The Person Who Inspired Hange, Zeke And Xavier’s Characters

The person who inspired Hange, Zeke and Xavier’s characters

Now that the series is over, I’ve started reading through Isayama’s blog from the very beginning (2009) just to see what his mindset is like throughout the years.

I found out that the person who inspired Isayama to leave his hometown and become a mangaka is the movie critic, Machiyama Tomohiro. Isayama has listened to Machiyama’s podcasts religiously; he's listened to each one at least 2-3 times. He ended up meeting and working together with him on the live-action movies in 2015 (Machiyama was hired as the screenwriter).

The really interesting and funny thing is just how much Isayama loves this guy. At an event, some mangaka were asked to draw their 'first love'. Isayama drew Machiyama Tomohiro:

The Person Who Inspired Hange, Zeke And Xavier’s Characters

The Japanese fandom noticed at the time that he looks suspiciously similar to Xavier...

It turns out that Isayama loves him so much that he based Xavier, Hange and Zeke's characters off him. This is from Machiyama's twitter:

1st tweet: The last chapter of Shingeki no Kyojin was like the ending of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. Thank you for your work, Isayama-sensei.

2nd tweet: Come to think of it, I made an appearance, too.

From Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin Official Figure Collection 10:

ハンジには、｢アメリカ在住の映画評論家、町山智浩さんみたいな人だ｣という明確なイメージがあります”

“町山さんを知っている人なら、きっと｢ああ、なるほど｣と言ってくれるはず”

2016年01月月刊進撃の巨人公式フィギュアコレクションVol.10

"Hange is like the movie critic Machiyama Tomohiro currently living in America. If someone is familiar with Machiyama, I'm sure they will understand what I mean."

Also from Machiyama's twitter:

1st tweet: When I met Director Araki of the anime the other day, he told me, "Isayama said he based Zeke off you." I think I answered kind of flippantly, like, "Ok, that's cool." But is it Hange that's based off me, or is it Zeke? Come to think of it, isn't Hange a woman?

2nd tweet: It seems I've been split into many different characters.

So I decided to go looking for what exactly is it about this guy that Isayama took inspiration from. There is not much information about him in English. Despite the fact that he lives in California, he tweets in Japanese and is very famous in Japan. He is known for being very intelligent, well-read and eccentric. He's also known for being gay, single and childless at the age of 58. He is vocal about LGBT issues in both America and Japan. He is left-leaning politically - he went around interviewing trump supporters in a kind of tongue-in-cheek mocking way.

I listened to some of his podcasts in Japanese that Isayama posted and noticed Machiyama speaks quite quickly and excitedly and can be hard to understand at times lol. He has read a lot of books - he reviews films in his podcasts but he always references classic literature and is very smart and knowledgeable about many subjects. When hearing him talk, I can definitely understand how eccentric characters like Hange and Zeke are based off him!

I hope this has been interesting for any Hange, Zeke or Xavier fans! I will make more posts as I find more info

You bored, or feeling artsy but don’t have any inspiration...? updated!

Do you need to distract yourself? Or are you simply bored? Here are some great websites to make the time pass.

create pixel art

Awesome photo editor and art program, all free…!

Totally free transparent textures

make a cute chibi

draw some cool generative art

be a graffiti creator

create a picassohead (you don’t need to be a picasso to do so)

paint online

another awsome site to create pixel art on

and another one

create your own mandala

or color one

create an avatar

or you can try creating your own superhero

here you can interact with organisms in different environments to see how to music changes

here’s a website that translates the time into hexidecimal colours,

Here is a website where you can travel along a 3D line into the infinite unkown

here is a website where you can listen to rain with or without music

Need a model in a certain pose for drawing? here

Want to build your own planet

here is a website where you can create your own galaxies

make your own pattern (very useful if you need a new background)

create next hit comic

make a city which looks like something from 90′s games

draw a mandala like design

jig saw puzzles

more jig saw puzzles to solve

create a stunning HTML5 animation - no coding!

make a movie

create and dress up dolls

play a piano

you can also play a guitar

create sounds

another sound creator

create a logo

design your dream home

sketch rooms

explore fashion trends and create your own sets

build a website

try this app for building a website

Or maybe start learning how to code!

design your own t-shirt or a beanie or sweatpants and order them

design your own phone case

pretend to be a graphic designer with this cool online tool

Make your own Glitch art

Here’s another glitch art maker

And another!

Holy hell, here’s a third!

make an image look like it was created by a commodore 64

freaking cool text generator!

Easy to use word processor

Make up really cool patterns or run your photos through it :)

Write an essay on anything with no hassle

Wanna see how something you write would look like if it was on JacksFilms YGS((Your Grammar Sucks videos on YouTube))?

