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What do you love most about Attack on Titan? Well, it’s probably hard to pin down one reason why you love the manga so much. Of course, it offers a different perspective on the world’s reality — villains turning heroes and heroes becoming villains. Its detailed world-building and story-telling are ultimately among the reasons why it’s so well-loved by fans all across the globe.
Aside from all that, what takes the cake is probably its three-dimensional and relatable characters, one of which is Annie Leonhart.
Annie is the sixth most popular character in the First Character Popularity Poll. And it’s no surprise as to why. She has been a valuable character and a surprisingly good feign, which shocked everyone when she revealed her true identity as the Female Titan.
Are you interested to know more about Annie? Wondering what her character’s fate will be as the story comes to a close? If you do, this blog is definitely for you! In this blog, you will learn more about her background, motivations, abilities, and interesting bits of trivia that only a few fans know about! So, read on and get to know the person’s real story behind the Female Titan.
Bottom Line Up Front
Annie Leonhart is one of the manga’s first antagonists. As the inheritor of the Female Titan, she is extremely powerful in combat. She is also very skilled and can imitate the powers of the other Titan Shifters. She is known to have abilities such as Titan control, hardening, and focused regeneration.
Aside from being the Female Titan, she is already a skilled fighter in her human form. Her adoptive father trained her at a very young age; that’s why she was among the most brilliant trainees of her batch. As the story progressed, Annie helped Mikasa and Armin sabotage Eren’s plans.
Who Is Annie Leonhart?
Annie Leonhart (アニ・レオンハート Ani Reonhāto) is part of the 104th Training Corps and a former member of the Military Police Brigade. She is an excellent combatant; she is exceptionally skilled in sword and unarmed combat. Despite her skills in battle, she struggles to work and team up with others. Often, Annie gets in trouble for this attitude; that’s why she considers herself a lone wolf.
Possessing to transform into the Female Titan, she was also very quick-witted and decisive. She developed all these skills when she was young because her father trained her early. In the year 845, she was chosen as one of Marley’s Warrior cadets to retrieve the Founding Titan. Together with Reiner Braun, Bertolt Hoover, Marcel Galliard, she was sent to Paradis Island.
During this mission, her Female Titan served as a major antagonist before being captured and defeated. Her crystallized boy was held underground in the custody of the Survey Corps for over four years before her escape.
Annie Leonhart: Appearance, Personality, Quotes, and More
Appearance
Human Form
As a young girl, Annie looks like your ordinary young girl. She has considerably short height but a muscular build and physique. She has moderately short blonde hair tied at the back, sporting fringes that mainly drape over the right side of her face. She also has strong facial features, such as a Roman nose, oval-shaped, and bright blue eyes.
Her casual clothes mainly consist of a hooded sweatshirt and a jacket with dark gray pants. She loves wearing the hooded sweatshirt because she can hide her face in it. During risky missions, she wears the same uniform as Military Police and a silver ring with a small folding blade. She uses this blade to prick and injure herself to transform into her Female Titan form without biting her hands like how Eren does his transformation.
Female Titan Form
Annie’s Female Titan appearance is seemingly unique, though her physique and facial features are akin to her human form.
Her Female Titan body has exposed muscle tissues, evidently showing limited skin coverage. You can notice how her fingers are made out of bones, and her face has a muscle lining underneath her cheeks. As her name suggests, this is the only Titan to have obvious physical features that of a female.
Personality
What’s rather concerning about Annie is her exclusionary personality. She hates to be in groups and would rather do things on her own. While you might consider this as a typical introvert in action, this attitude towards others results from her harsh upbringing.
Annie has a very stern expression. You can rarely see her smile and often hide her true feelings with her emotionless expression. Because of her apathetic nature, she puts no desire in wasting her time with senseless disciplines and activities. Instead, she claims to solely focus her energy to join the Military Police Brigade to have a better headstart at her life.
Unlike Eren, Annie has a good sense of reality. She is always accountable for her thoughts and feelings while having a pragmatic outlook about the world. Her sense of humor is often questionably sardonic, mocking her peers. However, she is never shy to voice partial truths, especially during intense situations. Whenever she loses her cold and calm demeanor, she reacts with violence and lashes out.
Nonetheless, Annie’s main motivation is her desire to live a normal life. While she does not love Marley, she remains determined to accomplish her mission. This way, she can return home to her father and live a happy, normal life without all the mountain of responsibilities and threats she currently has.
