Mikasa Ackerman

Mikasa Ackerman is one of the main characters from the Attack on Titans anime and manga.

Mikasa is the adoptive sister of Eren Yeager. After her biological parents were murdered by human traffickers, Mikasa was rescued by Eren Yeager and lived with him and his parents, Grisha and Carla, before the fall of Wall Maria. She is the last descendant of the Shogun clan that stayed on Paradis Island, thereby related to the Azumabito family, and holds significant political power in Hizuru.

Though she desires only to live a peaceful life, Mikasa entered into the military—where she is considered the best soldier among the 104th Training Corps. She later enlists in the Survey Corps to follow and protect Eren, becoming one of its greatest assets. She is currently serving as an officer in the corps.

Appearance
Mikasa is a fairly tall, physically fit, and well-toned woman with muscles lined throughout her arms, legs, and abs. She is of partial Asian heritage, with pale skin, gray eyes, and shaggy black hair that was long until she cut it to chin-length. By the year 854, her hair is shorter and cut up to back of her neck, but with noticeably longer bangs. There is a small scar below her right eye delivered by Eren's Titan during the Battle of Trost District. Jean considers Mikasa to be beautiful.

Mikasa often wears the original Survey Corps uniform whose equipment is horizontally at her hips, with a white blouse underneath and a black scarf which she almost always has. She also wears a green cape with the wings of freedom on the back during some missions.

When off duty, Mikasa's casual attire consists of a simple knee-length white dress, a light cardigan, brown boots, and her signature black scarf.

While in Marley, Mikasa wears a black Survey Corps uniform which features a breastplate with the Survey Corps symbol, many belts to accommodate all the different gear, support rods around her chest for the gas canister, and tall black boots. It also has guns, thunder spears, an additional gas tank, and canisters running vertically down her legs.

Personality
Before joining the Yeager family, Mikasa appeared to be a cheerful, outgoing, and gentle child. Her innocence allowed her to push worrying thoughts to the back of her mind, continuing to happily live with her close ones. Growing up, Mikasa has become emotionally withdrawn and noticiably serious, sometimes intimidating her enemies or even her comrades. She is quite stoic and level-headed, rarely seen to lose her cool or be at a loss of what to do, no matter how bleak the situation seems to be. Her will is remarkably strong, managing to remain so outwardly calm when Eren apparently died that only Armin could tell that she was battling with the pain of losing him.

Mikasa cares deeply for her friends and caretakers, seeing them as the last remnants of a family she cannot afford to lose. She also appears to have a point for children, happily bowed to a young girl she saved and instantly saved a Marleyan soldier despite the latter killed one of her comrades. Mikasa isn't completely immune to the effects of her emotions: Her strong feelings for her beloved ones, particularly when they are in harm's way, does at times cloud her judgment in fury - sometimes to the endangerment of herself and others. A notable example was when Mikasa briefly gave in to her grief over Eren's apparent demise and lost the will to live, forgetting her responsibility for the lives of the soldiers she took upon herself to lead in the process. However, she was reawakened by her memories of Eren and a made decision to never give up again, as her memories would die with her. From an early age, Mikasa was unusually perceptive, aware of the harshness of nature by witnessing the manner in which predators hunt and kill weaker prey. Her peace was shattered when a band of criminals brutally murdered her parents before her eyes in a failed kidnapping attempt, only saving herself and her rescuer when she managed to abandon all inhibition and hesitation to kill one of her assailants. Following this traumatic event, Mikasa would gain a generally cynical outlook on life and accept the world as a cruel place where only those who are strong are able to survive. Her determination to protect her beloved ones as much as possible have contributed greatly to her phenomenal skills as a soldier. Though being among the best of the best, she remains humble and refrains from putting on airs or displaying arrogance.

Mikasa has a strong sense of right and wrong, doing everything she can to make her most impulsive friends to follow what she thinks is the right track. Despite that, she knows well that she cannot always sway them in decisions and makes it a point to follow them whenever they go, just so that she can be around to help out when trouble arises. The sole reason she enlisted in the military and joined the Survey Corps after her graduation was to keep an eye on Eren, despite the fact that she truly wished to live out the rest of her days in relative peace within the Walls alongside him.

