Your guide to watching this mammoth anime franchise in the correct order.
Picture it: the world is not what you thought it was. One moment you are living a happy, carefree life, the next everyone you know is being killed off by giants who treat the city like a buffet. That’s what it’s like in Attack on Titan.
Our window into this cruel, disturbing world is Eren Yeager, a boy whose mother was devoured by Titans when they invaded his hometown as a child. Afterwards, he vows to take these monstrosities down once and for all, and to do so, Eren joins the elite Survey Corps.
Hajime Isayama’s original manga and its anime adaptation is one of the most successful Japanese exports of all time, and there’s so much for viewers to dig into, new and old.
Indeed, what we’ve described so far barely scratches the surface of what’s to come in this colossal tale, which has been wowing and disturbing us in equal measure since the first episode premiered in 2013.
With the anime’s final chapter well under way, now is the perfect time to see what all the fuss is about and get stuck in, even if it may feel like a daunting task.
We’re here to help break down the best way to watch Attack on Titan’s entire franchise in full, from the main series to its OVAs (Original Video Animation), and even to its weird spin-off that tries to be cute but ends up being anything but.
How to watch Attack on Titan in the correct order
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First off, don’t even think about skipping any episodes in the main anime run. Every scene and pretty much every moment ends up being pivotal in some way, even if you can’t see why until years later.
The OVAs aren’t quite as crucial but they’re interesting nonetheless and always add something new to the overarching narrative. Because of that, we’ve decided to include them in the order they connect with the main story.
With that in mind, here’s our recommended viewing order for the Attack on Titan franchise (which happens to line up almost identically with the order everything was released chronologically, too):
- Attack on Titan season 1
- Attack on Titan: Ilse’s Notebook (OVA)
- Attack on Titan: The Sudden Visitor – The Torturous Curse of Youth (OVA)
- Attack on Titan: Distress (OVA)
- Attack on Titan season 2
- Attack on Titan: Lost Girls – episodes 1 and 2 (OVA)
- Attack on Titan season 3: episodes 1-12
- Attack on Titan: No Regrets – episodes 1 and 2 (OVA)
- Attack on Titan: Lost Girls – episode 3 (OVA)
- Attack on Titan: Junior High (OVA)
- Attack on Titan season 3 – episodes 13-end
- Attack on Titan season 4, part 1
- Attack on Titan season 4, part 2
- Attack on Titan season 4, part 3 (coming 2023)
The fourth and final season, set four years after Eren and his friends learn the truth about their world, has been split into three parts so far. The last chapter, AKA part 3, is being released as two specials and the first came out on March 3rd 2023. The second special is expected to be released during the fall 2023 anime season.
The specials should finally bring this decade-long story to a close. But, although we assume that, MAPPA have been saying that Attack on Titan is in its final season for quite some time now and, so far, every time a season ends it has revealed that the story will, in fact, be continuing.
The anime is proving to be an incredibly faithful adaptation of Isayama’s manga, which is no small feat, so quite frankly they can take all the time they need to get it done right.
We’ve also included Attack on Titan: Junior High here as this spin-off is pretty well-known, but its jarring parody style wasn’t to everyone’s taste upon release, so this can easily be skipped.
What we haven’t included is the anime movies released between seasons because they’re effectively just a recap of the anime and, honestly, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by missing out on all the vital details contained in each individual episode.
And then there’s Shinji Higuchi’s live action movie, titled Attack on Titan, which took some pretty big diversions from the source material. Upon its release in 2015, Japanese audiences weren’t impressed to say the least.
With a critics score of 47 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes and an even lower rating of 34 per cent from audience users, a sequel looks very unlikely, and that’s the main reason why we decided to leave it out here in our recommended watch order.
How to watch Attack on Titan in the UK
Attack on Titan is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Check out more of our Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide or Streaming Guide to find out what else is on.
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