On That Day, Humanity Received a Grim Reminder

Submission 27,432

Part of a series on Attack on Titan / Shingeki No Kyojin. [View Related Entries]

About

On That Day, Humanity Received a Grim Reminder is a copypasta taken from the first episode of Attack on Titan, spoken by Eren upon seeing the first colossal titan peering over the walls of his sheltered city. It has become an iconic line in the series, although there are several other translations of the line in english dubs and subs. It is most referenced in parodies in which a different, more humorous giant character appears in the titan's place is photoshopped into the scene.

Origin

The initial Attack on Titan manga released on March 17th, 2010.^[1] "On that day, humanity received a grim reminder" is the first line of the series, though that exact phrasing of the line has not appeared in an official translation of the anime. The official manga translation^[2] translated the line as "That day, the human race remembered…" (shown below, top). The English-subtitled anime on Crunchyroll translates the line as "On that day, mankind remembered…" (shown below, bottom). Netflix and Hulu also have slightly different translations of the line.

On August 25th, 2013, a Redditor on /r/OutOfTheLoop^[3] inquired about references to the "Grim Reminder" line appearing on Tumblr. There, a user included a screencap featuring subtitles which included the phrasing "On that day, humanity received a grim reminder" (shown below). On May 15th, 2015, Redditor H-K_47^[4] stated it was from a fan sub of the anime, which is said to be from gg subs.^[7] The phrase is also used in the Episode 3 next episode preview in the dub.^[5]

Spread

In the years following the anime's debut, the "Grim Reminder" phrasing of the line became one of the most widely parodied of the series, and was often paired with images resembling that of the titan peering over the wall. On July 23rd, 2014, Tumblr user pencilcat^[6] posted a poster for The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies film and captioned it "On that day, humanity received a grim reminder" (shown below, left). On November 25th, 2018, iFunny user Dialga posted a screenshot from Pokémon Let's Go! with the caption (shown below, right).

More commonly, the shot of the titan peering over the wall was used with the caption in photoshops in which humorous characters were in the titan's place. For example, /r/Animemes user TheBardoo posted a Savage Patrick meme with a reference to the "grim reminder" line, gaining over 890 points (shown below, left). On January 7th, 2014, Imgur user TTwaRRioR posted it as a reference to Wrecking Ball (shown below, right).