Armin is one of the main characters in both the manga Attack on Titan like the live-action movies based on it. Although both versions of Armin share some similarities, they are also very different.
The film writers made drastic changes to various characters and the films were released years before the manga came to an end, which caused many things affecting Armin’s character arc to be left out in the films.
10 Movie Armin’s Father Was Still Alive
Armin’s parents wanted to escape from Paradis and see the outside world in the anime and manga. His interest in the world was what originally made Armin want to become a soldier. Armin’s parents left him behind at a young age, and his grandfather raised him for a few years after they flew off the walls in a hot air balloon.
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However, the military killed them, as well as anyone who tried to know the world. This never happened in the film and Armin’s father was still alive at the beginning of the film.
9 Movie Armin Was An Inventor
Armin is one of the smartest characters in all the adaptations of attack on Titan. While in the manga and anime he was a genius who learned the identities of armored, female and colossal titans and devised many strategies that led his teammates to victory, in the movies he was smart for different reasons.
One of the ways that Armin was smart in the movies and not in the source material is that he was an inventor and could easily fix things. He made things for the children and fixed them when they broke.
8 Movie Armin’s Friendship With Mikasa Changed
Although Armin and Mikasa are friends at first from both the source material and the first film, their friendship changes in each adaptation. Rather than grow even closer and support each other through thick and thin in the manga and anime, Armin and Mikasa went on very different paths after being separated in the movies.
During that time, Armin believed that she was dead when in fact she was being trained to become an incredibly powerful soldier. Once they were reunited, she was hesitant to be friends with her again, but they eventually reconnected with her.
7 The Movie Armin And The Movie Jean Didn’t Get Along
Another of Armin’s best friends throughout the series was Jean. While Eren and Jean bickered a lot throughout the source material, Armin and Jean always got along. However, in the movie, Armin and Jean started off on the wrong foot.
As Armin talked about defeating the Titans, like Eren did in the manga and anime, Jean joined the conversation and told him that none of the new soldiers would be useful if the experienced ones died. Jean made it clear that she didn’t think anyone around her had the skill to defeat his enemies, which made everyone immediately dislike her.
6 Movie Sasha Was His Love Interest
Although the source material doesn’t have many canon relationships, many fans thought that Armin and Annie would make a great couple. Since Annie does not appear in either film, Armin developed a close relationship with Sasha, who became his love interest.
Although Sasha and Armin were good friends and great partners who fought together due to their skill with ranged weapons in the manga and anime, they did not have any romantic feelings for each other.
5 The Armin Of The Movies Didn’t Take Himself That Seriously
Due to how smart Armin is, he was treated with a lot of respect in the anime and manga. He saved the lives of his friends at the Garrison, found out that Annie, Bertholdt, and Reiner were Titan Changelings, and even came up with so many great strategies that Erwin trusted him for help after only meeting him for a few months.
In the movies, Armin wasn’t treated with as much respect, in part because he wasn’t that useful to the military.
4 Movie Armin Never Became A Changeling Titan
Although Bertholdt was the heir to the Colossal Titan in the source material, Armin ended up eating him. Bertholdt was about to kill him until Levi injected Armin with the Titan serum and ensured that he ate his enemy, taking his place as the Colossal Titan.
In the movies, instead of Bertholdt being the heir to the Colossal Titan, it was Kubal. Armin never ate Kubal, nor did he even transform into a Titan at any point in the movies, and thus did not gain the power of the Colossal Titan.
3 Movie Armin did not become the Commander of the Survey Corps
Towards the end of the manga, Hange sacrificed himself so his teammates could get to Eren and fight him. However, before dying, Hange told Armin that he would take his place as commander of the Survey Corps.
Just like he didn’t inherit the Colossal Titan, this is another thing he never got to do in the movies. However, due to how much he changed into Armin in that adaptation, he didn’t really have what it takes to be a commander anyway.
2 The Movie Armin Didn’t End The Rumble
In the source material, Eren used the Rumbling to kill most of the people outside of Paradis. His friends considered this unforgivable and did their best to stop him. When they reached Eren, Armin was taken to the coordinate, where he spoke with Zeke about the meaning of life.
By helping Zeke understand that life does have value, he was able to stop Eren from controlling the previous heirs of the Nine Titans and blow up the Colossal Titans inside the walls, ending the Rumbling. In the movies, Eren never started the Rumbling, so none of this happened.
1 Movie In Which Armin Didn’t Fight Eren
In the manga and anime, Eren and Armin stopped being close friends. Eren had changed a lot and Armin felt that he no longer knew who he was, especially when he started killing thousands of innocent people. The two fought twice in the source material.
The first time was a small fist fight as humans, while the second was an epic battle between Eren and his former friends, while he and Armin were on their Titans. By the end of the movies, Eren and Armin were as close as ever and had no reason to fight.