The beauty of Mikasa Ackerman
It’s been about three years since the Attack on Titan (AOT) manga ended, about five months since the anime adaptation had its conclusion, and I still love Hajime Isayama’s story from the beginning to the end. With relatable and realistic characters, heavy but true themes, and an honest perspective on figuring out our complicated humanity, I believe AOT will always be a special story to help us consider how to navigate this “cruel and beautiful” world…without seeing genocide as viable and acceptable option, of course (I’m still narrowing my eyes at you, “Eren was right” apologists — Eren himself even acknowledged that he wasn’t. C’mon now).
But today, I just wanted to write and rave about my favorite character in the entire story: Mikasa Ackerman!
I know there are strong feelings about her character, especially when it comes to likability. And while some of the Mikasa-hate narratives used to bother me (and I won’t lie, some weird ones still do), I’ve come to accept that it’s just the nature of different opinions, even if some of those opinions are a true bummer.
Just as a quick observation, from what I’ve seen over the years, reasons why Mikasa is disliked by many include:
- People find her motives simple and therefore boring or unlikeable. And, when people dislike a character, they tend to exaggerate the things they hate about them and minimize the qualities of the character that show the opposite of what they are claiming to hate. Or, they can’t tolerate characters making flawed decisions.
It’s true that Mikasa’s motivations and ambitions in life are simple: she wants to have a safe and secure life with the man she loves, especially after experiencing so much chaos and loss. But is wanting such a life in itself really such a bad thing? Boring, uninteresting? Sure, for many, that might be. But bad? There’s plenty of people in this world who want simple, basic things with the people they love. And that’s their genuine desires and choice. Why do people have to have great ambitions to be worth something? The tragedy in Mikasa’s situation is, it just so happens that the person she loves is someone who could not give her that life, both because of who he was as a person and because he was destined to die an early death due to the curse (per Eren’s own words to Zeke on why he chose not to further a romantic relationship with Mikasa), and that’s the tragedy that was part of her arc to accept: she cannot save him from himself, no matter how hard she tries. She doesn’t get her ideal happy ending. But even within her loss, she can make meaning with the memories of Eren that she does treasure while doing the right thing, and can still move forward in life. She relinquishes the responsibility she put on herself of being the keeper of Eren’s life to being the one who ended it. The journey of accepting what you can and cannot control is real and relatable to me, and I highly appreciate how her arc doesn’t stray away from the reality of psychological dialectics, despite fandom being obsessed with black and white thinking (even though real life isn’t even that way and is mostly gray).
- Shipping and other personal projections. Especially people who ship her love interest, Eren, with other characters (or vice versa). At this point, I’m personally more inclined to believe that this is the number one reason, no matter how many people will try to deny it (only to follow up with reasons why her or Eren’s other ships would be healthier better “for the narrative”…despite the narrative itself telling us that Eren doesn’t see a point in pursuing romance and Eren having been a toxic and unstable individual to/for every character by the end of the story). People even hate Mikasa because Eren loved her back, hating her because of how another character feels about her. In all honesty, it’s pretty lame. But, parasocial relationships that haters have with their favorite ship aside, I’ve learned that all the shipping arguments that have to do with Mikasa and Eren’s ship (known as “EreMika”), as well as their ships with other characters, exist in every single other fandom that has shipping wars at this point. None of the arguments are new or original, and people just see what they want to see. I do think the most annoying things about shippings wars in both Attack on Titan and other fandoms, though, is that women who are friends and supportive of each other in the story are being pitted against each other for needless, dramatic fantasies…often by the same people who claim that women character’s writing from the author is misogynistic or “bad”. All I’ll say about this is, I’m glad fans are not the writers of canon, and the customers are oftentimes not right (thank God).
- Pointless comparisons with other characters, both male and female. And there are often double standards and hypocrisies within this, especially when it comes to shipping or other projections. People will literally compare her character with other characters who have a completely different background and purpose for the plot, and say “why can’t she be like them?” It’s fine if you like those other characters better than Mikasa — not all the characters are going to be for you, and it’s lovely that you found characters that are. But if these characters have no reason narratively to be compared with each other, why expect your comparisons to actually be addressed in said story? I often see this with Mikasa being compared to Historia (another really great character). Historia’s arc and personality is completely different from Mikasa’s, especially with Historia destined to be the true ruler of the walls due to her royal blood which also serves the plot later with her life being risked which therefore keeps the cycle of Eldian oppression going (therefore also affecting all the characters). Historia’s character spins the “good queen” trope because despite her having morals, she begrudgingly chooses the “bad” thing of keeping quiet about Eren’s genocide and protecting herself, which serves both her and her kingdom. This is not at all Mikasa’s arc, situation, or her role. Mikasa is not at all in the same position as Historia as a monarch “trapped” in that specific role. So even if you find one more interesting than the other, what’s the point in comparisons like this again? I can also talk about how she’s hated for having qualities that male characters also have but are given grace about, but you get the point: the pointlessness of the comparison remains the same.
- Legitimate interesting things about her not expanded upon. I personally see some validity to this. As someone very invested in the topic of grief, I would have liked to see more about how Mikasa grieved her parents. I would have also liked to see more about her thoughts of being Levi’s relative (my bias also being because Levi is one of my other favorites, along with Reiner). I also thought it would have been cool to see a potential prospect of Mikasa visiting Hizuru and getting more connected to her culture in that way (though I understand why, plot wise, that wasn’t feasible given what was actually happening plot wise and what was priority). I think it’s natural for us to want more about characters we love. However, even with personal wishes, it’s not like we can’t also fill in the blanks ourselves. Mikasa did give perspective already about how the loss of her parents affected her, and it’s not hard to receive further insight of this when we see how her grief is displayed in her reserved and somewhat depressive countenance, her fear of loss with Armin and Eren, as well as her grief of Sasha and her saddened by Carla and Grisha’s fate. Also, grief looks different for everyone. Just because it’s not shown in what some may consider more “obvious” ways (aka what’s familiar to them and their understanding) doesn’t mean that it’s not there.
