Review by Frank Plowright

In combining what were Attack on Titan 7, 8 and 9 of the smaller paperbacks, this Omnibus starts midway through one battle, and finishes midway through another.

If there’s a theme other than humanity’s desperate battle against various giant forms of Titans, it’s that there’s more to the Titans than was previously known, although some humans zealously guard secrets. In Omnibus 1 it was surprising that Eren could take the form of a Titan, then transform back to human, and in Omnibus 2 humanity saw the first ever female Titan. Here another new form is introduced, a creature resembling a yeti and able to speak.

The female Titan is central to two-thirds of this collection. The previous volume led to her battling Eren in his giant form, and Hajime Isayama delivers that over a couple of dozen action pages with a later reprise. His combat scenes are sketchier than the remainder, distorted figures and speed lines very much to the front, but they convey the intensity of what’s going on. His greatest artistic strength is being able to vary the expressions on what’s become an increasingly large cast, although several don’t make it to the end of the collection.

Once the battle has been dealt with and the survey patrol return to a city, Isayama drops a beautifully understated revelation, and almost incidentally reveals the answer to another mystery. He’s not one to keep the plot pot boiling for too long, and almost immediately introduces a new puzzle undermining fundamental assumptions people have about what’s been going on, the military and readers alike. It’s very clever.

An assumption readers may have had was that the ten characters seen graduating at the top of their class in Omnibus 1 were going to be the core of the series, the young heroes through whose eyes desperate times would be experienced. That assumption needs to be revised. Isayama definitely has a purpose for them all, but it’s not straightforward. It’s also noticeable that story by story more people are being added to the biographical pages starting each volume, and by the end here that’s spread into the command structure, which will be increasingly influential going forward.

Until now Attack on Titan has been a series with a well conceived backstory and enough interesting characters to grip the attention, but a few matters Isayama has obviously had in mind from the beginning are now filtering through. It elevates the series from a commonplace action thriller to something more compelling.