Make your choice: Will you be the hunter or the prey?
"On that day mankind received a grim reminder: we lived in fear of the Titans and were disgraced to live in these cages we called walls."
Eren is a boy who dreams of the world outside the city walls. This fantasy is fueled by the fabulous descriptions of his bookish friend Armin. Even Eren's level-headed foster sister, Mikasa, can't talk him out of it. So what if there are human-eating giants outside the city? As long as people know how to kill them, and the city walls keep the giants out, human civilization can slowly rebuild, and eventually reclaim the world.
That is, until a vastly bigger giant shows up, breaks the wall, and lets its smaller kin access the tasty two-legged treats trying to rebuild their world.
There is a reason why their city is the last human settlement on the planet.
Despite the action-y sounding premise, and there is a great deal of action, the author has also woven a tight story around its many, many characters, and the strange, apocalyptic world they find themselves. And failure. Loads, and loads of failure. The characters repeatedly struggle to accomplish anything, often sacrificing lives and making major mistakes, only to have it all come to naught in the end. But every so often, their persistence, wits, and a little luck, manages to pay off. Slowly, a complex portrait of the world beings to form, and reveals there is something more sinister to the weirder aspects of their world. In the end, it is primarily a story about how people deal with trauma, survival, loss, and death. As they fight giant, man-eating titans.
From its relatively modest beginning, the manga managed to become the 11th highest seller in 2011. A live-action film adaptation was announced and planned for a 2014 (or later) release, but now it seems to have been put on hold due to Creative Differences between the director and the screenwriter, among other issues.
Meanwhile, the anime adaptation premiered on April 6, 2013, with Yasuko Kobayashi as head screenwriter.
Viewers living in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Ireland may watch the anime legally at Crunchyroll. In a rare move, it is also available on Funimation (which has licensed it for a future dub), along the usual lines of being subscriber exclusive and then free to watch at a later date.
I do have to say, I've been enjoying this show very much.