All the aforementioned dislikes isn’t just limited to Mikasa, or Attack on Titan: be it a musician, TV show, inspirational story, etc, the internet is now more of a place to share what you hate rather than love, is a breeding ground for negativity and putting others down for what they like, and this isn’t going to end any time soon. I even wrote about this issue of internet and fandom toxicity here. So, why not just spend the rest of our time on this earth writing about why you love and see the vision for something, even if it is hated by others? Our love opinions are just as valid as hate opinions.
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Which leads me to finally write about why I love Mikasa’s character so much:
- Physical and mental strength combined. Not only is Mikasa physically strong (and her movements are beautiful to watch on screen, my goodness), but I find her to be mentally strong as well. Mental strength is a lifelong strength to build upon, especially after loss, and I love how she’s shown to have moments of both honestly struggling with this when her fears are triggered, and also overcoming it when she decided to face the discomforts of her fears and work with others in doing so. Fear of loss is such a common fear, and if we think that we have the power to stop it, we will take actions to do so. That’s not a crazy concept in itself, it’s human. But overcoming that while finding ways to honor the loss of what you couldn’t control is a whole category of strength in itself.
- I just genuinely think she’s adorable! From her ferocious moments on the field all the way to her cute chibi version (seriously, have you seen the goofy chibi caricatures of her in those chibi shorts?! Or her “I can’t believe I have to deal with this shit” expressions in AOT Jr High?Gothkasa as an entire creation? And Isayama’s signature? Gah!) To me, she’s one of those characters who I personally find to be funny without them necessarily meaning to be, (but it’s the way she delivers her lines, deadpanishly without intending to be) which makes it even cuter.
- She shows that simplicity is acceptable, despite what many in the world tries to tell you about what makes you “great”. It makes me think of Carla’s speech about Eren, with him not needing to be great but that he is just because he was born. Some of us in this life end up desiring more, some end up desiring less, some of us change and figure it out along the way. Mikasa wanting a peaceful life with the person she loves is fitting for her, and I’m a big believer that people can live the life they want for themselves as long as it’s their choice with their own agency (and hopefully striving to find their way to do so healthily, which can be hard to navigate in this difficult world as we’re all human and have our own demons) and I’m glad her character didn’t stray away from living a life she wanted for herself with her new family, even after Eren died. Bonus: I also like introverted, quiet characters, and it’s great to have that balanced with a cast of other characters who are loud and over the damn top.
- She breaks tropes in ways that are unique compared to many different stories within various genres I’ve seen, and I love it. From reverse damsel in distress, being the savior and freer of other women by killing the man she loves despite her feelings, and the power of love saving the world but not in the way people think it would (i.e. acceptance and sacrifice instead of changing what couldn’t be changed).
I’ll be a bit more specific about what I wrote above: From the beginning, Mikasa breaks the “man always saves the woman” trope by her being stronger than Eren (which he is shown to be very insecure about which affects their relationship and the way he shows care, which also reflects on Eren’s character later down the line as well). Instead of love saving the world and all of the world’s problems by her being responsible for making the man better by completely changing who she is at her core for him, love saves the world by her choosing to kill her love who is the world’s horrible threat (I personally believe she chose to kill Eren because she loved him so much that she wanted to end both his and the world’s miseries caused by him, and also knew it was the right thing to do to save the rest of the world despite her feelings for him…both can be true at the same time time). And Mikasa not only saved the world by doing this, but ultimately saved and freed Ymir the Founder, another woman who was burdened by the attachment of “love” in her own way. Ymir had a distorted idea of love that she was enslaved to that ended up being a violent curse that kept oppression going within her bloodline, starting from her daughters throughout the following millennia. I believe that Mikasa was able to show Ymir that despite what ideas of love Ymir held onto to make sense of the fucked up world she lived in and had experienced, there is still power and capability to choose differently no matter how strongly you feel. Feelings are real and might be valid, but they don’t have to control us. Regrets can also be a curse, and Ymir going back to wishing she chose the healthier part of her warped attachment to Fritz, her daughters, and regretting that she didn’t (after all, she had wanted to stay connected to them even after she had died and became a curse) is to me one of the most powerful moments in the story. The idea of “generational curses” are kind of addressed here, and it was powerful that Mikasa could be the one to help break that when it came to the cursed oppression that befell the Eldians, especially since Mikasa’s love for Eren had remained a strong and obvious constant in the story. Women helping save other women from what they specifically needed will always be meaningful to me.
All in all, Mikasa’s character is special to me because I think she represents various types of strengths, love, and maintenance of her values while learning to hold on to there being some sort hope in this cruel world, even if that hope has to be re-contextualized as time goes on for reasons outside of your control. She has relatable flaws (codependency and struggles with not having control, for example) that she overcomes within her journey. She’s a beautiful character who deserved nothing but a beautiful life after all she went through, and I’m glad that within her grief, she still got a chance to have one while holding on true to what she loved in the way she wanted to. Again, the way she wanted to…her choice. I’m so grateful to Isayama for creating her!