Make pictures out of text

ASCII word generator

Need an idea for some fanart-here :D

Still haven’t found something that would float your boat? Try these:

watch a documentary

learn to code

do something yourself

workout with the help of this great youtube channels

learn things

play pokemon or zelda or other awesome old school games

waste your time on miniclip

play games at additing games

or try games at agame

calm your thoughts

the quiet place

it will be okay

vent or listen to someone

pour out your soul

explore the sky

look at art from around the world

virtually visit museum of iraq

explore world with arounder

create a music playlist

list through rare books

scroll useful science website

create sand art

brain games

try out tastekid and discover new favorite band or movie or book

interactive 3D anatomy

random street view

post a secret

create a family tree

find our what’s the difference between x and y

help scientists and become volunteer researcher

create your own font

read a classic short story

In the mood to read, but not sure exactly what book to go for?

scribble on maps

listen to letters

play with acrobots

listen to podcasts

make a bucket list

Ever want to see the most truly useless websites in creation?

Prank a friend with this blue screen of death!

Zone out watching the colors drip down

Maybe none of these peeked your interest-maybe you’ve been wanting to create an o.c, but never really knew how to start-or you just enjoy making O.C’s….

This masterlist is to help you in making your own OCs….it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! (´ヮ`)!

How to Write Better OCs:

basic tips on how to make your oc even better

tragic backstory? learn how to write one/make yours great

writing specific characters

a wordier, great guide on how to develop your character

kick out those vague descriptions and make them AWESOME

Character Development:

how to actually make an OC

Q&A (to develop characters)

more Q&As

giving your character a backstory

how to write an attractive character

Need an Appearance idea?

Humanoid generator? check

Here’s another one

and maybe if you didn’t like those this’ll work

Need Monsterpeople?

Well, then here ya’ go

Maybe you need Cats?

Diversity

adding more racial diversity

avoiding tokenism, AKA, how to add diversity to your cast not just because you “need” it

writing sexuality and gender expression (doesnt include non binary, if you have a good ref to that, please add on!)

masterpost on writing more diversity into your story

cultures of the world

guides to drawing different ethnicities (not just a great art reference, but also really helpful in appearance descriptions!)

Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Test to see if your character is a Sue

Explains subdivisions of Sues/Stus

Powerful Characters Don’t Have to Be Sues

Villains

villain generator

need an evil sounding name for your evil character? bam

villain archetypes

what’s your villain’s motive for being a villain?

Relationships

character perceptions (What your character thinks of themselves and what others think of them)

how to write strong relationships between two characters

8 ways to write better characters and develop their relationships with others

OCxLove Interest Handbook

develop your couple with good ol’ Q&A!

how to write realistic relationships

how to write relatives for your characters (this is more OC related to a canon character, but will help in writing family members in general)

ARCHETYPES

12 common archetypes

8 archetypes for male/female characters

female archetypes (goes pretty indepth from two main categories)

a list of archetypes

NAMES

how to name your character

random name generator

most common surnames

surnames by ethnicity

APPEARANCE

tips for better design

basic appearance generator

pinterest board for character design (includes NSFW and images of skeletons/exposed muscle (?) so tread carefully!)

clothing ref masterpost

Clothing generator

Another clothing generator

More clothing generator

Aaaand even more

Steam punk clothing

Char Style preference

Dress Generator

DETAILS

give your character better powers

a list of professions

proactive vs reactive characters

positive and negative traits

interest generator

skills generator

motivation generator

123 ideas for character flaws

list of phobias

Oh shit someone died

Backgrounds and stuff? yep

Quirks

Personality. you need that shit

Need something fandom related?

City generator hell yeah

location? got ya

World-building?

make your own god damn laws

Landscape.

Need Item names?

Fantasy/sci-fi/etc. medicine names

Stuff to make things more interesting.Weapons, clothes, treasures… whatever your characters need.

Item & Artifact Generators

Other stuffs!

Genre, Plot, & Story Prompt Generators

How did your characters meet?

Fanfic plots. you bet your ass.

401K notes View Post

menta1tan

5 years ago

In the west:

meanwhile in Japan:

78K notes View Post

menta1tan

1 year ago

hwoajin in the style of erica wester!

The Person Who Inspired Hange, Zeke And Xavier’s Characters

More Posts from Menta1tan and Others

You bored, or feeling artsy but don’t have any inspiration...? *updated!*

Do you need to distract yourself? Or are you simply bored? Here are some great websites to make the time pass.

Still haven’t found something that would float your boat? Try these:

You bored, or feeling artsy but don’t have any inspiration...? updated!