, incapacitating him. The rest of his group attacks and dies as a result. Just as Armin is about to get eaten, Eren manages to pull his friend out of the bearded Titan's mouth, effectively switching places with him. Eren is swallowed, his left arm being severed as the titan shut its mouth. It is later revealed that in the stomach of the bearded Titan, Eren’s desperation and drive to exterminate all Titans triggered his first transformation into a Titan, bursting from the bearded Titan and proceeding to wreak havoc on all the Titans he could get his hands on. In the process he unwarily saves the mourning Mikasa’s life and is baited by a team of his classmates to help fend off a procession of Titans from a storage headquarters for the compressed gas used to power their 3D movement gear.

As the Titans seem to overwhelm him and Mikasa’s group is about to intervene, a certain Titan that killed one of Eren’s team members appears and Eren’s rage powers him to throw off the percussion and destroy the Titan. As soon as the massacre is over, Eren falls to the ground and his human form emerges from the back of his Titan form’s neck (with both lost limbs back) to the shock of all the onlookers. He is retrieved by an overwhelmed Mikasa. Upon his awakening, Eren seems to only have a faint dream-like memory of his time as a Titan and finds himself cornered by the military with only Mikasa and Armin as his support. The military intends to kill Eren, thinking him an enemy. A cannon is fired at the three of them and Eren grabs onto his two friends and bites his own hand, wounding himself and partially transforming into a Titan, blocking the cannon ball before emerging from the skeleton. Eren allows Armin to try and talk them out of their tight spot with limited success until Commander Dot Pixis intervenes.

A plan is made for Eren to use his Titan form to move a huge boulder they had planned to use to reseal the gate to prevent titans from further entering, but were unable to move it. Eren is assigned to a team including Mikasa to defend him while he carries the boulder. Upon his transformation to execute the plan, though, he attacks Mikasa, who tries to communicate with him to snap out of it, unsuccessfully. Eren ends up wounding himself and his body fails to regenerate, the mission is declared a failure. Despite this, the leader of the group, with some non-verbal convincing by Mikasa, decides they must stay and guard Eren. Armin arrives on the scene and convinces Mikasa to go help fend off the Titans while he tries to get through to Eren. Eventually he is able to do so, and Eren moves the stone and is able to plug the hole in the wall at the sacrifice of the rest of the team members (with the exception of Rico, Armin and Mikasa). They are saved from the desperate situation after Eren’s transformation back to human by Levi.

Eren again woke up, this time in a dungeon prison cell chained. Levi was there and upon hearing his motive to kill Titans says he’ll accept him on the team. Eren was left there for a time before he was escorted by Scouting Legion members to the court room where he was tried with one side calling for his decision and execution and the opposing side, the Scouting Legion, arguing to use his power to their advantage in scouting missions. After an outburst by Eren, Levi beats him accrediting his dominance over Eren’s threat and it is decided his fate will be decided after a “test” mission with the Scouting Legion.

Eren, along with some of his old classmates who also joined the Scouting Legion, train for a month, learning long distance communication formation, before they had to depart outside Wall Rose to the ruin in the region once protected by Wall Maria. Eren along with most of the group were not told the goal of the operation but were simply expected to follow orders. Eventually, a deviant “intelligent” titan known as the “Female Titan” caught up with Eren’s team and pursued them into a huge forest. Upon it’s closer approach and the death of some comrades from behind as Eren and his team simply keep running, Eren is tempted to use his Titan power and save his comrades and fight the Female Titan. Levi allows this choice, but Eren eventually decides to trust in his team, sacrificing the last remaining member of the rear guard. The Female Titan, suspected to be the same as Eren and merely a “human in titan skin,” nearly captured Eren before being ambushed and captured herself. Eren and the rest of his team excluding Levi ride out of the forest firm in the belief that the titan was captured and her human self apprehended. This is proved false as the unidentifiable human form of the Female Titan kills one of the team members before re-transforming into a titan. The remaining three team members tell Eren to go on while they kill the Female Titan. Eren wishes to stay and fight with them, but again, is convinced otherwise and retreats. The three are promptly slaughtered and a regretful Eren transformed into a Titan and engaged the Female Titan.

He ultimately loses the fight and his human self was captured by the Female Titan. Mikasa arrived on the scene in time to observe this and pursued to retrieve him, closely followed by Levi. The two teamed up to retrieve Eren, leaving the Female Titan alive and whilst they departed back to wall Rose, the mission failed and many soldiers lost. Eren is shocked when Annie Leonhardt smiled the same way the Female Titan did when she unhooded Armin. Eren is later realises that Annie is the female titan. When he tried to go into Titan form by injuring himself, he couldn't do it because of his shock and his mind was clouded. Going back to a meeting room, Eren apologized to Levi for disobeying orders to fight off the Female Titan. If he hadn't done so, they wouldn't gotten in the predicament they're in. When Mikasa and Armin prepare themselves to take on Annie by themselves, Eren eventually overcame his shock and transformed into his titan form and helps capturing her.

