Ilse's Notebook: Notes from a Scout Regiment Member

During the Scout Regiment's 49th expedition beyond the Walls in the year 850, Hange Zoë lobbies Levi, Miche, and finally Commander Erwin for permission to capture a live Titan, and is refused at every turn; establishing a forward base takes precedence. When Miche spots a Titan lingering in a nearby forest, Hange gallops straight at it, attempting conversation instead of combat, with Levi's squad ordered to follow. The chase reverses when the Abnormal abruptly loses interest, returns to the woods, and starts butting its head against one particular tree. Hange's approach provokes an attack, and Oruo Bozad's rescue attempt nearly gets him eaten after Hange yells for him to hold back. Levi severs the Titan's arm, kills it, and furiously dresses Hange down, but Petra then notices a corpse wedged inside the tree's hollow. It is Ilse Langnar, a Scout lost a year prior on the 34th expedition, and her notebook lies in the grass nearby.

The notebook reconstructs her last hours. Her squad wiped out and her gear broken, Ilse crossed Wall Rose's territory on foot, documenting everything. A Titan found her in a forest, yet did not attack. Instead it formed words, addressing her as a Subject of Ymir, then bowing with the greeting "Lady Ymir... Well met." Ilse scribbled it all down and pressed it with questions about where Titans come from and why they devour people. Silence. When she screamed her fury at its kind, the creature ripped the skin from its own face, ran her down, and crushed her head in its jaws, after which it tucked her body into the tree.

Armed with the diary, Hange drafts a proposal arguing that capture operations should resume so Ilse's work can continue, and personally delivers the notebook to the Langnar family. Erwin approves. Eight days later, using a new method Hange devised and supported by Levi's Special Operations Squad, the Scouts take a Titan alive without a single casualty, their first successful capture since Wall Maria fell.

An Abnormal Titan leads Hange's party to the tree holding Ilse Langnar's remains, and Levi recovers the notebook she kept until the moment of her death.

Ilse's record describes a Titan that spoke, named her a Subject of Ymir, and bowed to "Lady Ymir," one of the series' earliest hints at the truth behind the Titans.

The same Titan killed Ilse when she demanded answers, tearing at its own face before biting her head off and storing her corpse in the tree.

Erwin reverses his stance on Titan capture; Hange's new technique bags a live specimen eight days later with zero losses, the first such success since the fall of Wall Maria.

The OVA adapts the special manga chapter Ilse's Notebook and was directed by Hirokazu Yamada from a Hiroshi Seko script, produced by Wit Studio and Production I.G. Japan received it on December 9, 2013, bundled with the special edition of manga volume 12; the English side got a subtitled DVD with volume 17's special edition on December 1, 2015, and a dub on May 8, 2022. Streaming services list it as "Ilse's Notebook: Memoirs of a Scout Regiment Member."

A dating inconsistency exists: the OVA sets the discovery of Ilse's body in 850, while the Attack on Titan Guidebook places those events in 849. The knowledge segment notes that Titan behavior suggests slaughter rather than predation, since they have no need to eat.