Mikasa Goodman

This guy thinks Mikasa Ackerman is a good girl. I’m not so sure. But while I was listening to that gaggle of voice actors sing along to the intense audio trope of a song the other day it dawned on me: Mikasa is played by Yui Ishikawa, who is in my mind, just Princess DNAra. A quick look on ANN says that Mikasa Ackerman is her second lead role for animation voice-overs. That’s a long time, relatively, in between. It’s also another incredible opportunity, to play a big role in a big show.

The thing is, Princess Dhianeila is also a “good girl.” In fact she is supposedly the literary parallel of some Greek mythological ideal for human goodness. I mean it in the “in contrast with, say, Gundam’s Relena or Lacus” but a force of nature pushing humanity into the next evolutionary level of existence, to join up with our space brothers and sisters; to chase after that mythical ancient race of gods or Qs or Precursors or whatever. In essence, DNAra is That Newtype. It’s about superhuman feats for an age where only such things can propel us forward, to overcome the other giants of the world.

It’s not too different, in that sense, from Shingeki no Titan. So what makes Mikasa Ackerman, and her muscle density? Or her voice actress? I have no freaking clue. It’s just yet another row in the database, where we bloggers run join queries and create nonsense for our entertainment. Ours and yours, hopefully.

And while sure, Mikasa, like Princess Dhianeila, are good girls, they’re also symbols in a way where a sense of flawlessness crusts over their humanity, their weaknesses. In my mind that is a great thing but it’s also not my cup of tea. In other words, I prefer girls who are more, shall we say, human.