The Most Impactful Attack On Titan Episodes in Each Season¶

(Warning: Not Spoiler-Free)

I don't consider myself as an anime person; I'm more of a manga person. However, it's been quite a while since I last followed a series. I dropped One Piece, the only manga I religiously followed, nearly seven years ago. I wasn't in any anime fandom only until recently. If you're on Twitter, it's almost impossible not to be exposed to Attack On Titan (AOT) as it reached the final season. I had only vague memory about AOT and I was turned off by the gore nature of the anime ("Humans get eaten by titan? OK."). However, after reading a discussion about whether the Marleyan or the Eldian is on the right side and watching the summary of Season 1-3, I decided to watch the whole anime when the final season has just begun.

As I'm writing this, the manga is officially ending in six days (sobs) and the second part of the final season will commence in Winter 2022. I got into AOT very quickly and I really like the big story it offers. The final season (the Marley arc and War for Paradis arc in the manga) is my favorite because we get to see the world outside Paradis and the turbulence of our main character, Eren Yeager. Some scenes in the manga were quite sad and the anime made it even more emotional it made me shed a tear or two. So far, I got attached to the main character (happy birthday, Eren)(sobs harder).

That being said, we can check which season and episode gave more impact according to the fandom using Google Trends. We can compare several search terms or topics manually and save the data into csv to analyze later. An alternative is using PyTrends, an unofficial API for Google Trends.

Search Term vs Topic¶

When we enter the keyword manually, e.g. "Eren Yeager", there are two options: "Eren Yeager" as a "Search term" or "Eren Yeager" as "Fictional character". There are differences between the two according to Google support page:

Terms

Search terms show matches for all terms in your query, in the language given.

If you search the term "banana," results include terms like "banana" or "banana sandwich" If you specify "banana sandwich," results include searches for "banana sandwich," as well as "banana for lunch" and "peanut butter sandwich"

Topics

Topics are a group of terms that share the same concept in any language. Topics display below search terms.

If you search the topic "London," your search includes results for topics such as:

"Capital of the UK" "Londres," which is "London" in Spanish

In our case, it would make more sense to use topic, e.g. "Eren Yeager" as "Fictional character", instead of search term. Another concern is apparently Eren's last name has two different spellings due to the pronunciation of his name in Japanese. Some use "Eren Yeager" while others use "Eren Jaeger". When we use search term, both keywords give different results. However, PyTrends doesn't provide the parameter to set the topic as "Fictional character". The parameter cat provides an option for category but there's no "Fictional character" available.

The characters I'm using are "Eren Yeager", "Levi Ackerman", "Armin Arlert", "Mikasa Ackerman". The four characters are from the Eldian side and allegedly the most popular since they almost appear together in the official merchandise while the last character is from the Marleyan side. All of the characters have appeared in all four seasons.

We will try collecting the data both from Google Trends page and from PyTrends. We will use both "eren jaeger" and "eren yeager" and combine them to calculate Eren's popularity when using PyTrends.

"The latest official merchandise promotion poster. From left to right: Mikasa Ackerman, Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert, and Levi Ackerman."

Import the Library¶

For all time trends I will use the date of first chapter English translation release, June 19th, 2012, as the beginnung date until Apr 1st, 2021. The scope of the trend is set to "Worldwide".

from pytrends.request import TrendReq

pytrend = TrendReq(hl='en-US', tz=360)

kw_list = ['eren yeager', 'eren jaeger', 'levi ackerman', 'mikasa ackerman', 'armin arlert']
pytrend.build_payload(kw_list, cat=0, timeframe='2012-06-19 2021-04-01', geo='', gprop='')

The data for all the seasons was collected in the span of three months before and after the season air date. For example, if the Season 1 air date was on April 7 – September 29, 2013, the timeframe parameter is from Jan 7 until Dec 29, 2013.

All-Time Trends¶

The metric, interest over time, is a relative measure of interest to the highest point of the chart for the given region and time. The 100 points is occupied by "Eren Yeager" on the last day of observation (Apr 1st, 2021). All-time trends of the keywords as "Fictional character" topic shows that the final season has garnered the highest attention. The suffering of both the Eldian and Marleyan faction reached its peak in this season. As expected, Eren, the main character who gradually becomes the anti-hero, has the highest popularity. The peak on Apr 1st, 2021 could be due to the fact that the manga is ending on Apr 9th and the character's birthday on Mar 30th.

The all-time trends for the keywords as search term (instead of topic) also shows that Season 4 has garnered the most attention throughout the series. However, the graph below shows that "Levi Ackerman" had more popularity compared to "Eren Yeager" throughout most seasons.

