RivaMika

RivaMika is the family ship between Levi and Mikasa Ackerman from the Attack on Titan fandom.

Canon
Levi and Mikasa are the two strongest soldiers of the Survey Corps. Mikasa eventually becomes a member of Levi’s Special Operations Squad.

Mikasa initially holds a grudge against Levi for beating Eren during the trial and talks about repaying him one day. She doesn’t hesitate to blame him for Eren’s kidnapping when they chase the Female Titan together. However, once Levi successfully retrieves Eren from the Female Titan and saves her from a certain death breaking his ankle in the process, Mikasa starts to take responsibility for Levi’s injury. She mimics Levi’s technique when she takes down Annie in Stohess, and she generally becomes more responsible for her strength and thus a much more efficient soldier thanks to her encounter with Levi. Mikasa also starts to gain a deeper understanding of her captain and holds more respect and trust towards him through the course of the series. She is even shown asking Levi about his injury, and later she ends up defending Levi’s leadership in front of her comrades, and she lets Levi take care of Eren in the Reiss cavern while she was the one going for Historia. However, she still has no problems calling her captain out when he becomes too harsh.

Levi, for his part, has always valued Mikasa’s abilities. When he is unable to perform his duty, he passes the responsibility of Eren’s safety through Mikasa with full confidence in her, and later Mikasa is the one he trusts to kill humans. As a consequence, they have worked side by side several times throughout the series. Levi’s only criticism towards Mikasa was her unwillingness to follow orders, he doesn’t hesitate to call her out, and he is quick to take a mentor role to her. It has been implied that he is aware of the similarities between the two of them. He has generally displayed kindness towards Mikasa throughout the series.

It has been revealed that Levi and Mikasa are the last two members of the Ackerman clan, a bloodline of warriors who have served the royal family a long time ago but were persecuted to the brink of extinction after refusing to follow the First King's ideology. The former is from the mainline of the clan, while Mikasa hails from the branch clan. Both are referred to as by-products of Titan science which can explain their shared strength and exceptional abilities. Mikasa has discussed her past and the persecutions she was a victim of with Levi, and they have both told the other about their awakening of power, but it has yet to be discovered if they have thoroughly discussed their lineage or not.

It’s unknown after the Curse of Ymir being broken if the two no longer have their Ackerman strength.

Fanon
RivaMika’s popularity can be explained by the explicit parallels that have been drawn between the two characters, the development of their drastic relationship that falls under the one-sided enemies to friends trope, the well-balanced camaraderie that Mikasa and Levi have formed together through the series, their teamwork and their share mysterious lineage. Since they are the two most powerful characters who often team up together, they are referred to in fanon as Humanity’s Strongest Pair.

Because the two are the last members of the Ackerman clan and are relatives through Mikasa's father, romantic interpretations of the ship have often been criticized for being incestuous. However, according to fan translation of Levi’s Smartpass AU “Close Up Report Outtake Interview”, Levi and Mikasa are not closely related by blood, so they are not immediate relatives. Hajime Isayama, the author and mangaka of “Attack on Titan,” illustrated an Ackerman lineage tree visualizing the distant relation between Levi and Mikasa where their common ancestor spans an innumerable amount of generations long before Levi’s great grandfather. The closest in relation they could be is 4th cousins, but it is also just as likely anywhere between 4 to 65 generations given the Ackerman-Titan experimental lineage began sometime after King Fritz and reached the Walls of Paradis at the rule of the 65th King Fritz. Their Ackerman relation as a Clan is similar to a small race rather than a family, much like the relation of all descendants of Ymir within the Walls and the small nation of Hizuru.

Similarities and interactions with Levi and Mikasa are often given the prefix ‘Acker-’ as a reference to their last name. For example, fans have dubbed one of the facial expressions they often have as ‘Ackerglare,’ and when Levi and Mikasa have conversations, they call it ‘Ackertalk.’

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Mikasa/Levi tag on FanFiction.net
 * Mikasa/Levi tag on FanFiction.net
 * Mikasa/Levi tag on FanFiction.net

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Trivia

 * Both are apparently the only living descendants of the Ackerman clan.
 * Levi and Mikasa both have facial scars, caused either directly or indirectly, by members of the Yeager family.
 * In the final arc, Levi beheads Zeke Yeager, and Mikasa beheads Eren Yeager.
 * There are several manga panels and scenes involving Levi and Mikasa in the anime which fans find to be parallels of each other.
 * Similarities:
 * Levi was born and grew up in a brothel; three men attempted to sell Mikasa into sex slavery when she was nine.
 * Both witnessed their mother's deaths, and were raised temporarily by others after they were initially orphaned.