History
When Annie’s mother gave birth to her, a test revealed that Annie was one of the Subjects of Ymir. This suggests that her mother had an affair with an Eldian man. Because of this, Annie was deported to the internment zone at a very early age and was later adopted by Mr. Leonhart.
Her adoptive father was keen on training her to become a Warrior so they could live a privileged life inside the safe confines of Marley. This is why Annie underwent rigorous combat training together with Mr. Leonhart. Eventually, Annie lived up to his expectations. Still, she became fed up with all the training and physical routines that she retaliated with and attacked her adoptive father, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life.
She finds both purpose and pleasure in joining the Marleyan military unit as a Warrior candidate during her childhood. Through this, she met strong and like-minded individuals like Bertolt Hoover, Reiner Braun, and Marcel Galliard.
Many training officers praised her for her impeccable fighting abilities as a Marleyan candidate. Because of this, she was chosen to inherit the power of the Titans. The Marleyan Military leaders have granted her the honor to inherit the Female Titan.
Together with her peers, she set out on a mission to reclaim the Founding Titan in Paradis Island. And just before leaving Marley, she was paraded through the street and celebrated as Warriors. At this moment, Mr. Leonhart apologized to Annie and said he regretted his decisions. He also made her daughter promise to come home once they concluded their operations.
Quotes
Being one of the greatest antagonists during the first chapters of the story, Annie has a way with her words – poignant and brutally truthful. She spoke remarkable dialogues that have etched a mark in our minds. Want to revisit Annie’s most powerful and noteworthy words? Here are some quotes you should know:
- Scream, and I slice your neck open.
- What’s lost isn’t coming back! It’s too late!
- We were praised for killing people. We were taught that once we were beyond our borders, we could kill combatants and civilians alike. We were atoning for our deeds as eldians and on a mission to save the world, so anything was justified.
- I don’t know how many times I stopped just short of trying to kill you.
- I feel bad. I do. They’re all betting everything on the faint hope that they can still save their homeland. But I can’t fight any longer. At least give me my final moments to live in peace.
- I guess you were lucky that I was a good person to you. It looks like your gamble paid off for now, but this is where mine begins.
- If somebody told you to die, would you?
- Marley, Eldia, they can all go to hell! They’re all liars, every one of them! They only ever think about themselves! And I’m the same! I need to get back alive! You were supposed to die a minute ago, right? If you’re feeling bad about it, then die right now! Take the blame and die!
- I do think we’re worthless, and we’re definitely evil. You certainly can’t call us upright, but doesn’t that just make us regular people?
Well, many fans do have a love-hate relationship with this character. But these quotes clearly express her deepest thoughts and intentions, making her an incredibly interesting and relatable character.
Abilities
Annie is one of the strongest fighters trained in the 104th Training Corps. Achieving the fourth position after the training, Annie proves her skill level in several military combat techniques. Despite only ranking fourth, many of her peers considered her fighting style and abilities at par with Mikasa.
One of the reasons why he got a lower rank is because of her attitude that she tends to slack off and not take things seriously. She is also very clever and cunning when plotting different kinds of strategies. These are some of the abilities she possesses:
Expertise in Vertical Maneuvering Equipment
When it comes to controlling the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment, Annie has got this skill down pat. She can effortlessly kill Titans with her weapon’s blade, just as shown in a Titan encounter inside the Military HQ at Trost District. Later, Annie also used her equipment to kill one of Levi’s hand-picked Special Operations Squad members, Gunther Schultz.
Martial Arts
It’s no secret that Annie is a good combatant. However, some people wonder what his unique fighting style is. Well, the answer is martial arts. Annie is extremely skilled in martial arts, and her unique fighting style was a product of his adoptive father’s rigorous training. She mainly focuses on drawing the least possible movements to minimize the advantage of her stronger opponents.
She even shared her knowledge in martial arts with Eren as she teaches and trains him. Unfortunately, her fighting style was a giveaway and made Eren believe that she was the Female Titan.
Power of the Titans
As the Female Titan (女型の巨人 Megata no Kyojin), Annie stands 14 meters tall. She is among the third shortest Titan Powers, with the Cart Titan and Jaw Titan coming on top of that list.
