How can you tell a first printing of Attack on Titan?

Turn to the last page. Japanese manga prints its printing history inside the book.

Japanese collected volumes carry a colophon (the okuzuke) on the final pages, and it states the printing plainly: the publication date and the impression number, conventionally read as “first edition, first printing” followed by the date that impression was issued. A first-printing copy of Attack on Titan volume 1 shows the impression line dated at the book’s launch window, March 2010; a later impression of the same volume shows a later date with the same ISBN.

Supporting evidence sits around the colophon rather than in it: an intact obi (the paper band around the dust jacket, printed with the launch campaign copy) and, on limited editions, the correct bundled extras for that volume’s ISBN. Two cautions govern the whole shelf. ISBN alone proves nothing, since impressions share it; and a volume’s printing line must be checked in hand or from a photograph of the colophon page, not from a listing’s title. Sellers who photograph the okuzuke are telling you they know what they have.

Attack on Titan volume 34 special edition Beginning cover — **BEGINNING**The volume 34 special edition carried Beginning, a booklet of Isayama’s draft pages, the kind of variant printing hunters learn to spot.

THE CHECKS, IN ORDER

Five minutes with the book

1 · Open the back

Japanese books read right to left; the colophon sits at the physical back, the last printed page before the jacket flap.

2 · Read the impression line

The line gives the impression number and its date. First printing of volume 1 dates to March 2010; each volume’s first impression matches its launch month in the gallery.

3 · Check the obi

A first-impression obi carries the original campaign text and, on anime-era volumes, the anime announcement. Reprint obis advertise later milestones instead.

4 · Match the ISBN variant

Many volumes exist in standard and limited editions with different ISBNs and different contents. The colophon’s ISBN must match the edition in hand, not just the volume number.

How can you tell a first printing of Attack on Titan?

THE CHECKS, IN ORDER

THE FIRST WORD