"Eighty percent," Eren said sorrowfully; the impersonal calculation of those killed in the Rumbling, Eren's global disaster, hardly brings levity to the fact that Attack On Titan has an unusual protagonist. Shnen is a genre that abounds with chosen heroes: characters who, for one reason or another, are hand-selected by fate to rise to the occasion and lead others to victory, optionally deploying The Power Of Friendship. Attack On Titan is dismal by comparison. There is no victory, no last hurrah; Eren's actual death is hardly more than a footnote in the epilogue.

There's nothing wrong with this trope in general; it's as old as written storytelling itself. However, it's not the story that Attack On Titan chooses to tell. Attack On Titan, in reality, is a story without a hero. At moments, it might have many heroes: Hange's unquestioning sacrifice; Levi's decision to revive Armin instead of Erwin...