Attack on Titan’s greatest romance culminated in a gross act of love — I wouldn’t have it any other way

The last thing Attack on Titan can be accused of is being a romance. Love exists in the margins of the series, and it rarely survives long enough to blossom in the show’s ultra-violent story. Outside of the star-crossed lovers Armin Arlert and Annie Leonhart, nearly every pairing is marked by tragedy. But the darkest romance of them all is the complicated bond between Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman, which begins in the anime’s very first moments and reaches its disturbing climax in the series finale.

After years of circling each other, hesitant to reveal their feelings, they finally share a kiss — immediately after Mikasa decapitates Eren. As shocking and unsettling as this is, the moment captures the harshest truth of the series: the world is both brutal and strangely beautiful.

Eren and Mikasa meet at a young age, when Eren saves her from a group of kidnappers looking to sell her into sexual slavery. A nine-year-old Eren arrives just in time and kills her attackers, except for one, who Mikasa has to confront herself. In that moment, she understands the duality of life, channeling two memories at once: her mother’s murder at the hands of those would-be kidnappers, and a beautiful butterfly falling prey to a praying mantis.

Later, once they’re safe, Eren offers the stoic Mikasa his scarf for warmth. In that instant, they fall for each other. Through death and tragedy, Mikasa finds love, and the tension between life’s cruelty and beauty would define their relationship. Eren, however, ignores that love, focusing solely on his hatred of the people and Titans who made the world cruel and stole his freedom.

Image: Wit Studio

After this incident, Eren’s parents adopt Mikasa, creating a familial love that overshadows their potential romance. Throughout the series, they face countless deadly situations that test their bond, giving audiences the sense that these moments could reveal or ignite their love, but they never do.

Eren finally understands how Mikasa feels when his Titan abilities give him a glimpse of the past and future. However, he also learns that he will bring about the end of the world as they know it. To protect Mikasa, Eren distances himself by being cruel and manipulating her feelings.

Up until this point, Eren had never recognized Mikasa’s feelings, which forced him to confront his own. Though he knew he was fated to follow his premonition, he desperately wanted Mikasa to confess her love so they could escape together and avoid his destiny. Using his ability to see the future and its possibilities, Eren experienced a life where they escaped the conflict to live quietly together. But even then, their relationship was doomed, either torn apart by war or cut short by Eren’s inevitable early death from the Titan curse, which claims its holders 13 years after gaining their powers.

Image: Mappa

Over time, Eren’s increasingly dark and murderous actions become impossible for Mikasa to defend, until ultimately, the truth comes out. Eren reveals that every horrible thing he’s done was in the hopes of pushing Mikasa away so she wouldn’t grieve him after he’s gone. Once she knows the truth, Mikasa steels herself to do what she knows is necessary: kill the man she loves to set him free.

For Eren and Mikasa, in every possible reality, their farewell was always inevitable. It is a cruel truth, yet it is also part of life’s beauty. The world can be a terrible place, even more so in Attack on Titan. But through the grief and heartache around every corner, there is a tiny pocket of light that reminds people that life is worth living, even in its darkest moments. So when the shippers finally get what they wanted, but with a brutally dark twist, it’s all love, heartbreak, ugly, tragic, and impossibly beautiful all at once.