Attack on Titan Day Date in the current year: September 9, 2026

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is a Japanese manga series created by Hajime Isayama. His debut work, it was originally released as a one-shot in 2006 and then ran as a series from 2009 to 2021, becoming one of the best-selling manga series of all time and winning several prestigious industry awards.

Attack on Titan is set in a world where the remaining humans are trying to survive attacks from gigantic man-eating humanoids called Titans. They live in a territory enclosed by three concentric walls for protection. The series’ protagonist is Eren Yeager, a teenager whose mother was killed and whose hometown was destroyed by Titans. Swearing vengeance, he joins the elite Survey Corps, which fights Titans outside the walls and studies them.

Throughout the series, Isayama introduced revelations that expanded the world-building, reframed previous events, and showed that the world was much more complicated than Eren and the other characters originally thought. These revelations shifted Eren’s perspective, allowing for a challenging character arc that transformed him from a conventional protagonist into a villain.

Although some reviewers criticized the manga’s early artwork as somewhat crude, the series was generally well-received, earning praise for its strong world-building, narrative foreshadowing, and characters. As previously mentioned, Attack on Titan was also very commercially successful, selling more than 140 million copies by 2023.

Like many successful manga series, Attack on Titan has spawned a media franchise that includes several spin-off manga written and illustrated by different authors, as well as light novels, an anime series, a live-action film, a musical adaptation, video games, and more. The anime adaptation ran for four seasons from 2013 to 2023 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Like the original manga series, it was praised for its characters and storytelling. It also received praise for its medium-specific elements, such as animation, voice acting, action sequences, and soundtrack.

The Japan Anniversary Association was established in 1991 to promote and develop anniversary culture in Japan. In 2026, the association designated September 9 as Attack on Titan Day. The date was chosen because the first issue of Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, which included the first chapter of Attack on Titan, was published on this day in 2009. The date 9/9 is also symbolic because there are nine Titan powers in the story.

Although the manga has ended, Attack on Titan Day is marked by the release of new illustrations, merchandise, promotional materials, and announcements about the media franchise. For example, the inaugural celebration included the launch of the official Attack on Titan YouTube channel.