Attack on Titan: No Regrets Review — Levi's Origin Story, Two Volumes, Complete

Before Levi was Humanity's Strongest Soldier, he was a criminal from the underground city beneath the walls — a place the sun never reaches, where the poor live without sky. He had two people: Isabel Magnolia and Furlan Church. They were his whole world.

I'm Yu. No Regrets is two volumes and it does more with that length than most series do with twenty.

Quick Take

• Gun Snark and Hikaru Suruga's Attack on Titan: No Regrets (進撃の巨人 悔いなき選択) is a 2-volume complete prequel to Attack on Titan collected from Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine.
• Kodansha USA published the complete English edition; both volumes available in print and digital.
• Rated T+ (Older Teen) — underground poverty depicted seriously; titan violence; significant character deaths that are emotionally costly.

Story Overview

Erwin Smith is looking for skilled fighters willing to join the Survey Corps — the soldiers who go outside the walls and die in enormous numbers fighting Titans. He finds Levi, Isabel, and Furlan in the underground city and makes them an offer: join the Survey Corps and avoid criminal charges.

They join. The two volumes follow their integration into the Corps, their first expedition outside the walls, and the events that produce the Levi the main series shows — his specific loyalty to those under his command, his coldness, his relationship to loss.

The underground city is rendered as a real place: its poverty is specific, its social structure is specific, and the three people living in it have built a community that is small and complete. The two volumes spend their first half establishing that community so that the reader understands what the second half costs.

Characters

Levi — The main series shows you who Levi is. No Regrets shows you what made him that person. His coldness is retroactively explained here; so is his loyalty to soldiers under his command and his specific relationship to sacrifice.

Isabel Magnolia — The series' most vivid character: intensely alive, warmly attached to Levi, enthusiastic in a way that contrasts with the underground's grimness. She is present in these two volumes in a way that makes what happens to her the spinoff's most emotionally costly content.

Furlan Church — The strategist of the three. His planning has consequences that run through the full arc; his relationship with Isabel and Levi is the community they built in the underground.

Erwin Smith — Younger here than in the main series, but already the person who calculates outcomes across long timescales and acts with that calculation rather than sentiment.

What I Love About It

Isabel. She arrives with complete personality in two volumes — her energy, her specific attachments, the way she orients toward the world. The series knows exactly what she means to Levi, and it uses that knowledge precisely.

The spinoff does not manufacture drama. It sets up what it is going to do and then does it without sentimentality or inflation. The restraint is what makes it devastating.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The event that defines what Levi's loyalty costs him — the specific loss that produces the soldier he becomes in the main series — is handled without melodrama. Suruga draws the aftermath in a few pages, and the restraint is the point. Levi does not perform grief. What you see is what he becomes.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Two volumes is perfect for the content — tight, complete, no padding.
• Isabel is one of the franchise's most immediately compelling characters.
• Recontextualizes Levi's entire main-series persona.
• Works as standalone reading for anyone who has reached Levi's introduction in the main series.

Cons:

• Requires sufficient main series familiarity to appreciate the context it provides.
• Character deaths are significant and inevitable — readers who don't want that context should read the main series first.
• Short length means each loss is compressed.

Is Attack on Titan: No Regrets Worth Reading?

Yes — for any Attack on Titan reader who wants to understand Levi. The two-volume commitment is minimal and the emotional return is disproportionately large.

Who Is This Manga For?

• Attack on Titan readers who want Levi's backstory in full.
• Anyone who wants the emotional context for Levi's behavior in the main series.
• Fans looking for a short, complete spinoff with genuine weight.
• Readers who want to understand the Erwin-Levi relationship's origin.

Official English Translation Status

Kodansha USA published both English volumes. Complete and available in print and digital.

Where to Buy

Both English volumes are available in print and digital from Kodansha.

Browse Attack on Titan: No Regrets on Amazon →

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