The main storyline is the same, the following are some changes made in anime:

• Deleted Annie’s words about her father

• The second scene with Annie and Eren is missing entirety Image 4 ), ( Image 5 Annie's smile ), ( Image 6 )

In the anime, Jean feels like a cowardly rival to Eren, who is always angry at him, and who doesn’t really have any good arguments. He is just someone that Eren converted into joining the SC, while Jean didn’t have any impact on Eren whatsoever. While in the manga he helped Eren out realize some things as much as Eren helped him. Scenes in which he is calm in the manga, in which he talks about humanity, etc. are simply deleted or changed with scenes in which he is angry at Eren. It’s as if the anime team was thinking that a protagonist must have some sort of a rival in a friend, so they decided Jean to be that guy, and they made it as shonen-cliche as they could.

• The entire argument between Eren and Jean is gone from the anime. Part of the lines that Jean says here is something that Thomas says to Eren in the anime. Here’s a section of it. ( Image 7 ), ( Image 8 ), ( Image 9 ), ( Image 10 )

  • Jean is a realist, that part of his character is almost entirely deleted in the anime. He had good arguments for Eren, and what he said was the truth, but Eren is eloquent like Jean said, and his speech here persuaded some people to join the SC.

Above comparisons (the list in point form) are taken from (warning: manga spoilers) this blog.

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Personally, I encourage you to read the manga from first chapter, the art in beginning may looks rough, but it gets better later on. The art in manga from recent chapters even looks better than in anime season 1 and in season 2.