‘Attack On Titan’ Gives Glimpse Into Levi’s Dark Past

Eren Jaeger may be the main protagonist of Attack on Titan, but he hasn’t monopolized fans — not by a long shot. Characters such as Mikasa have become favorites, and few have become as popular as Captain Levi. So, you can see why the team behind Attack on Titan felt it was time to tease Levi’s past.

Just… don’t expect the story to be a sweet on. This is Attack on Titan after all.

Earlier this month, the anime made a comeback with its third season, and its latest episode stunned. Fans tuned into “Pain” to watch Levi make an escape after Kenny the Ripper cornered him and his team. With blood on his hands, Levi managed to flee, but his run-in with Kenny had some rather unexpected effects.

As the episode continued, fans were teased just a bit about Kenny’s ties with Levi. The older man confirmed he cared for the Survey Corps superior when Levi was a child. Kenny reminisced about how the pair believed there wasn’t anything more to life than their slum, but they found out otherwise as time went on.

Of course, no concrete details about those years were given, but fans were shown a few images of Levi during that time. One of those sequences showed an emaciated Levi sitting by a wall, and the kid looked starved. With both eyes sunken in, Levi seemed to be at death’s doorstep, but Kenny appeared to help the boy as a younger version of the soldier could be seen standing before Levi. The flashback then showed a pre-teen Levi wielding a knife in a back alley alone, leading fans to believe it was Kenny who taught Levi the ropes of fighting.

For those unfamiliar with Attack on Titan, the series was originally created by Hajime Isayama. Starting its run in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shonen Magazine in 2009, the series has been collected into 23 volumes as of 2017. It’s set in a world where the last remnants of humanity live within a walled city in order to escape the danger of the Titans, a race of giants monsters that eats humans. Eren Yeager joins the military with his two childhood friends Mikasa and Armin after the Titans break through the wall and attack his hometown.

If you’re curious about the series, Attack on Titan can be found in Japanese with English subtitles alongside the series’ release in Japan on Crunchyroll and Hulu. Funimation has confirmed the new season’s English simuldub will begin in August before it airs on Toonami.

Did you expect Levi to have come up from such harsh conditions? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!