To You, in 2000 Years: The Fall of Shiganshina, Part 1

A colossal hand grips the top of Wall Maria while a narrator recounts the grim reminder humanity received that day: their walls were a pen, and they were the cattle inside it. Earlier, beyond the barrier, Scout Regiment soldiers swarm a Titan in a forest, an operation aimed at planting humanity's first foothold outside.

Inside Shiganshina, Eren wakes crying from a dream he cannot recall. He and Mikasa pass drunk Garrison soldiers at the gate, and Eren argues with the family friend Hannes about complacency, comparing life inside the fifty-meter Walls to livestock in a cage. Bells announce the Scouts' return, and the parade is a funeral march: a fraction of the expedition survives, and when a grieving mother asks whether her son Moses died meaningfully, the commander Keith Sadies confesses the mission achieved nothing at all. Bystanders sneer about wasted taxes until Eren lashes out at one, and Mikasa drags him away, then asks whether he still intends to enlist.

Over dinner, Mikasa exposes Eren's ambition to his parents. Carla erupts, Grisha instead observes that curiosity cannot be lectured away and promises to finally show Eren the secret basement when he returns from a house call. Eren storms out, rescues Armin from bullies simply by arriving with Mikasa behind him, and the three trade heresies by the river: the government treats curiosity about anything beyond the Walls as heresy, yet Armin doubts the barriers guarantee anything. The ground shakes on cue. A titan sixty meters tall appears above the gate, and its kick blasts stone across the district as ordinary Titans pour through the breach.

Eren and Mikasa race home to find the house flattened with Carla pinned beneath it. Her legs are crushed; she orders the children to run while a Titan closes in. Hannes arrives, vows to slay the monster and repay his debt to the family, then loses his nerve at the sight of the smiling Titan and flees carrying both children instead.

From over Hannes' shoulder, Eren watches the Titan clear the debris, lift his mother, snap her spine in its grip, and devour her. The image that will drive the entire story is burned in: a helpless boy screaming at a monster wearing a smile.

The premiere episode of the anime, produced by Wit Studio alongside Production I.G, directed by Tetsurō Araki and Hiroyuki Tanaka from a Yasuko Kobayashi script. Japan aired it April 7, 2013; the US followed on May 3, 2014. It adapts the first two manga chapters and opens The Fall of Shiganshina arc.

The title's meaning unspools across the whole series: Episode 40 alludes to a royal line unbroken for two millennia, Episode 57 dates the Titan power to Ymir Fritz, and Episode 80, From You, 2,000 Years Ago, completes the pairing. The information segment lays out the three-Wall geography, Maria to Rose spanning roughly 100 kilometers and Rose to Sina about 130 more.