Short answers, pulled from the story.
Attack on Titan was written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. It began serialization in the first issue of Kodansha's Bessatsu Shonen Magazine on the 9th of September 2009 and ran until the 9th of April 2021, ending after 139 chapters and eleven years.
By November 2023, the Attack on Titan manga had over 140 million copies in circulation worldwide, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. Its twelfth volume received a first print run of 2.2 million copies, one of only three manga ever to exceed 2 million initial copies.
Wit Studio produced seasons 1 through 3, with director Tetsuro Araki leading the first season, which aired from April to September 2013. MAPPA took over for the fourth and final season, which began in December 2020 and concluded in two television specials, the second airing on the 5th of November 2023.
Isayama traced the fear the Titans convey to a real incident in which a drunken customer at an internet cafe grabbed him by the collar, showing him what it felt like to face someone he could not communicate with. He also cited Muv-Luv Alternative, Gyaos from the Gamera franchise, The War of the Gargantuas, and the Jurassic Park series as influences on the concept of carnivorous giants.
Attack on Titan won the 35th Kodansha Manga Award for Best Shonen Manga in 2011, the 17th Attilio Micheluzzi Award for Best Foreign Series in 2014, and the 27th Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 2014. In 2021, its oversized Attack on Titan for Giants volume broke the Guinness World Record for the largest comic book ever published.
South Korean media accused the series of promoting a militaristic message aligned with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's political views. A 2010 blog post revealed that Isayama modeled the character Dot Pixis on Imperial Japanese General Akiyama Yoshifuru, whose record included atrocities during Japan's occupation of Korea and China. By 2015, China's Ministry of Culture banned Attack on Titan along with 37 other anime and manga titles.