Shingeki no Kyojin(Attack on Titan) has entertained us for the past few years and will entertain us for one last year in January 2022 with the second part of the fourth and final season of the anime.
I look up to Hajime as my idol and as a person, I would like to reach myself. The way he has written and illustrated Attack on Titan is powerful and inspiring.
From the very first season, the anime was action-packed, thrilling, and had an eerie suspenseful feeling about it that something more than just Humans vs Titans was gonna come soon.
The anime has a complex battle raging between two kingdoms that had survived the test of time, Eldia and Marley. One of the best things about Attack on Titan is that it does not have a profound theme that it revolves around, it has a plethora of topics that it chooses to portray.
In my opinion, Attack on Titan is about freedom and the power of free will, and the only person in the anime that understands free will and true freedom is Eren Jaeger.
Although everyone roots for Eren, maybe not everyone but there are two other characters in the anime that are loved and admired by the fans, Mikasa Ackerman and Levi Ackerman.
They share the same last names and many other character traits like their cold looks and their superhuman abilities with the blade but the question is, Are Mikasa and Levi Related?
Let’s look at the similarities they’ve got!
Physical Features
By features, I mean their hair, their body shape, their stamina, and other hereditary traits that may or may not be similar in them both.
They have got the same type of hair despite being of different genders. Levi has short silky jet-black hair that flows down his forehead giving him an iconic hairstyle. Mikasa also has the same type of hair silky in appearance with a strikingly similar jet-black color.
Both of the Ackerman members of the Survey Corps have a sleek body structure. They are not thin per se but are sleek, fast, and agile. Their well of stamina is bottomless, they can fight for their lives, fight to save their friends, fight to destroy their opponents to no end.
When I think about their stamina I can think of one very memorable scene. The terrified look on Zeke’s face when he sees the blood-thirsty little devil, Levi on top of the wall, his face smeared in titan blood and his blades dull from all the cutting he’d done.
Even after slashing through 20 titans, Levi had the will and the stamina to tremble, Zeke, one of the most powerful titans himself.
Personalities
The Survey Corps had a lot of members and all of them had unique personalities but the two Ackerman, best fighters the Survey Corps had seen had quite a similar disposition.
Mikasa has an introverted personality, she’s aloof and doesn’t speak a lot. She stays with Eren and Armin and considers herself to be a bodyguard to Eren.
She will protect Eren from anything, titan or human that tries to harm him. She has a sense of loyalty towards Eren which she follows fiercely.
Levi has a similar personality, he is mostly quiet yet inspiring to many people in the Survey Corps. People in the Corps know that he is not to be messed with.
He is smart, self-aware, and witty but at the same time, he is cold and distant except towards Erwin and his close friends, people who he respects.
Mikasa and Levi have that vibe about them. It’s like we can tell they are strikingly similar but also they are not completely the same. They are the bosses of this world and we just happen to live in it.
Mikasa and Levi
Now that we have looked at their Physical Features and their Personalities let us explore more on how they treat each other and what kind of a relationship do they have!
In the first season of the anime, the story revolved around Eren and his friends. Together they faced a traumatic day when the wall was broken and the Titans came crawling in through, into their settlement and destroyed thousands of lives and hundreds of houses.
Mikasa hated Levi’s guts at the beginning. When Eren was captured and it was found out that he could turn into a Titan, he had to be presented in front of the court.
In the court, the Survey Corps tried to get Eren for themselves so that they could use him for research and to fight other Titans.
Levi kicked Eren brutally and tried to show the court that he was more powerful than Eren and they were perfectly under control.
Watching this, Mikasa was furious, I’m guessing she wanted to do the same things to Levi that he did to Eren.
Later in the first season when the Survey Corps sets a trap for the titans knowing that they are actually humans that live inside the walls and have powers of converting into Titan Form, Mikasa disobeys Levi’s order when trying to attack Annie in the Titan form.
Because of her carelessness, Levi has to save her costing him his leg. Although it can be argued that Levi went back to acquire Eren and not save Mikasa and Eren but he did go back for them and save their lives!
Levi has always been indifferent towards Mikasa, despite that he has saved her not once but twice. He has cared for her life and her loyalty towards Eren because he knows what it feels like, he too feels like that toward Erwin.
The Ackermans
Let us not address the elephant in the room. Levi and Mikasa both share a common last name, “Ackerman”.
Both of them are shocked when it is revealed that Kenny, Levi’s uncle was an Ackerman. When revealed, it tied up something between Mikasa and Levi. Later Mikasa shares the history of the Ackerman family with Levi.
Ackermans were a mining clan who later served the Royal Family of Eldia as bodyguards but when the Eldian king decided to raise the walls and separate the people of Eldia from the outside world.
He used a memory-altering technique to keep his subjects in check but this technique did not work on the Ackermans and the Oriental clans.
These two clans were almost hunted to extinction, some of them fled from the cities to the Underground City but most were killed.
When Kenny tries to assassinate the Eldian king, he found himself forgave and the King apologised to him. This moment ended the hunt of the Ackerman, though not many were left.
The Ackermans have a special power to call upon the battle experience of their previous generations. Levi describes this power as knowing exactly what to do in a battle.
Mikasa’s history is not very clear but we know that her mother was an Oriental and her father was an Ackerman. Mikasa also has the same powers that make her a superhuman titan fighting machine.
Relationship
Now that we have explained a lot about the similarities in physical traits, mental disposition, and what they feel towards each other and their history and backstory, let us now answer the main question!
“Are Levi and Mikasa Related?”
There is no proof or any conversation where it is clearly said that Levi and Mikasa are related to each other but we can make an educated guess about what the answer might be.
Since both the Oriental and the Ackerman clan were almost hunted to extinction there were not many adults left to propagate their bloodlines further.
Mikasa and Levi are definitely related but they might be cousins or they might be distant relatives but they definitely are not directly related to each other like real siblings.
I’d like to think that they are kind of like an extended family, like a second or third cousin.
Kenny had a sister, maybe he had a brother he didn’t know about or thought his brother died in the hunt but maybe the man managed to escape? Who knows?