Season 1 Trend¶

Season 1 air date was on April 7 – September 29, 2013. The highest point during the three months before and after the air date was occupied by "Eren Yeager" on Sep 30th. This might be due to the last episode of Season 1 which aired on Sep 28th. There was the highest increase in "Eren Yeager"s popularity, around May 5th. Episode 5 (First Battle: The Struggle for Trost, Part 1) was aired around that day (May 4th), in which Eren gets eaten (alive!) by a titan after he helps his friend, Armin.

According to the trends around Season 1 based on keywords search as term the highest peak (point 100) was occupied by "Eren Yeager" on Sep 8th. This was a day after the release of the 22th episode (Defeated: The 57th Exterior Scouting Mission, Part 6), where Eren gets eaten by the Female Titan. The highest peak for "Mikasa Ackerman" happened on the same day where she tries to save Eren from the Female Titan. There was also the highest increase on May 4th for "Eren Yeager" which happened after the air date of Episode 5.

The highest peak for "Armin Arlert" was on Sep 22nd or the day after the air date of Episode 24 (Compassion - Stohess District Raid: Part 2) in which Annie Leonhart realises Armin's plan and is cornered by the Eren-Mikasa-Armin trio to force her into showing her true self as the Female Titan.

This chart also shows that "Mikasa Ackerman" had similar popularity with "Eren Yeager" during the air time of Season 1.

Season 2¶

Season 2 aired on April 1 – June 17, 2017, with a total of only 12 episodes. This season has the smallest number of episodes compared with the others that have more than 20 episodes. Both trends of Season 2 on keywords as topic and term show that the highest peak happened around Episode 12 (Scream) in which Eren (dumbly) confronts a titan with only his fist. This, however, uncovers the hidden potential of his titan power. There's so many facts about titan that remain unknown until the end of Season 3. The graph below shows that "Eren Yeager" stayed as the most popular character throughout Season 2.

However, based on trends of keywords search as term below "Levi Ackerman" has more popularity compared with "Eren Yeager" throughout Season 2.

Season 3¶

Season 3 aired on July 23rd, 2018 – July 1st, 2019. This season is my second most favorite, especially the second part of Season 3. There was a fast jump in "Armin Arlert" popularity which happened on May 26th or the air date of Episode 17 (Hero). In this episode, the frail but brilliant Armin devises a strategy to face the Colossal Titan which costs him his life (almost). The popularity of "Eren Yeager" reached its peak on June 16th or Episode 20 (That Day) in which Eren learns the origin of the titan he inherited from his father.

The trends for keywords search as term below shows a similar peak for "Armin Arlert". However, there was a different peak for "Levi Ackerman" which happened on June 2nd, or the air date of Episode 18 (Midnight Sun). In this episode, Levi has to make a tough decision whether to save Erwin, his Commander, and good friend, or Armin who gets fatally burned in the previous episode. This chart also shows "Levi Ackerman" had more popularity compared to "Eren Yeager" throughout Season 3. There was another peak for "Levi Ackerman" on Mar 1st, but this happened in between the air date of part 1 and part 2, thus could not be linked to any of the episodes.

Season 4¶

Season 4 is put on hold for the production of part 2 which will be released in Winter 2022. Part one aired on Dec 7th, 2020 - Mar 29, 2021. Based on the graph below, a notable peak for "Levi Ackerman" happened on Dec 25th which is the character's birthday. The peak for "Eren Yeager" happened on Mar 6th which allegedly happened due to the spread of the leak of the newest manga chapter. The official release of Chapter 138 was supposed to be on Mar 9th but it was somehow common to find a screenshot of the leaked chapter a few days before the official release date. In Chapter 138 readers are presented with yet another twist, which I believe sparked many discussions and theories about the last chapter. The second highest peak for "Eren Yeager" on the last day of observation (Mar 30th) was due to the character's birthday.

There was the highest peak for "Armin Arlert" on Jan 25th, which was the air date of Episode 7 (Assault). In this episode, Armin makes his first appearance as a Colossal Titan since he inherited the power from Bertholt in Season 3. In both graphs, there was a peak for "Mikasa Ackerman" on Feb 10, which happened near the air date of Episode 9 on Feb 8.

Conclusion¶

We have seen that there's a difference in popularity results when we search for a keyword as a topic and a term. Some patterns such as highest peak and highest increase have a similar pattern for both methods but it isn't always the case. Thus, it is important to choose which method to use when we collect the data. Based on our exploration, the most impactful season is the Final Season as it has the highest popularity of all Attack On Titan seasons. The most impactful episode can be concluded from the point of the highest peak and highest increase.

• Season 1: Episode 5, 22, 24, and 25
• Season 2: Episode 12
• Season 3: Episode 17, 18, 20
• Season 4: Episode 7, 9