Isayama Hajime’s Interview on Sasha Braus

From Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin, Volume 6

[Translation: @yusenki​; Image & Editing: @fuku-shuu]

For more relationship charts and interviews with Isayama Hajime and Araki Tetsuro, click here!

–

Compared to other characters, Sasha’s profile was the last one to be finalized. Her physical appearance details and her fundamental image were already planned at initial stage, but at that time her name was “Ymir.” The current Ymir’s characteristics - as someone who gives useful advice to Christa, and as the bearer of a secret that will be revealed as the story progresses - were initially planned for Sasha’s role.

The reason her name is not Ymir but rather Sasha is because I wanted to stick to the statement made in chapter 3 [Of the SNK manga]. At the time, it was already decided that those who “ranked top 10 among the cadets can choose which military branch they will be assigned to,” and when the story developed after that, I decided that “Ymir shouldn’t be in the top 10.” Because of this, it was necessary to create another character [to replace Ymir in the rankings], and that character became Sasha.

[T/N: To clarify further, initially Ymir was supposed to look like Sasha appearance-wise, but Isayama did not wanted Ymir to be in the top 10 cadets to suit the plot development. Therefore, he changed the name of the 9th place cadet to Sasha. Basically, Ymir’s role remained the same, her appearance was just originally Sasha’s.]

The current Sasha is someone who comes from a village. All her personal details, such as how she speaks in formal tone to hide her accent and her being the daughter of a hunter, were formed alongside the composition of the story. That’s why I say that her character’s establishment might be the last one amongst all.

Sasha’s name was taken from someone dubbed ”the world’s no. 1 comedian,” Sacha Baron Cohen, who always stars in radical comedic films like Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Bruno, & The Dictator. The reason I chose that name for her is because I always thought of Sasha as a comedienne.

One more thing: there is one chocolate product from Lotte called “Sasha.” Because the product name is the same as hers, I came up with the idea that her special trait is that she is a food lover. I am also familiar with the fact that if someone is a hunter’s daughter, the meat before her is also either from hunting or killing. This is another one of her important characteristics. It was easy to develop the concept of Sasha being a food lover [in the merchandise sense], because Sasha’s original food products became for sale during SNK’s campaign with Lawson [convenience stores] (laugh).

The concept of “eating” was also heavily influenced by the food researcher Fukuda Rika’s “Food Theory.” I became familiar with Food Theory because Fukuda Rika appeared in a radio program that I enjoy listening to every week. Simply put, Food Theory states that “whenever good people eat, they look like they are wholeheartedly enjoying their food,” “a person who prefers to stay anonymous won’t eat food,” and “bad people handle food crudely.” Thus, I might somehow have applied the theory to Sasha, and I also think the fact that the primitive way Titans handle their “food” is also influenced by it.

Note: @yusenki and myself will attempt to provide and translate all the missing and upcoming interviews from Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin (If no one else works on them before us). Please stay tuned!