Fighting Styles of Attack on Titan Part 1: Annie Leonhart

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) has quickly turned into one of my favorite anime/manga of all time. Its visceral action and haunting death scenes are all appropriately done and not over the top a la gorefests such as Elfen Lied or Another. Like Legend of Korra, the creator, Hajime Isayama, is a fan of mixed martial arts and this is reflected in the detail given to certain techniques within the manga and to some extent, the anime.

Possibly my favorite character in the series thus far is Annie Leonhart, a small 5 foot tall teenage girl enlisted with the Military Police. She's stoic, apathetic and selfish, but packs a considerable punch. The thing I find most interesting about her is her combat style. I've read many posts on various forums speculating what martial art Annie uses; I've heard Savate, Jiu-Jitsu, Combat Sambo and others. The goal of this post is to elucidate at a technical level exactly what techniques from what martial arts she fights with.

Annie stands fairly upright, guard high and arms extended while keeping her weight on the back leg with the front leg light. This type of stance is nearly synonymous with a traditional Muay Thai stance. Muay Thai is a Thai kickboxing martial art with an emphasis on utilizing the "eight limbs" of fists, elbows, knees and shins. The high guard, while it may look rather silly at first glance, is useful for throwing elbows and initiating a Thai clich, a clinch with both hands around the base of the opponents skull to control the head and allow for knees to be thrown in close proximity. UFC fighter Shogun Rua is a well-practiced MMA fighter known for his brutal Muay Thai techniques. Her stance synergizes well with her combat style, relying mainly on the use of her legs. The narrow and upright stance makes it much easier to raise the legs for throwing or checking kicks. Other than Annie's stance, she also displays Muay Thai prowess in combat, pacticularly with her kicks. She's able to utilize kicks in most situations to either sweep or strike. 

Shogun's traditional Muay Thai stance.

The skillfulness of Annie's sweeps come into motion during the trainees' hand-to-hand combat training, where Annie very easily sweeps Eren with a leg trip. This seemingly effortless motion is commonly utilized by Muay Thai fighters to score easy points for a takedown during a fight when an opponent has overextended on a kick or in this case, a knife thrust. Probably the most prolific user of sweeps such as this is Muay Thai fighter Saenchai. A video with some clips of his sweeps is linked here. Aside of leg sweeps, Annie also shows some ability with wrestling, where she is able to take down Eren during training with an arm-triangle throw.

Annie's kicks are incredibly potent as well, as she throws her kicks with Muay Thai technique, winding up her roundhouse kick to the side from her neutral stance. Winding up the kick from the side immediately allows the abs and more of the body weight to be thrown into the kick, generating more force and potentially more damage to the target. This is opposed to other kicking styles such as Taekwondo, where the chamber is to the front for almost every kick and the snapping motion of the hips right before meeting the target is where most of the force is generated for a roundhouse kick. Using her Muay Thai style, Annie is able to kick off the top half of Eren's head during their battle as Titans

Defensively, Annie fights much more like a Western kickboxer or out-fighter, dodging with bobs and slips to avoid danger and keeping a good distance away from her opponent. Mostly likely this is due to her being smaller as both a Titan and human in comparison to her opponents and blocking traditionally would not be the best sustaining option for a fight. However, she is still able to use her hands effectively in a defense manner, parrying Eren's punches and counter striking during their fight outside the walls. During their final encounter, Annie is able to block Eren's straight by holding her hand against the back of her head and blocking with the elbow out, causing Eren's fist to meet the pointed end of her elbow. This type of static guard isn't seen much in Muay Thai or MMA because of how precise the block would have to be and how straight the punch would have to be to not slip past the guard and slam into the defender's face.

Hopefully this clears up confusion and/or speculation about Annie's fighting and as a Muay Thai practitioner, it was a lot of fun to break down her technique.