Mikasa's bond with Eren is undoubtedly her most important relationship and the one that defines her. Her personality as a teenager was very much influenced by Eren, who told her she stood no chance of survival if she didn't fight for it. His words continued to stay with her, automatically recall them to spur her on when she was close to death. Mikasa wears the black scarf Eren gave her when they first met, holding on to it as a source of strength and comfort when she is upset. She had openly wept tears of relief at his safety and developed vengeful grudges towards those who harm him, from enemies to her own superiors. While the explicit type of her feelings are unknown, she blushed when it was insinuated she and Eren were lovers.

Vertical Maneuvering Equipment
While she was still training, Keith even noted that Mikasa's performance is exemplary in every subject and that she is truly a genius. Having a prodigious skill in vertical maneuvering equipment, she can use blades to easily strike and slash Titans with speed and efficiency. She sneakely launches herself, fliping over her targets. All this has lead to her being mentioned as a military genius many times and "as valuable as a hundred average soldiers." Her mastery and remarkable will allows her to displaying a lethal force against Titans rarely seen among soldiers, recruits or veterans alike. This has been proven true when she took Annie in her Titan form, who had killed numerous experienced veterans with ease before, and survived.

Usage of Thunder Spears
While being a new way of weapons manipulation, Mikasa easily mastered how to use Thunder Spears. She has the strength to carry up eight spears with ease, before simulteanously throwing and detonating them on Titans with greater accuracy than the weapon inventor. This allowed her to defeat the Armored and Jaws Titan.

Strength
Owing to the need to protect her adoptive brother who often runs off looking for trouble, Mikasa had honed herself to be a talented fighter at a very young age. She often threw boys bigger than her with ease and scared them enough to run away at see her despite their superior numbers. Having undergone intense training, Mikasa is strong enough to lift Eren and several equipment boxes off the ground without effort

Awakened Power
Being an Ackerman, Mikasa has "awakened" a dormant power within her earlier in her life when her parents were murdered and she was going to be kidnapped until Eren saved her. It has been described as "knowing exactly what needed to be done", developing fighting instincts and perfect self-control of her body far above the average human. This is because she can access the Power of the Titans to a limited extent without transforming. She is able to connect to every single Ackerman before her via the paths and gain their battle experience.

Being the child of an Ackerman and an Asian, Mikasa retains the ability to resist memory manipulation from the Founding Titan.

Trivia

 * Mikasa ranked third in the First Character Popularity Poll.
 * The name Mikasa has several significant links in Japanese culture:
 * The name Mikasa, literally meaning "three bamboo hats," was a unique pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and served as a flagship during the Russo-Japanese War. The manga's author, Hajime Isayama, supposedly named Mikasa after this vessel due to his belief that series' with female characters named after famous warships come to be successful.
 * Mount Mikasa in Nara, Japan. An annual festival involves burning the dead grass on the mountain.
 * The princely house of Mikasa-no-miya, a branch of the Imperial family in Japan.
 * Mikasa's surname is derived from the German name "Ackermann" meaning "fieldman." A similar Swedish surname, "Åkerman" means "exists".
 * Mikasa is the heaviest known female character in the series, weighing 68 kg.
 * Jean is unsure whether or not Mikasa can became a Titan since they do not know what the Ackerman family is.
 * Mikasa's blood type is AB.
 * Mikasa shares a birthday with Falco Grice.
 * According to an interview with Isayama, Mikasa will opt to not wear her scarf if it is too hot out.
 * According to Isayama, if the 104th Training Corps had an arm wrestling competition, Mikasa would place first.
 * In a Volume 11 sideart Isayama portrayed several characters transformed into Titans. Mikasa took the form of a masculine, heavily muscled Titan.
 * Mikasa is one of the Attack on Titan characters who were made into Nendoroid figures, along with Eren, Levi, and the Colossus Titan. A Nendoroid playset of the Attack on Titan setting was also made.
 * In the game Age of Gunslingers Online, a special Titan Mode was made as a tribute to the series. It features Elsa, an NPC modeled after Mikasa and voiced by Yui Ishikawa. A trailer of this mode can be viewed here. A special skin for the Blade Class is also available for purchase.
 * In The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XXV," several other incarnations from other animated franchises of the family are shown, each one with a respective theme. In the anime theme, each of the family members were depicted as a specific anime character. Lisa portrayed Mikasa, with her traditional hairstyle and military outfit using the vertical maneuvering equipment.
 * Metalcore band Veil of Maya made a song called "Mikasa" which is based of this character.