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Eren Yeager (エレン・イェーガー) is a fictional character appearing as the protagonist from the manga series Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama. Eren is a teenager who swears revenge on enormous creatures known as Titans that devour his mother. In order to defeat the Titans, Eren, alongside his childhood friends Mikasa and Armin, enlist in the Military and join the Survey Corps—an elite group of soldiers who fight Titans outside the walls. As the story progresses it is revealed Eren has the power of becoming a Titan which mankind uses to their advantage to defeat their enemies.

Critical reception to Eren's character has been mixed. While some critics called him a stereotypical male lead character, his actions across the story led to shocks and praises. Eren has also been popular within the Attack on Titan fanbase and anime in general.

Creation and design
Author Hajime Isayama stated that Eren's wish to go outside the city's walls is similar to his own when he was a child: He lived in a rural Japanese town surrounded by mountains. One day, he wanted to go beyond the mountains, which reflected in the town surrounded by walls in the manga where Eren lived in the series' beginning. The character's Titan form's physique was modeled after middleweight mixed martial artist Yushin Okami. Japanese actor Yūki Kaji commented on how it was important that he should voice Eren's Titan form because he believes it is an extension of the character. He had a meal with Isayama after he visited the recording studio and the manga artist told him he found Eren quite a difficult character but complimented Kaji by saying "You know Eren already", which gave him confidence.

English voice actor Bryce Papenbrook got excited when he got the role of Eren as he was a fan of the show before it was announced that it would be dubbed into English. As a result, he viewed this as an advantage as he managed to understand the character beforehand. He was excited because Eren was different from his previous characters despite sharing a similar age and vocal range, He commented "It's a very raw sound. Some of the noises he pulled out of me were just disgusting. I loved it. I loved every second of it." Papenbrook noted how different was Eren from his previous role as noted in the delivery of emotions and notable screams. There were three different kinds of voices he used for Eren: One for his kid persona, another deeper for his young adult self and a third "which was different from anything else." He recorded all three of those, and "there were noises that were required that were just disgusting and nasty."

In Attack on Titan
Eren is introduced as a teenager in the town of Shiganshina who wishes to join the Survey Corps in order to explore the outside world beyond the walls. When the Titans invade his town, he watches in horror as one of them eats his mother. He vows to annihilate all Titans, and joins the military. In training, Eren possesses no particular talent aside from his close combat skills. However, his resolve, determination, and sense of purpose ensured a steady improvement in his grades, and he eventually places fifth overall in his graduating class.

Parts of Eren's past are revealed through the series. Prior to the events of the series at age nine, Eren and his father were planning to meet Mikasa Ackerman and her family, but he discovers that her parents have been killed and she is held hostage. He kills two of the captors and convinces Mikasa the kill the third as he is being strangled by the latter. Eren also has a brief encounter with his father who entrusts him with a key to the basement of their house in Shiganshina while injecting him with a mysterious liquid.

During The Struggle for Trost storyline, Eren is swallowed by a Titan when he sacrifices himself to save his friend Armin. However, he reappears as a 15-meter class Titan that attacks the other Titans and disregards humans before Mikasa and Armin realize his identity. Though he is distrusted initially by the military, especially due to his inability to control himself in Titan form, Eren earns a place in the Special Operations Squad. Shortly after joining, he is chased by a female Titan who kills several of his comrades. With help of his superior ,Levi, and Mikasa, Eren is saved from the Titan. He later encounters and defeats the Titan alongside his allies.

When encountering the Titan that devoured his mother years earlier during his kidnapping by Reiner and Bertolt, who are the human forms of the Titans responsible for the Shiganshina attack, Eren develops a new ability to mentally control other Titans. After first subconsciously directing a group to kill and devour the Titan that killed his mother, he then directs the Titans to attack the Armored Titan so he and his friends can escape back to within the Walls. After being rescued, Eren is sent with his friends to an isolated village while preparations are made for a campaign to retake Wall Maria for good, by making use of his newfound power.

Other media
Outside the manga and anime, Eren also appears in Attack on Titan: Junior High where he is presented as a student from high school who is obsessed with the Titans. He is also a playable character in the Attack on Titan video game for the Nintendo 3DS. His Titan form also makes an appearance in the game. Jin Haganeya's visual novel In the Forest of the Night, Burning Bright has Eren and Levi as the leading characters.

Reception
Critical reception to Eren's character has been varied. Hope Chapman from Anime News Network referred to Eren as "almost deliberately not a 'likable' protagonist, even by 15-year-old boy standards" based on his rude behavior and intelligence. The reason he praised him was for his feelings, hopes, and dreams which inspire others. Bamboo Dong from the same site was fond on Eren's Titan abilities as he "there has not been anything as uncomfortable for me to watch as Eren chomping into his own hand, trying to transform. There is something visceral and real about Eren drawing blood from his own hand, and boy, it gave me the chills," and later praised his thoughts when fighting the Female Titan due to the portrayal of Eren's humanity despite being a a Titan. Blu-ray.com praised the plot developments of Eren in the early episodes which surprised him. The relationship between Eren and Mikasa Ackerman has been popular within the fandom as some suggested a romantical relationship between those two. However, mangabookshelf's Sean Gaffney has refused to ship these two characters in such form based on how the two are close familiars.

When seeing his initial transformation, Charizanis was surprised by the character's rage against the Titans. Elijah Watson from Complex liked the twist of a Titan fighting for mankind and was impressed by the beat up it laid. Charizanis once again expressed his surprise on the character's thoughts in the final episode which made him look like The Joker due to his amusement when thinking of killing the Female Titan. Other writers were more critical on the character. THEM Anime Reviews found him as a "a frustrating protagonist" based on his fits of rage often seen as childish. Elliot Gay from Japanator called him a "typical shonen manga lead" based on some of his cliche traits and instead found Mikasa and Armin more appealing. Similarly, Anna N. from Mangashelf called him a "fairly typical brash and opinionated shonen hero." On the other hand, Justin Wu from the Articife saw Eren's hotheadness as a positive trait of the character.

In the Newtype anime awards, Eren was voted as eighth best male character. Japanese anime portal AnimeOne also made a poll involving the Attack on Titan characters and Eren was ranked third. His Titan form was also ranked nineteenth. He was ranked second best Attack on Titan character in a poll from the Shingeki no Kyojin Guide Book INSIDE guidebook. In the Anime Grand Prix 2014, Eren ranked as the fourth most popular male anime character.