When Wall Rose is supposedly breached, Eren is one of the teams in the area. He was last seen on his way to Castle Utgard under squad leader Hanji Zoe in order to use it as surveillance building. Eren and the rest of the the Scouts arrive just in time to save Reiner and co, Eren kills a 7m type female titan and celebrates his first kill as a Scout. On their way back home, Reiner starts acting weird around Eren and Eren starts to panic. It is then that Mikasa realizes who Reiner and Bertholdt are and proceeds to try and kill them. Reiner transforms into the Armored Titan and kidnaps Eren. Eren calls Reiner "A fucking traitor" and shifts into his Titan form. He and Reiner then engage in battle at first Reiner had the advantage, but Eren using his martial skills was able to pin Reiner and was ripping Reiner's neck off. Berthold proceeds to body slam both Eren and Reiner. In the midst of the chaos Eren is kidnapped. Eren and Ymir are taken to the Forest of Giant Trees by Reiner and Berthold. He attempts to transform into his titan form in spite of losing his arms, but Ymir wisely tells him not to as she too is also healing from losing both her arms. While she questions Reiner and Berthold about the Ape Titan they're after, Eren broods in silence as Reiner reveals that Humanity has no hope in fighting against the titans. He and Berthold offer both him and Ymir a chance to join them in order to protect their loved ones. As she considers joining them, Eren furiously refuses and blames both Reiner and Berthold for causing him a lot of grief. He trusted them and they betrayed his trust by breaching his home and killing his mother. When he discovers that Ymir is considering joining Reiner and Berhold, Eren tried vainly to talk her out of it.

Martial Arts
Originally, Eren's only noteworthy trait was his natural physical strength. As he grew and joined the 104th squad, he trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat, scoring top marks in this class, being second only to Mikasa and Annie. After additional training with Reiner and Annie, Eren's prowess and skillset diversified, including the use of punches, throws, grappling and submission locks. While hand-to-hand fighting would appear useless due to the massive physical differences between humans and Titans, these skills gave Eren a powerful edge when fighting other Titans in his own Titan form.

3D Maneuver Gear
At first, it is shown that Eren is not very skilled with the gear, he tried and tried countless times but kept tipping and smacking his head on the floor. People mocked him for this. Eren pleaded for help from everyone but the only advice they could give Eren was that he needed to clear his mind and focus. On his last attempt Eren did just that and stayed upright for a short period of time before tipping over and hitting his head. The commander told Tomas Wagner to swap equipment with Eren and for Eren to try again. Eren did so and balanced with ease. Commander then told Eren that his equipment was damaged and that it was a miracle that he managed to stay up right at all. He isn't shown using the gear much, but was able to hold his own with the Colossal Titan for a short period of time until the titan disappeared. He was eventually able to slowly develop a respectable amount of skill with the use of the gear, even being capable of killing a titan on his own not too long after joining the Scouting Corps.

Titan Shifting
After being swallowed by a titan, Eren was able to turn into a titan. He is much stronger than the average titan, and is able to effectively dispatch a group of titans with ease. In this form, he is a 15m titan, with shoulder-length black hair, pointy ears, and a huge mouth. Because of his intelligence, something regular titans don't have, he is able to out-maneuver the others and quickly beat them down. While initially, having little to no control over his actions, he managed to overcome this with extensive use of his transformations. His titan form, combined with his growing experience and his hand-to-hand combat skills allowed him to kill over 20 titans in his first transformation and later manage to overpower and nearly kill the Armored Titan.

His transformations are triggered through causing physical harm onto himself while having a clear goal in mind. He can also trigger partial manifestations. Even in his human form, Eren still has some Titan-related benefits such as their accelerated regeneration capabilities.

Trivia

 * Eren Ranked second in the characters popularity poll right after Levi.
 * Eren is known for fighting with local bullies.
 * In a flashback, his father notes that he does not make friends easily.
 * The name Eren is of Turkish origin. It can be interpreted as a "man", "saint", or "holy person". It's also phonetically similar to "Aaron" which is the anglicised form of the Hebrew name "Aharown" meaning "light bringer"
 * Eren's last name, Yeager, is similar to the German and Scandinavian word jäger, which means "hunter."
 * The opening song of the anime, Guren no Yumiya, seemingly makes reference to this in its first lyrics ("Sie sind das Essen und wir sind die Jäger!" lit. "They are the food and We are the hunters!").
 * Hajime Isayama stated in a interview that he based Eren's titan form off of the Japanese martial artist Yūshin Okami, paraphrasing it to be the "ideal physique of a middleweight mixed martial artist."
 * Guren no Yumiya (Red Lotus Arrow) is Eren's theme song.