With her skills and abilities, she can easily overpower the Survey Corps. She even wiped out several squads in Erwin‘s scouting formation. This is because of her learned powers and special Titan abilities. Here are some of Annie’s powers as the Female Titan:
Focused Regeneration
Like any other Titan Shifter, Annie can heal her injuries and regenerate her severed body parts. However, she is extremely skilled in controlling which areas she should focus on healing much faster as opposed to other Titan Shifters who can’t control the pace of their regeneration. She leveraged this ability when she only chose to regenerate one eye to the approaching Special Operations Squad and defeat them.
Hardening
As the Female Titan, Annie can crystallize her skin at will. This is similar to the Armored Titan’s power. However, Annie’s hardening abilities cannot be maintained for long periods, unlike the Armored Titan. So, she only uses this ability when it’s necessary.
In some cases, she hardens her fists and feet to cause major damages during attacks. Her hardening ability also comes in handy because it protected her when she was defeated by the Survey Corps. She generated a cocoon-like crystal and trapped herself inside to avoid being interrogated and experimented.
Titan Control
Annie can summon Pure Titans at a limited range like the Beast Titan. She used this skill to lead Titans near Shinganshina District before the Colossal Titan and Armored Titan broke Wall Maria. She was also smart to attract Titans to flee safely to safety.
Agility and Endurance
It is quite evident that Annie has better endurance and mobility compared to the other Titan Shifters. She doesn’t quickly tire out and can run long distances while fighting against the enemies. She was able to transform quickly without a long recovery period.
Adaptation
Are you wondering why the Female Titan has similar skills with the other Titan Shifters? It’s because of her adaptation skills. She is capable of imitating the powers of the other Titans, specifically their hardening abilities (Armored Titan), focused regeneration (War Hammer Titan), and Titan Control (Beast Titan).
Interesting Trivia Facts about Annie Leonhart
Annie Became Part of the Military at 16
Despite her age, Annie was the most qualified and experienced trained. That’s thanks to her early childhood training. She stood out from all the trainees in almost every aspect of the training. However, she didn’t take things seriously, often saying that the most talented fighters don’t want to be in the frontline and fight Titans.
Isayama carefully chose the name “Annie” for its meaning
Hajime Isayama, the Japanese manga artist and writer of Attack on Titan, love to hide easter eggs while writing the characters’ names and background. In this case, he chose the name “Annie” for its deeper meaning. The name “Anne” means “grace” or “favor,” while Leonhart is a portmanteau of two Spanish and Dutch words. It roughly translates as the bravest warriors during the Middle Age era.
Muay Thai inspired her Fighting Technique
Many fans noticed that Annie’s unique fighting technique was finesse and visually stunning. That’s because Muay Thai inspire her combat moves. She uses both her hands and legs to strike her opponents. Isayama inspired the said martial arts since it suits Annie’s physique and personality.
She was only thawed out after four years
Because Annie couldn’t defeat Eren in Mikasa in Stohess District, she tried to enclose her body in an indestructible crystal. She stayed there for nearly half a decade and was conscious the whole time. She was isolated from the rest of the world except when Hitch and Armin visited her. She only got out when Eren unhardened the Titans after four years.
FAQs
Question: When is Annie Leonhart’s Birthday?
Answer: Annie’s birthday is on March 22nd. She was first introduced as a 16-year old girl at the beginning of the story. Given that the story progressed for four years, Annie is supposed to be 20 years old. However, her real age might be quite a blur, as many fans speculated that she didn’t age while inside the crystal enclosure.
Question: Did Annie and Armin End up Together?
Answer: In chapter 131, Armin shared his dream with Annie, implying she will explore the world with him. While there’s no confirmation that they married by the end of chapter 139, they actually ended up in love and together as the story concluded.
Question: Did Annie and Her Adoptive Father Reunite?
Answer: Yes! Towards the end of the story, Annie realizes that her father was actually alive and wasn’t harmed by the Rumbling. They both reconciled and reunited. This was also the moment when Annie chose to fight alongside Mikasa and Armin to end Eren’s plans.
Annie Leonhart Guide: Bottom line
Many fans love three-dimensional characters; their colored past and deepest motivations are just as relatable as your everyday successes and failures. That’s why I, personally, like Annie – in a weird love-hate kind of way.
There are times when I clearly understand her actions and moments where her flaws baffle me. It’s quite telling how much character brings you in a rollercoaster ride of emotions. On one page, you’re cheering for her, and on the next, she’s just the worst you could imagine. And that’s what Annie brings to the story. She is a perfectly flawed character, and I’m definitely rooting for her on the animated series!